Part Three B ? Wilko?s birding in SEQ.
It seems that in the transfer of my text onto the birdsaus archive some of
the punctuation marks change to question marks, sorry.
6/11/04 we had a considerable amount of rain overnight, which settled the
tracks down nicely a lot of the time we didn?t need to use 4wd. This helped
conserve fuel, the prices on the island ranged from $1.54 at Eurong up to
$1.70 at Kingfisher Bay.
I did my standard early morning bird walk around the Central Station
campground then the section of the vehicle track to Lake MacKenzie that runs
along Pile Valley. An exciting mornings birding yielded 24 species no doubt
I missed some because of unfamiliarity to calls. Three new species Brown
Cuckoo-Dove, Wompoo Fruit-Dove and Scarlet H/e, others included King Parrot,
White-throated Treecreeper, Large-billed Scrubwren, Spectacled Monarch, Grey
Goshawk and Shining Bronze-Cuckoo.
We traveled most of the island, the families favourite spot was Lake
MacKenzie, great spot. I found a lone Musk Duck drifting around in the
middle of the lake. A pair of brown boobies swung by at one stage apparently
they are regular here, I believe they arrive throughout the year via various
trans-oceanic flight paths.
We did the Pile Valley walk. It is a loop walk following the creek from
Central Station Ranger Office up the valley and returns via a pine
plantation, we saw more Scarlet H/e, the kids became familiar with their
?hey diddle diddle? call, Azure Kingfisher, Rufous Fantail, Russet-tailed
Thrush (next to the boardwalk section), and we were all amazed at watching a
poor little Large-billed Scrubwren feeding a much larger Fan-tailed Cuckoo
chick. I did not find a Noisy Pitta, which I?m told you cant miss on this
walk in winter.
9/11/04. We left Frazer Island with many happy memories, and already
planning our return trip. We stayed at Rainbow Beach that night, giving me
an opportunity to search for Black-breasted Button-quail at Inskip Point. I
read Sean Dooleys Big Twitch account he made finding the bird sound easy,
even with crowds of school kids in the area. So I went looking with great
confidence. I spent 2 hours in the late afternoon sussing out the area where
I found heaps of freshly used platelets but no button-quails. Next morning I
started early (0500) and spent another 3hrs on the point I saw plenty of
Brown Quail, flushed two Beach Stone Curlew from the very end of the point,
Mangrove H/e, Little (Brush) Wattlebird and Mangrove Gerygone but no
Black-breasted Button-quail. I also saw a Fruit-dove but was unable to
identify it in poor light, Superb F-d is on the hit list.
We were told the Conondale Ranges were worth a visit because of its scenery
and apparently a good place to go bird watching. We met up with a friend of
a friend who had some nocturnal bird call recordings and got some local
birding knowledge from him before heading up to the ranges.
11/11/04. We camped at the Boulumba Creek No.4 campground, after which we
went across the No. 3 campground for a swim. No.3 is directly across the
road in some fantastic rainforest, but you need to book the sites. At dusk I
decided to give these bird recordings a go. I was told the creek lines were
good for owls and frogmouths. I went down to Boulumba Creek and started with
the Masked Owl call, nothing happened. I hadn?t used call back before and
was a bit cynical about effort vs result. Next call was Sooty Owl, while
playing this I was looking up the number for Marbled Frogmouth. Then the
stereo all of a sudden sounded like 5.1 channel surround sound, I turned
down the stereo and incoming was a Sooty Owl doing the ?trill? call. It
circled above at canopy height before landing on a dead tree, where with the
spotlight I got good views. During the playback the owl seemed to respond
mostly to the male ?bomb? recording.
I went down to campground 3 and tried the calls again, this time getting a
pair of Marbled Frogmouth to respond but they did not approach. I tried
another creek further into the ranges and got a male Marbled Frogmouth to
come within 15m giving me great views. I got several male frogmouths to
respond during the night most of them interested in the female recording.
12/11/04. My early morning walk was done in and around the two campgrounds
and the creek Bell miner, Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo, Scaly-breasted
Lorikeet, Yellow-faced Honeyeater, Spectacled Monarch, Green Catbird, Pale
Yellow Robin, Spangled Drongo (on a nest), Topknot Pigeon, Wompoo Fruit
Dove, Brown Cuckoo-Dove and Paradise Riflebird made up part of the listed 42
species.
So far, so good, can it get any better? We wanted to have a good look around
the ranges and do a few short walks. We drove around to the Charlie Morland
campground and did a short walk along the creek we saw Crimson Rosella,
Cicadabird and Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike. On returning to the picnic area we
ran into some other birders who were doing their regular Atlas survey. We
got talking and in discussion they mentioned having seen Black-breasted
Button-quail nearby in the past. I went and checked out the site scanning
under the lantana I found two button-quails but as hard as I tried I couldn?
t turn them into Black-breasted ones, they were Painted BQ. I did get good
views of Brown Gerygone, which I saw on Frazer but not well enough to be
confident of their identification.
The next walk was the Boulumba Falls walk, 3km return and our youngest made
sure we were aware of every metre of it. On the way down we saw a large
black skink, I think its called a Land Mullet, catching some rays on a large
log. We made it to the falls where we had a short rest before making the
return trip where once again I got left behind looking for birds. Jo and the
kids stopped to look at the skink again. This time the whinging youngest
spotted a bird under the log, they called me to the log and saw two
Logrunners scratching around under the log oblivious of our presence.
Both girls were again extremely proud of finding yet another new bird for
me. The walk was completed with enthusiastic discussion about bird watching,
which now both girls are very keen to take up. Excellent, got my first
potential son-in-law qualifier happening.
We had a great day with some awesome birding, surely it cannot get any
better. Well, we packed up camp and went into the nearby town of Kenilworth
where Jo was keen to visit a cheese factory. We did the tasting thing and
sat down slurping on locally made ice cream and a White-headed Pigeon flew
by, well that just topped the day off nicely.
TBC
Regards, Wilko.
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