I dunno why it’s taken me so long to put this together, but it’s done now. Below is the story of my amazing trip to Iron Range back in February with my friends Gus and Stu. Kutini-Payamu is a near-mythical birding destination in Australia and for good reason… it was about bloody time I got up there, and about bloody time I wrote this up. Enjoy!
Prelude
My friend Gus and I had been talking about a trip to Iron Range for years, but had never actually done any serious planning for it. Last summer while I was on the IOTs, and Gus was on holiday, he was fired up for lifers and after a brief discussion via text we decided to pull the trigger and head up the Cape in late February. Most people visit Iron Range in winter; there is less chance of bad weather affecting your trip and the conditions are (apparently) much more pleasant. The one major drawback of a winter trip though is that Red-bellied Pitta is unlikely to be seen… the Pitta is one of the most amazing looking birds to occur in Australia and we both really wanted to see it. This, obviously, is why we decided to go in summer. Through a combination of faith in our skills and a little bit of arrogance, we reckoned we would be able to get all our targets in three days. We floated the idea of a Feb ‘smash and grab’ long weekend trip in our little birding chat and Stu (who had formerly dipped the Pitta on a winter trip to IRRA) was keen to come along as well… the stage was set.
When it came to organising the trip, I felt a bit lazy really – while I was ticking MEGAs on Cocos, Gus and Stu sorted our flights out, booked our accommodation and paid for everything to boot. I was allocated the task of finding us a 4WD which I accomplished through a single quick phone call to Paul Piwa in Lockhart River. Everything came together surprisingly easily really – I was left wondering why we hadn’t done this before! I started doing my research when I got home from Perth… poor Jess had to put up with the tail end of my (significant) IOT froth as well as my rapidly developing microfoam regarding Iron Range. Just one of the perils of a relationship with a birder! I was soon very, VERY excited. Both Gus and I had travelled extensively in Queensland and this was essentially the final frontier for us in terms of a trip with multiple lifer potential within the state (not to mention the ticklets and nonbirds). I had a few more lifers up there than Gus, as he had been up to the McIvor River crossing before… I was looking at a total of 22(!) possible lifers for the trip!
As an additional bonus, it looked as though I would exert my dominance over the other Qld-focused eBirders and become number 1 for the state with a good haul. It was a near-certainty that Gus would get to 700 for Australia on this trip too (a big milestone for every birder), so I arranged a 700 badge for him from Andrew Isles. The trip approached disturbingly rapidly and before I knew it Gus and I were on the red-eye to Cairns on a Thursday evening. Hideously, we were only asleep for about 5 hours before waking and heading back to the airport… it was time.
Friday
I ticked another county when we landed in Aurukun in the pouring rain on Friday morning after a short flight from Cairns. After a quick reshuffling of passengers (and a quick pat of the dogs hanging around the terminal), we were back in the air and flying east over vast tracts of savannah towards Lockhart River. A comfortable and uneventful little flight saw us hopping out at the historic Lockhart River airstrip. It was hot, humid and sunny and the first lifer of the trip (a New Guinea Birdwing) drifted over the terminal building as we waited for our bags. A quick phone call to Paul saw him heading down to the airport and, while we were waiting for our car, a male Eclectus Parrot flew overhead. Damn! That was easy! Paul was super relaxed, which was nice, although John Young had forgotten to fill up the car with diesel before departure (lol). We headed into town for some supplies and some fuel after taking some cars round to Mr Piwa’s house, and were shortly thereafter at the sewage works getting a solid year tick in Spotted Whistling Duck. Not much else was around there so we split and headed back through Lockhart River towards the Greenhoos. On the way we saw a large flock of Fork-tailed Swifts and stopped to check them for rares. While doing so Gus noticed a bird on the telephone wires and called out to stop. I pulled up and Gus had a quick look in his bins – it was a Tree Sparrow! A state tick for us all, and a bird I hadn’t expected to see on the mainland; all previous records in Queensland, as far as I’m aware, have come from the Torres Strait Islands. What a bonus! We grabbed some pics and soon the spuggy was joined by a juvenile. Wow – potentially they had bred somewhere nearby!
