Hi everyone
it is good to hear of the difficulties other have had at Iron Range. Julie
and I went there last year and in hindsight when it started raining we
should have stayed and hung in there. We saw 12 lifers for me and two
species of cuscus which was great. The highlights were eclectus parrots at
nesthole, red bellied pitta(fluked flying along the road for a couple of
hundred metres), male magnificent rifle bird on its display perch, superb
fruit dove, great views of yellow billed kingfisher(the only time so far i
have used recording) and of course the big fella palm cockatoo! what a
buzz the cockatoo was-who could imagine hanging around the rubbish dump
could be such fun.
The downsides were even though I spent ages skulking behind the toilet at
the middle campground(forgotten the name) no northern scrub robin(southern
scrub robin is one of my favourite birds, so I was looking forward to this
one), at the same point I ripped my pants to shreds trying to find a
calling trumpet manucode which I missed but Julie(who is not particularly
interested in birds) saw by standing waiting for me in the clearing(reminds
me of Graham Pizzey's story about missing the scarlet chested parrot, which
his wife Sue saw while she was teaching the kids school!). Also missed red
cheeked parrot, fawn breasted bowerbird and probably at least one other
that I can't remember now. Anyway, as us birders always say, no point in
seeing all of the birds we want a reason to go back. We clearly should
have stayed-it was hard to see the birds but there were great birds there.
Not to mention such no name birds on the way as golden shouldered parrot
and red goshawk!
Iron range a great destination and I will be back.
Gary
PS I was actually surprised at the size of palm cockatoo it didn't appear
to be any bigger than sulphur crested cockatoo
On 20 September 2012 10:47, Steve Potter <> wrote:
> Hi Steve,
> We too were up at Iron Range around that time (Aug 21-28) see D Kowalick's
> report - Sept 18.
>
> Armed with Tim Dolby's "Kid in the Lolly shop" report we envisaged driving
> up to the first patch of rainforest in Iron Range, pulling out the deck
> chairs, putting on the billy, ticking all the targets, and swapping our
> still warm cuppa for a celebratory brew!
>
> Unfortunately we were somewhat deflated in our enthusiasm, but only for a
> moment as we kicked in to 4 days of "Kid on an egg hunt on Easter Sunday"
> mode and slowly and painstakingly started pegging back these truly amazing
> birds in an idyllic setting where one "just enjoyed the privilege of being
> there".
>
> Awesome
>
> Steve Potter
> p. 0407398234
> e.
>
> Trip Report: Brisbane to Iron Range and back. (Long) Part2
>
> from [
> <
> http://bioacoustics.cse.unsw.edu.au/archives/cgi-bin/namazu.cgi?query=%2Bfr
> om%3Asjmurray3%40bigpond.com&idxname=birding-aus&sort=date%3Alate> Stephen
> Murray]
> [Permanent
> <
> http://bioacoustics.cse.unsw.edu.au/archives/cgi-bin/mesg.cgi?a=birding-aus
> &i=BLU0-SMTP11123D3BB3C9A99F0733366E6930%40phx.gbl> Link][Original
> <
> http://bioacoustics.cse.unsw.edu.au/archives/cgi-bin/extract-mesg.cgi?a=bir
> ding-aus&m=2012-09&i=BLU0-SMTP11123D3BB3C9A99F0733366E6930%40phx.gbl> ]
>
> To:
> < >
>
> Subject:
> Trip Report: Brisbane to Iron Range and back. (Long) Part2
>
> From:
> Stephen Murray < >
>
>
> We had booked three nights at Cook's hut camp ground . It has four spots
> but
> there was only one other group there, a birding couple from Victoria. I had
> long imagined what birding at Iron Range would be like and was drooling at
> the prospect of up to 20 possible lifers. As it turned out the birding was
> more difficult than I had expected, in part because of the weather
> conditions. Whilst it remained fine, there was a strong wind blowing
> throughout all the days we were there, making it difficult to spot bird
> movement in the canopy (that's the excuse I've decided on anyhow).
>
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