Dispatches 24.4
Sorry for the delay between posts… life has intruded on blogging behaviours. However, it is now time for something slightly different – a trip to FNQ! The airport was unbelievable at 0500 on Moanday morning – hundreds of people milling about aimlessly, seemingly in shock at the sheer length of the line to go through security. Madness. From the moment I stepped out of the taxi I was in constant (though extremely slow) motion and essentially walked straight on to my plane and sat down without a moment’s peace. The flight passed happily enough however and I was soon en route to the recently reopened mangrove boardwalk near the airport where I proceeded to see sweet f a. Sadly, I was on a semi-tight schedule and only had time for a quick spin around town (shout out to Blackbird for a nice cup of coffee, and some decent beans) before heading off to Ravenshoe to pick up my field companion, the talented young Wise.
‘Twas a lovely drive up through the range on to the Tablelands, and a spin out to see road signs for Cassowary and Tree Kangaroo again. As usual, the contrast of the cattle paddocks on the plateau after cruising through World Heritage rainforest demoralised me, but shortly after I made my way into the menagerie maintained by Wise and his lovely partner Olive. They are wildlife carers with all manner of exotic birds and beasts in various stages of recovery. I had a good chat with Olive – the latest joey gazing out from her jumper blearily the whole time – whilst Wise ran around gathering all of his field kit. Recharged by the good vibes, we were then back on the road, bound for Georgetown.
I’d never been in this neck of the woods before, and in fact it was a bioregion tick for me (EIU). The drive went by quickly enough with some good chats, an exchange of gen and a frank discussion on birding and herping ethics (with some character assassination of (in)famous names in the scene thrown in for good measure). Thankfully it seemed like we were on the same page and similarly obsessive so I could relax… I’ve had a good run with new field companions recently. All that remained was to kick arse and find rares! We got into town on sunset and had an ‘acceptable’ meal in the motel representing our base for the next few nights. After a quick sniff for reptilians down a nearby dirt road with some promising boulders (seeing nowt) we hit the hay pretty early.
We made our way into the site at dawn the next morning, dodging a massive carcass of a pig that slowly degraded over the course of the trip. Picking up the key to the gates on the property from the landholder, I was agog at the setup. Nobody else for miles, no road noise at all (the development road was a good 5 km away at least) and a beautiful little place for a hüs – perched up on a rise above a billabong, below a spring-fed waterfall and a cliffed out gorge. A stunning spot. A cute little Jack Rusell ran out to say hello but we didn’t linger and were up in the hills before too long. A pleasant day of constant vigilance passed by, with only a semi-hairy crossing of a rocky riverbed to worry about. It was surprisingly quiet – a theme that was to continue for the rest of the trip. A high quality ticklet at lunch time (Northern Squatter), a nice new dragonfly (Rosy Skimmer) and a fairly dull leplifer (Two-spotted Line-blue) were the only creatures that raised the pulse and before I knew it we were back in town.
The next day we headed north of the highway and it didn’t take too long for us to run into a high-quality MiFF at our first site. I followed some Woodswallows to the edge of the scrub and then the birds tumbled past me one by one, some stopping for a look and others too busy foraging to notice me. I could hear the high pitched contact calls of Sittella mixed in with the squeaks and buzzing noises of the Woodswallows and eventually got excellent views of the last Varied Sittella subspecies I needed – striata. Almost immediately after that an interesting finch call drew my attention and I completed another long-awaited ‘set’ with crippling views of the northern race of Black-throated Finch! We managed to pull another couple of new birds for Wise out of the flock and then it was time to get back to the schedule… ’twas another quiet day, really, but pleasant enough. I did manage to enjoy some quality hammock time… the hammock is now an essential part of my field kit. On the way back to camp we stopped in at a potential bat cave on sunset. No bats were about, but a swarm of Cave Duskhawkers (Gynacantha nourlangie) emerged from the depths to bask on the cave walls in the last light of day. The view wasn’t bad either.