Buoyed by this we zoomed up to the Greenhoos, dumped our gear, and headed out the front to hop back in the car and head up to the rainforest. We didn’t even manage to get in the car – almost immediately, we were waylaid by Fawn-breasted Bowerbird in the tree out the front. LIFER. Straight after that a pair of Red-cheeked Parrots barrelled screeching into the same tree, and were quickly followed by a Graceful Honeyeater… we didn’t know where to look! I had heard from various old trip reports and blogs that the bowerbird was tough so it was good to get it out of the way. The Greenhoos caretakers, Claire and Daniel, came out to see what all the commotion was about and we had a bit of a chinwag with them about White-streaked Honeyeater. Again, this was a bird that could prove tricky but with some fresh gen from Dan we were almost straight on to one of the cryptic little beasts in a heathy section a little way up the road. Excellent! Four targets in the bag… and it wasn’t even lunchtime yet.
We continued north, eventually popping out at the beach and mangroves of Portland Rd in the blazing heat of the tropical sun. I was hopeful for LIKI or a certain monstrous heron… but it was not to be. A local took me for a quick ride on his quad bike to show me a lake ‘that birdwatchers love’ – unfortunately it was dross. After spending a little time kicking around here we headed back to the rainforest around the Cooks Hut area. Mr Daly was lurking on 699 and there were lifers everywhere – as typically happens with milestones we just blundered into a Tawny-breasted Honeyeater and GUDA joined the other members of the party in the 700 club. Views were not ideal to say the least – the bird was backlit and not very cooperative – but it was welcome grist to the mill and got the big rig over the line. The forest was pretty quiet by this stage and we decided to head back ‘home’ for a chew and a little rest before the sun went down. Gus and I walked across the road (with Dan’s permission) and were soon joined by the Greenhoos dog, Wocki. What a lovable lump, and very well behaved She made sure we were safe and then wandered up to her house for a nap. We returned to find Stu, Claire and Dan eyeballing a Spotted Cuscus grooming itself in a tree behind the kitchen!
After dinner (and sunset), we geared up and headed out for a prowl. Gus and I faded pretty fast – we’d had about 4 hours sleep the night before – but we still managed to connect with some high-quality critters. Thanks to Dan and Claire we rumbled several GREEN PYTHONS right by the side of the track, and thanks to the thermal we shortly thereafter nailed Cape York Melomys (or Mosaic-tailed Rat to those of a certain vintage). It was on the way back that Gus spotlit a young Magnificent Riflebird at point black range. Needless to say we were stoked with another lifer – but that bird was not so stoked to lose its soul forever. A very welcome shower and brushing of the fangs preceded the blanket show. We were off to a good start, with a third of our potential lifers in hand already.
Saturday
After a pre-dawn coffee and a quick survey of the ‘shed bats’ with the EchoMeter (Nycto sp.), it was back in the bus and up to the rainforest again. We didn’t really have a strategy for our remaining targets beyond being in good habitat early and hopefully hearing some to chase down. Our first stop was at the triangle, where we picked up Tropical Scrubwren pretty quickly. Nice – we were on the board. Frustratingly, in this area we also heard several targets that we couldn’t bloody see! The most annoying was probably Yellow-billed Kingfisher, which we had heard on the first day and again heard several times that morning. We just couldn’t find the little blighters; they seemed to be very ventriloquial and would only call once every five minutes or so. After a while we gave up and continued north into some nice ecotonal habitat between savannah and rainforest. A semi-familiar buzz got my attention after a little while and thanks to my pre-trip homework I pished in our first Frill-necked Monarch. Sweet! We continued up to the river crossing where Dan had suggested we might hear Papuan Pitta… we heard one all right, being blasted out of some fuckin idiots loudspeaker at about a billion decibels.
