Australia (7/8) Cairns

Cairns offered some more good opportunities for birding. It was surrounded by rainforest as well as having a great esplanade with trees on one side and at low tide mud flats on the other. There was parkland and Botanical Gardens to the north of the town and Mangrove swamps near the airport. Add that to the the Barrier Reef islands and it was the usual problem of not enough time to fit everything in.

Our first trip was out to Kuranda an old hippy haunt turned tourist location. We used a cable car to get up there and the historic Kuranda Scenic Railway to get back to Cairns. It all sounded very promising but there was a strange lack of birdlife around the area.

We did have the opportunity of visiting the Australian Butterfly Sanctuary or Birdworld Kuranda. The later tempting as they had a Cassowary which I would have liked to have seen. However, it was advertised as having some of Australia's most precious and beautiful birds. Of being a photographers paradise where you could hand feed the birds and of the company being proud of its achievements in the field of professional wildlife tourism. What!!!  These are caged birds. Where are the awards for conservation, the programs for the reintroduction of endangered species.

We gave it a miss and went for a walk through the rainforest. No Cassowary and not many other birds but we felt suitably superior as a result of our decision.

Sulpher-crested Cockatoo

Barred Cuckoo-shrike

 and in the trees in the main street of Kuranda

Australasian Figbird  -  Female

and one of my few butterfly shots of the holiday

Black Jezebel

The next day a trip out to Michaelmas Cay on the Great Barrier Reef. Snorkelling for most, birding for me. Tourists are only allowed on one small part of the island, the rest is reserved for birds. Twenty three species of seabirds have been recorded on the island and in the summer breeding season 20,000 birds have been seen there.

It was early in the season and I wasn't going to see anything like that number but there were still lots of birds about. Even on the small bit reserved for tourists you had to be careful not to tread on the Juvenile Sooty Terns who didn't seem to be able to read the signs saying that this bit was for tourists.

Sooty Tern - Juvenile

Sooty Tern

Sooty Tern

Brown Booby - Male

Brown Booby - Male

Brown Booby - Female with Yellow bill male with blue shading on bill

Common (Brown) Noddy

Crested Tern

Lesser Frigatebird

Ruddy Turnstone

Silver Gull

In the end I only saw seven birds but five of them were new for me and it was nice to have time , for a change, to stand around and look for some good picture opportunities.


The third day in Cairns we had the option of a coach trip up to the Cape Tribulation and the Daintree rainforest or a free day in Cairns. With so much to see in Cairns we opted to stay there. I was up early for a quick walk along the front. Later I returned for breakfast and to pick up Sue and we spent the day walking along the front and around the parkland areas.

I liked Cairns but it was hot that day, the low thirties and it was only just the end of  winter. The locals greet you with welcome to paradise. Maybe, the record low for the area is 18 which sounds like paradise but in the summer it touches 40 which takes it out of my definition of paradise.

Eastern Reef  Egret

The Eastern Reef Egret comes in two morphs, grey and white. Finding a grey morph made the species a lot easier to identify.

Australasian Figbird  -  Male

Masked Lapwing

Peaceful Dove

Pied Imperial-pigeon

Sacred Kingfisher

Curlew

Black-fronted Dotterel

Australian Pied Oystercatcher

Great Knot

Australian Pelican

Gull-billed Tern

Yellow Honeyeater

Early that morning I had met up with an Australian birder and his three grandchildren who were out on a birding big day. They offered to take me with them and I would have loved to have gone but I couldn't abandon Sue. He did give me directions for a Rufous Owl and later that day we found the right area with luckily another birder standing under the right tree. If he ever reads this blog I would like to say thanks for the info.

Rufous Owl and the usual branch  - Male

Inquisitive Rainbow Lorikeet at the Rufous Owl's nest with female and young at home - be careful

Laughing Kookaburra

Nutmeg Mannikin

Another Rainbow Bee-eater

Australian Bush-turkey

Olive-Backed Sunbird

I saw these Sunbirds a couple of times in deep rainforest with no light for a picture. This one was silhouetted against the light. The picture is not good but the colours are visible including the blue throat and breast. To make things a bit easier on identification there is only one Sunbird in Australia and hence only one bird with this profile.

Magpie Goose

Radjah Shelduck

White-breasted Woodswallow

Once again time catches up with us. We leave Cairns for Sydney tomorrow and there is still so much to see, the whole of Northern Queensland for a start.

Great Knot

Nothing much on the birding front recently. We did go up to Norfolk today to see the Great Knot. It was in with a flock of common Knot that was truly spectacular. The wardens at Titchwell Marsh estimated it as between five and seven thousand birds.

A small part of the Knot flock

When they landed, it then seemed an impossible task to pick out the Great Knot from amongst them. However, the locals must be used to finding it and it was soon identified on the edge of the flock.

I am counting it as a life tick but it was a most unsatisfactory sighting. It was a long way off, it was asleep, and with the heat haze running that day a decent picture was impossible. I don't think I would have ever found it without help from the wardens. Could I make the identification myself, which is my criteria for counting the birds? Yes, but it was on the limits of what was acceptable. I really would have liked a better picture.

Great Knot - huge crop from what was the best of a lot of poor pictures

We did not hang about waiting for better views as we needed to get over to Breydon Water for the Caspian Tern that had been resident there for a few weeks. We need not have rushed. It was seen early that morning but by the time we arrived had flown off and has not been seen since.


One other first for me on the day. This Stoat at Titchwell, walking along the path down to the beach. Perhaps not up to the standard of the Springwatch coverage at Minsmere but I was pleased to see it, if only for a few seconds.

It's a long way to go but it was a great day out.