Birdline North Queensland Weekly Update

Birdline North Queensland

Published sightings for the week ending 20 Jan 2013.

Sat 19 Jan	Shining Flycatcher Townsville Town Common Conservation Park Shining Flycatcher (1) Male, between car park and freshwater (concrete) hide. Ed Pierce
Thu 17 Jan	Metallic Starling Bowling Green Bay NP (Aligator Creek) At approx 8:00am saw a group of 5 Metallic Starlings high in the trees in picnic area (feeding young). (Full List on Eremaea) Joan Wharton, Rosemary Payet
	Australian Swiftlet, White-throated Needletail Bowling Green Bay NP (Aligator Creek) At 10:20am drove into a mixed mass of hundreds of Australian Swiftlet and White-throated Needletail aerial feeding above Alligator Creek Road about halfway between the National Park Picnic Area and the Bruce Highway. Watched them for 10 minutes until they flew west. (Full List on Eremaea) Joan Wharton, Rosemary Payet
Tue 15 Jan	Little Curlew France Road Turf Farm, Edmonton 1 Little Curlew still present. Feeding constantly. Judy Leitch and Rae Clark
	Oriental Cuckoo Yorkey's Knob Lagoon 4 Oriental Cuckoos feeding on hairy caterpillars on & under a Coral Tree, just to the west of the lagoon, next to a gate to the golf course. These same birds were seen last weekend too. One is in immature grey morph plumage, another is either a juvenile or imm hepatic rufous morph female, & the other 2 are juvenile grey morphs! Nice to see them all in or under this tree at the same time! Also enjoying this food-fest around this very tree were up to 6 Gould's Bronze-Cuckoos & 3 Brush Cuckoos (one adult male, one adult female & a jjuvenile with no taiil !!). Martin Cachard
Mon 14 Jan	Green Pygmy-goose, White-browed Crake Port Douglas Green Pygmy-goose and White-browed Crake Small wetland off Downing Street. Judy Leitch, Rae Clark
	Oriental Cuckoo McIvor River area, north of Cooktown No less tha 25 Oriental Cuckoos were seen in a 3km stretch from the McIvor R causeway to the downstream bridge - some were in the ecotone of the vineforest edge, but most were flushed while driving along the road in the teak plantation on Ellesmere Stn, midway between the causeway & the bridge site...just an amazing concentration of birds obviously enjoying the caterpillars thriving on the large teak leaves!! I wonder actually how many of these cuckoos are in the area at the moment - I only did one drive through it & the plantation would probably be teeming with them I'd imagine...!! Lots of other great birds again in this area - some are summarised in a brief report I've put on Birding-Aus under the thread title "swifts"... Martin Cachard
Sun 13 Jan	Pale-vented Bush-hen Canara Court, Cranbrook 1 Pale-vented Bush-hen calling and seen in garden while having breakfast on the patio. Janet Robino

Birdline North Queensland is sponsored by BirdLife Northern Queensland and BirdLife Townsville and co-ordinated and hosted by Eremaea Birds.

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