Disgusted, we left the area and headed back towards the Greenhoos. We stopped at the next creek crossing and hopped out – almost straight away Gus and I looked at each other. We had just heard a ‘real’ Pitta! We grabbed the essentials and after a quick discussion of strategy we headed into some seriously thick scrub in pursuit. Every thirty seconds or so, the strange call of the Pitta would swell in front of us… but it was taking a long time to get to the beast, and it wasn’t sounding any closer! We had a bonus White-faced Robin after getting about 70m in to the forest, which was another lifer in the bag. A strange looking butterfly got my attention and we all gathered ‘round – Stu promptly identified it as a Harlequin Metalmark (a monster). We kept thrashing towards the Pitta, which through some miracle continued to call the entire time. I got a weird feeling at one stage and turned to see Gus about 10m behind me. “Hey”, I called softly, “you got eyes on Stu?”. Gus turned around for a look and shit! He couldn’t see him! We backtracked about 20m (an indicator of how thick the forest was!) and soon found Stu badly hung up in some Calamus – he was at the end of his rope, poor bugger, and getting lacerated. All the while the call of the Pitta resonated through the forest from some unknown distance. We set off again, staying a bit closer together now, and eventually approached a bamboo thicket on a hillside. The Pitta was close now, and we slowed right down. We crept towards it, as quickly and quietly as we could… was it off the ground? We were super close now and still couldn’t see it. Suddenly Gus put the pieces together and said “I’ve got it, I can see it!”. Near-silent mayhem ensued as Stu and I tried to position ourselves to get a glimpse. I got up next to Gus and saw the beast for about two seconds, before it dropped silently to the forest floor.
Elation quickly turned to despair as we realised that Stu hadn’t seen the bird. We decided to wait and see if it would call again – and five tense minutes later, it did. We moved down the hill towards the bamboo when another bird started to call from another direction! After a careful stalk of the first bird failed, and it again went silent after repositioning, we retraced our steps and headed towards the second animal. This time we were ultra-careful, and approached at a snails pace. Eventually we were within about 5m of the beast, and none of us could fuckin’ see it! Gus and I sent Stu ahead to look, in case it flushed… but no luck.
I was sure the bird was higher than we thought, and was throwing its voice. Moving my head around like an owl and squinting into the canopy towards the call, I finally got a glimpse of movement through a tiny gap. Raising my bins and craning my neck I could see a flash of bright red. Yes! I called Stu to me and he was eyeballing the ULTRA soon after. Vindication for Mr Pickering! Things would never be the same… Gus moved upslope and lined up a nice view that wasn’t so obscured and my camera took its last photos of the trip, capturing the soul of the Papuan Pitta, but sacrificing its life to do so. We watched the bird as it continued to call, undisturbed by our presence. Eventually it flew out of sight and we awoke, as though from a dream. Our plans had worked! We’d seen the most important bird, the Pitta… everything else was now a bonus.
It started to rain softly on the way back and, after connecting with a confiding Northern Scrub-Robin, we emerged from the forest soaking wet but triumphant about two hours after we had first heard the Pitta from the road. Fantastic – a real team effort! We headed back to base to dry off but stopped at the triangle again briefly so that I could pick up Black-winged Monarch, which Dan had told us was regular there. A handsome beast, accompanied by another stunning Frill-necked Monarch… along with some not-so-stunning (but crippling) Green-backed Honeyeaters. I flicked the camera back on here to try and get some photos and was quite dismayed to hear the shutter firing continuously – it had been overwhelmed with the glory of the Pitta. I left the brick back at base camp to dry out and we headed off to Cooks Hut after a cuppa and a nice encounter with Tawny-breasted Honeyeater.
Though we still had 7 targets remaining, including some hard ones, it really felt like the pressure was off now after seeing the Pitta and we just went birding. We got some good views here of the Wompoo ticklet, several of the endemics that we had already seen, and also a couple of Odes guarding territories in puddles by the side of the road. Leps were going off around this area too and we picked up Pale Cerulean visiting a mango tree. It was awesome slowly walking the road and hearing the Riflebirds whistling and the Pitta making its bizarre cooing growl off in the distance. After about an hour of relaxed nature bathing we realised we still had 7 targets to find and decided to head out towards the Claudie River, where we hadn’t been yet. This was a good decision as the various creek and river crossings turned out to provide some of the most productive birding of the trip! At the “New Bridge” I picked up a bird I had always wanted to see – Chestnut-breasted Cuckoo. The boys got some great photos while I simply enjoyed my views of this LIFER. We spent about half an hour here and just before we left one of the stars of the trip showed up – a huge Palm Cockatoo dropped in to say hi! It was an amazing looking bird in real life, despite having seen hundreds of photos of it before. We continued out to the Claudie River crossing and had another nice little birding session there, almost being deafened by a pair of Eclectus Parrots, before heading back to the Green Hoos for a bit of a rest and a cup of tea. We couldn’t sit still for long and ended up back across the road, getting some insane views of a Red-cheeked Parrot inspecting a stump.
