birding-aus

Cape York Birding Pt 1

To: Birding Aus <>
Subject: Cape York Birding Pt 1
From: knightl <>
Date: Wed, 1 Oct 2003 21:30:20 +1000
Following on from my post last week, here are some birding notes about the upper parts of the CY Peninsula.
Basically because my objective was to do some twitching and general 
poking around in the upper part of the CYP, it was pretty much a matter 
of shooting through.  The only birding I did between Brisbane and 
Musgrave were in Innisfail, where I couldn't help but notice [and 
photograph] a happy colony of metallic starlings nesting above the bus 
stop in the middle of town, and the place where I was overnighting at 
Little Mulgrave [bottom of the Atherton Tableland] at the end of the 
second day.
Visually, the main bird of interest at Little Mulgrave was a strange 
looking friarbird [probably helmeted] - it had the uglist face you 
could image - bit like a smallpox victim.  I wasn't sure if it had some 
sort of disease or whether that species of friarbird normally looks 
like that at some stage in its lifecycle [I can forward a jpg to anyone 
who is interested].  Sonically, the main species of interest was 
large-tailed nightjar - with lots of chopping going on in the night.
I overnighted at Musgrave the next day - the main feature there was a 
trio of bush thickknees running about after insects out the front of 
the roadhouse [I had to wait over half an hour for a backpacker working 
at the roadhouse to finish her call home to Europe].
Day four involved a drive through to Weipa [and search for a tyre to 
replace the one I staked north of Laura].  There was no sign of 
whistling ducks of any description at either of the sewerage treatment 
ponds [or anywhere else] round Weipa.  There were quite a few pied 
herons at the Comalco ponds and assorted ducks and other water fowl at 
the eastern ponds.  There were certainly plenty of black kites etc 
hanging around town.  The main birds of interest though, were a large 
flock of little black cormorants [~300] fishing in a pack, and a 
wheeling mixed cloud of great and lesser frigatebirds.  As people have 
previously noted on BOz, you get mixed flocks of frigatebirds drifting 
over Weipa.
There are lots of mudflats around Weipa, so presumably, plenty of scope 
for wader watching.  I got the impression there is only one tidal cycle 
per day in the Gulf of Carpentaria, so there is plenty of time at 
high/low tide.
Photographically, the highlight in Weipa was photographing the sunset 
over the inlet from the beach beside the caravan park - an eastern 
curlew and a mangrove bittern were also out admiring the twilight air.
On the way out of Weipa, the highlight was a spotted harrier wandering 
along the road corridor.  As harriers are wont to do, it would glide 
for a hundred metres before perching, and then relaunching.  As it was 
on the other side of the road, I was able to get quite a few shots of 
it from the car "hide".
From Weipa, it was pretty much a case of driving across to the Iron 
Range, with a diversion to the Archer River to refuel.
To be continued.

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