birding-aus

Duck Creek Road, Needletails, Glossy Blacks and a Rufous Scrub-bird

To: Birding Aus <>
Subject: Duck Creek Road, Needletails, Glossy Blacks and a Rufous Scrub-bird
From: Laurie Knight <>
Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2016 11:13:20 +0000
Here are a few observations from a four day bushwalk in the back blocks of 
Lamington National Park (SEQ) over Easter.

Duck Creek Road has deteriorated a lot over the last couple of years.  It is a 
private road with maintenance funded by a donation box.  A lot of wombats get 
their jollies traversing this “four wheel drive” track.  If you are thinking of 
birding along the road, early morning is definitely best as there are few of 
them around at that time.  The flat rainforest section up the top is not too 
bad (just lots of potholes).  The steeper sections are heavily worn with sump 
challenging obstacles for low clearance vehicles (i.e. hire cars) - far more 
creeping along in low range than previously.  Not sure when the next lot of 
maintenance is likely to happen.

The route my companions and I took went from Christmas Creek, past the Stinson 
wreck to Pt Lookout, then along the border to Mt Worendo where we headed north 
across the Lost World and then back to Green Mountains via the Commando Track.  
A lot of route along the border has been recently marked with pink tape, which 
makes things easier for experienced walkers (others are still likely to get 
bushed).  In terms of the birds of interest

1. We had a flock of up to 20 Needletails zipping around Kalinya Lookout east 
of Mt Westray (28 18 17.7S, 153 08 36.2E) at 11 am on Saturday 26 March.  Some 
came in close enough to hear them slicing through the air.
2. One of the highlights of the walk was crossing the eastern razorback to the 
Lost World - epiphytes + steep rock + views = drained camera battery.  Shortly 
after we entered the rainforest towards the top and before we hit the first 
nothofagus we had a good view of a Rufous Scrub-bird bounding along a log.  The 
nothofagus summit was delightful …
3. The haul up the Commando Track on the last day was a bit of a trudge (very 
few people pass that way these days) but made more pleasant by the presence of 
a couple of Glossy Blacks in a band of casuarina trees …

All in all, it was nice reconnecting with the Lamington Plateau outside of the 
graded track network and associated humanoid masses (mind you, we did come 
across three groups in four days - it is a busy time).  There was a large 
Lamington Blue (crayfish) out in the rain near Rat a tat …

Regards, Laurie.



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