After a quick dinner we headed out spotlighting again, this time out to the creeks where we had spent most of the afternoon. There were lots of microbats around and we started having a bit of success on the reptile front too, with a baby Water Python basking on the road and a few more Green Pythons seen. Heading further west we (well, I) stopped to check out some culverts, finding a few horseshoe bats… and then, with a strange hollow clapping noise, the monster arrived. With a shout of excitement, we got the fruit bat in the beam of the red light and then watched it drinking from a tree hollow. What an awesome looking animal! It was like a chihuahua with wings – a freaky, demonic looking beast. Another one of my main targets had fallen and I was super stoked. We kept moving down the road, spotlighting Grey Goshawk sleeping in the canopy and some monstrous Papuan Frogmouths. On the way back to the Green Hoos we stopped in some rainforest for a quick look and were lucky enough to find a couple of Pink Underwing Moths. While the folded forewings look just like leaves, the hindwings are a brilliant neon pink. An unbelievable colour to get in the headtorch!
Sunday
Our last day… the boys were up for a coffee well before dawn and I emerged in the pre-dawn twilight to find them looking at microbats on the lawn. Gus and I were feeling a little stressed – we had four targets left. We’d been hearing one all over the place, but had been unable to find it as of yet: the ventriloquial Yellow-billed Kingfisher. Three of them we hadn’t even heard at all: the Manucode, the Catbird and the Flyrobin. I had an additional target which should have been around as well… my bogey, Little Kingfisher. As Dan reckoned the road to his house was good for the Flyrobin and the Manucode we started there. We had a good check of this area and the Green Hoos grounds, getting close to 40 species… but no targets. A mild panic set in. We discussed where to go and decided on the creek as it had been good the previous afternoon. Almost immediately upon getting out of the car we heard a deep, resonant ONNGGG… the Manucode was close, thank Poseidon. After a few tense minutes we all got cracking views of the bird of paradise as it gobbled up some red berries. It was joined by a second bird and Gus and I basically melted with relief. Stu was calm and off looking for butterflies… a Bright Oak Blue shook me to my core before we pressed on down the road. Three endemics were left. Now that we had unblocked the Manucode they were seemingly everywhere, which caused great happiness – I can still hear the resonant ONNGGGG reverberating around my skull almost 8 months later.
After a bit of a chew and a strategy session back at the Green Hoos we headed back into the rainforest north of the triangle and shortly thereafter an orange blur zipped across the road in front of the car. Fuck! It had to have been a Yellow-billed Kingfisher, both Gus and I were 100%… but the views were unsatisfying to say the least. After a quick, unsuccessful look for it, we pressed on to the Gordon Creek Crossing. We walked down to the creek and heard a Ceyx. Damn, it sounded high to me and it was getting closer! It zipped past without me seeing it at all but Gus got a glimpse. He reckoned it was a Little Kingfisher and I slowly collapsed onto the road in grief. I arose some unknown amount of time later and trudged up the road… Gus suddenly twitched and turned to look at me. I had heard it too but hadn’t joined the dots as quickly… “It’s the Flyrobin!” he hissed. Where the hell was it? We could hear two calling up in the canopy and eventually got the bins onto them. Blessed relief! A very cute little fluffball with some pretty yellow legs. Their behaviour reminded me of the Asian Brown Flycatcher I’d found on Cocos… Gus was a bit frustrated with his views, and Stu didn’t even raise his bins, but I was happy. One monster to go… and we knew where to look.