The final day in the north of the site was pretty quiet, apart from an exciting encounter with a Copper Jewel. I’ve only ever seen this species in the mangroves and yet here we were, some 600 km inland, and the little beasts were (at times) the most common butterfly that we saw. The first one was just passing through but later in the trip we saw dozens of males defending territories around Terminalia and flowering Melaleuca. This ‘hilltopping’ behaviour implies breeding – in the middle of the year! Could this be a future split? Only time will tell…
After a cruisy day we split up to do our last counts as that afternoon we were relocating to the tiny little town of Forsayth and we wanted to save some time. Bizarrely, as we arrived after dark the pub was swarming with oldies on some kind of savannah tour. We glommed on to the buffet dinner put on for them with no complaints!
The landscape in the southern areas of the site was subtly different – the ranges here were characterised by granitic boulder piles and SEVT hilltops emerging from the open savannah woodlands below. The first day we spent down in the south was our most remote of the trip… we crept into the interior of the site, crossing several deep creeks and traversing some fairly gnarly terrain. With a defeated sigh, one of the tyres on the hire vehicle gave up the ghost in a particularly rocky section and we crawled about in the dust to change it. Thankfully, I had planned for the day to be an easy one and so it transpired after the tyre situation was resolved! A nice hammock lunch in the patchy shade of a grove of Eucalyptus similis went down nicely and was probably the highlight of the day. We chucked out a couple of Anabats on the way out of site and rolled back in to town. Sadly, the food situation at the pub was fairly dire for vegetarians that evening and I ended up making some Mi Goreng in my room.
The next day was spent in forested country and was the quietest (bird-wise) of the trip. Wise had motivated me for herping and we spent our lunch break flipping rocks until a reptick was revealed! A baby Oedura coggeri was sheepishly curled up under a loose flake of granite, and we left him in peace after taking a quick picture. Due to the lack of birds, one had to cast around for items of interest and some huge gumnuts on the ground at one of our count sites sparked a quick run through Euclid. They belonged to the crippling tree Eucalyptus chartaboma; it will be awesome to see these beasts in flower on the spring surveys! Back in town, we checked out the cemetery for finches without much luck and then returned to the pub for dinner. While making mine in my room I heard some snuffling and scratching outside and came out to see a big old Echidna having a bit of a dig in the leaf litter. Once Wise got back from the bistro we headed up the hill to the south of town to look for good gecks. I got up to the top a little ahead of my pal and perched on a boulder in the light of the full moon, which was very very nice.
Gecks proved hard to come by, so I cast my net a little wider and soon reeled in a furtick – a curious family of Allied Rock Wallaby sat around in the moonlight looking at us. Wise snapped off a couple of (extremely high quality) record shots and we scarpered, not wanting to disturb them. A pretty interesting record this one, close to the edge of the species range. I really like Robbalies (and lifers) and so I went to bed pretty stoked.
The final survey day passed without incident or much of interest to report really. Another look around the lake in the arvo hauled in a few more county birds for me but the sun went down before too long and then we had to pack. As if by magic a cheesy potato bake materialised at the pub (without bacon!) and so I could gorge myself once again. We had a good chat to the bartenders – we were the only customers at the pub that night – and I tried my best to get them to check out Lark Quarry to no avail.
In the morning we were up early and on the road to Cumberland Dam, the home of a long-awaited Qld tick for me: Masked Finch. Not only was it a Qld tick, it was also a ticklet – and a lifer for Wise! Once we arrived at the dam I followed my nose and soon sniffed out a nice mixed flock of finches, including a gang of BTFI. It took a couple more minutes but then I had a lovely pair of Masked Finch beaming their photons through the German glass into my eyeballs. A celebratory ice cream went down the hatch in Georgetown and then the long drive back to Cairns began. At Wise’s house I rumbled one of his local Mareeba Robbalies basking in the sun on the rural fire truck in the shed – nice! I had always wanted to see this species but didn’t fancy visiting the petting zoo setup at Granite Gorge. I rolled out of Ravenshoe and made it to the Botanic Gardens in Cairns where, just for a change, I dipped Little Kingfisher. I then headed down to the Esplanade to offload my leftover food and coffee beans to some grateful backpackers. Surely my generosity would lead to some good karma, and I’d see Great-billed Heron lurking around in the mangroves? Just for a change, I did not.
My flight ended up being delayed by a few hours and so it was close to midnight by the time I got home. A few sleepy licks from the dogs and a sleepy kiss from J and it was off into the land of Nod for me. Until next time – remember, if you want to get an email when I write a new blog, sign up here!