Stu, Andy and Colin had camped at the Rainforest Campsite back in 2015 and had gotten the Catbird there. Stu wasn’t 100% sure that he had laid eyes on the beast however, and it had subsequently been split, creating one of the most horrible birding dilemmas there can be. Do you tick a split if you never actually paid any attention to it? Stu, who has some of the most upstanding birding ethics I’ve ever seen, would obviously never do that. So this was essentially a lifer for him too… as we hadn’t even heard the bird yet our hopes weren’t high, but we headed down to the river anyway in the gathering dark. And holy shit, when we were standing on the bank we heard the wailing cry of the Catbird. It was panic stations after that but after a few minutes and a bit of moving up and down the (croc-infested) riverbank we were all eventually satisfied with our views of this cryptic critter. There were two on the far side of the river and as we walked away they were still wailing to each other. We had done it – every Iron Range endemic was in the books after a whirlwind three days of birding. Big grins were plastered across our faces as we headed back to the car.
We gave some kids (and their dogs) a lift back into town after we found them trudging along the road… it would have been about a 15km walk for the little blighters with no water. Madness. With the good karma accumulated we picked up Pied Heron (a Queensland tick for Gus) and had a final look at the Spotted Whistling Ducks at the treatment plant. Stu got a bit freaked out when he almost stepped on a snake, and we scarpered shortly thereafter; seeing a croc sleeping on the bank a short distance away was the final straw. After some celebratory ice creams in town we headed back to the Green Hoos for a shower and had a good chat about the trip. We said thanks to Dan and Claire for all the gen and patted Wocki while we made dinner.
We headed back out that night for a quick poke around and I was happy to find Brown-headed Snake right next to where we had parked the car. It was quiet in the forest that night, but we did find another Pink Underwing Moth and I also found the biggest snake I’d ever seen – an approx. 5m long Scrub Python… unbelievable. On the way back I stopped the car so that Gus could extract the soul of a Papuan Frogmouth (see below), and we also briefly stopped to peer owlishly at some Myotis foraging in a puddle… but it was a relatively early night for us as we were getting pretty weary.
Monday
Our last morning in Iron Range and there was only one place I wanted to go… we headed back to the Gordon River crossing where the suspected Little Kingfisher lived. I had decided to zenbird the bridge and I plonked myself down to wait while Gus and Stu wandered off to look for leps. After about fifteen minutes of waiting, I heard the little beast calling as it flew upstream towards me, and I got ready… it flashed past about 10m away, a tiny blue and white blur. YES! The bogey had finally fallen. On the way back to the Hoos we made a quick diversion to the creeks to have a look at the Manucodes again and Gus and I checked out a Dusky Leaf-nosed bat roost that Dan had clued us onto. When back at the Green Hoos we had a quick cuppa and then I headed into town to check out another bat roost that my mate George Madani had told me about, seeing a few unidentified Horseshoe bats there… when I got back the boys were down in the forest looking for Yellow-billed Kingfisher. Gus emerged and went to the room to pack. I thought I’d have a look as the thing was still calling… luckily for me I got a clear line of sight to it almost straight away and was able to get Stu onto it too. The Yellow-billed beasts are surprisingly elusive!
We said some tearful goodbyes to Claire, Dan and Wocki and headed back to the airport. We nervously watched the clouds descending on the Iron Range but the plane landed on time and a short time later we were looking at Nordmann’s Greenshank (and about 1000 AUSW) on the Esplanade in Cairns. Fantastic… we hit Corea Corea for dinner and I caught up with Sarah Maunsell, which was awesome. Gus and I said goodbye to Stu (we were on an early flight the next morning) and crashed out at about 2100, whistling bird calls before bed.
Everything had worked out perfectly for me on this trip to one of Australia’s most iconic birding destinations… the trip basically embodied the det fixar sig approach to birding that I’d adopted after the IOT. We managed to see basically every target we had hoped for in a long weekend, which was amazing… overwhelming really. Learning the calls beforehand proved invaluable and I would strongly recommend genning up like that if you’re planning a trip up there. Thanks go to everyone who provided gen, particularly Claire and Dan, and of course to Stu and Gus for an awesome trip. Thanks pals… it was so good!
