Black and White Mammals are the Best Kind of Mammals
Australia really is rather expensive isn't it? $100 for a return 50 minute boat ride. I'm still comparing everything to Malaysia which I really have to stop doing. Anyway, today we're going to Green Island which is the most popular island on the Great Barrier Reef and one of few sand cays with rainforest on it. Last time I was in Cairns I went to Michaelmas Cay which is a Cay which is known for nesting seabirds, but it's very far away and very expensive to get to, but Green Island has some different birds anyway and should be well worth birding for a half day as we did. Green Island does also allow sightings of most of the terns and things that nest on the sand cays of the reef like Michaelmas Cay, though just of birds flying over and not nesting.
The highlight of the boat ride there though, as well as a few seabirds, has to have been a rather good view of a humpback whale. Apparently this is a good time of year to see them in the area, although they are not a guaranteed sighting on the boat journeys across. Although Green Island is a sand cay, it is one of the oldest and most established and has forest on the cay itself although it is more of a low forest with casuarina trees and things rather than a rainforest as such. Green Island was absolutely crawling with Buff-banded Rails. They were absolutely everywhere and weren’t scared of people at all. Although the island was quite busy, most people were on the swimming/snorkelling beach area and the other side of the island was good for seawatching for birds and also looking out onto the rocky shallow water and beach area for waders. I really wanted to see a Beach Stone-curlew and they can sometimes be seen on Green Island but I couldn’t find any unfortunately although there were lots of other waders, some birds of prey, and a few small birds on the island like trillers and silvereyes in addition to the rails. I had seen on the bird list that Noisy Pitta is recorded, but I don’t think they’re regular on the island. I didn’t hear or see any at least, and it’s not big.
It is also worth noting that there is a small ‘zoo’ on the island that I didn’t visit called Marineland Melanesia but I believe all they have there are eight Saltwater Crocodiles and some tropical fish tanks and I wasn’t about to pay $20 for five minutes looking at a crocodile. Although they do claim to have the largest captive croc. Included with the boat ride to the island was a 30 minute ride in a glass-bottom boat so I did see the reef a bit even though I don’t like swimming or snorkelling and there were a few turtles around too.
After we returned to Cairns and had lunch, we headed back to the accommodation, but I went via the esplanade to see what birds were about. This turned out to be an extremely good decision. As I was walking along looking at the waders, I noticed a rather interesting looking wader that wasn’t quite like a Masked Lapwing or Egret or Curlew/Godwit. I put my binoculars up to it and I couldn’t quite believe what I saw. A Beach Stone-curlew! Right there on the Cairns Esplanade in the middle of the city! They’re supposed to be quite shy birds and generally occur on more secluded beaches but this what right on the esplanade and the tide was in high enough that it wasn’t too far in the distance at all. I watched it for a while as it stalked around on the mud flats and suddenly would run forward and pounce on something, very velociraptor-like. Really cool bird with a great looking beak and just really interesting shape and patterning. It stayed there for a decent while, posing nicely for photographs, before it flew off when it was scared by a White-bellied Sea-eagle.
The plan for the afternoon had been a visit to Cattanna Wetlands and Yorkey's Knob but I decided that there weren't too many target species there since the wetlands birds are basically the same as NT so it would be better as a shorter trip maybe tomorrow morning before leaving Cairns. My parents are also feeling a bit under the weather with colds and I was just birding on my own that afternoon anyway so I decided to visit the nearby Mt Whitfield Conservation Park. This is a remnant patch of rainforest on a hill near Cairns, the entrance to which is from a trail head just opposite the Botanic Gardens and there was the potential for some nice species there with an afternoon of birding. The most exciting being Noisy Pittas which I had read were relatively common here. There were some pretty steep paths going up to the park itself which seemed very popular with joggers going up and down passing through the secondary forest, but these opened into the park which, interestingly, contains a mixture of rainforest and adjacent dry eucalyptus forest.
There were a few birds around, particularly once I was away from the main jogging route, including a Cicadabird which I almost passed off as a Black-faced Cuckooshrike before looking closely and realising it looked nothing like one. I have a feeling I might actually have managed to ignore this species in the Northern Territory too. My excuse is that my field guide is so unwieldy to flick through with its non-taxonomic order and having to go to the index every time that I avoid just having a flick anyway when I think I am sure of the ID. The wording also made me thing it was totally migratory throughout the range rather than resident, or at least partially resident, in the North
Despite staying in the proper birdy bit of Mount Whitfield until dark I didn't find any Pittas, but at dusk and into the night, lots of Red-legged Pademelons started to come out which are nice. So I walked for a couple of hours one way, then at sunset did the same distance back spotlighting, then spotlighted the Botanic Gardens on the other side of the road for a little while before being picked up and having a light dinner. I find that this is preferable to having dinner first and then spotlighting because that way I finish earlier and get more sleep as well as being out for the animals that come out at dusk. Of course it depends on the species targeted, for really intense targeting of tableland possums, I think my best plan will be to spotlight until as late as I can possibly get away with, into the wee hours of the morning ideally I think, but macropods seem to be more active earlier in the night from dusk. I would be interested to know if other mammalwatchers with Australian experience agree with that assessment?
Just at sunset a few minutes after I got my torch out and as I was heading back I heard a distinctive call that I had been waiting for. The bloody Noisy Pitta! One called several times from not too far off the path, then stopped. Really pitta? Now? Could you not have called twenty minutes earlier? At this point I was navigating by torch light and in the day I'd have been able to go off the path and find it and/or call it in with tapes but in the dark in an environment with steep drops, I was not willing to try that and I think it must have just been going in to roost anyway. The annoying little bugger. At least I know they're here now and I've got the coordinates so if I still haven't got a pitta by my last day where I've got most of a day until an evening flight on my own, I can come back and get it. At least they do have a very distinctive call. Pittas hate me though. Many birders do count heard onlys, especially when it's something distinctive sounding like that, but I don't so I can't put in on the list quite yet.
The spotlighting back, 3.5km in total, was rather good. A small mousey thing that ran down one tree hopped on the ground and then ran up another turned out to be a very cute Fawn-footed Melomys (distinguished from Grassland Melomys by behaviour and habitat). I then saw a rather larger mousey thing which was a White-tailed Giant Rat (the same as yesterday) but this one didn’t seem to be bothered by the torch light at all and just sat there posing nicely. There were a fair few cane toads around too but seemingly only the secondary forest and drier forest areas rather than in the proper rainforest where the melomys were which is probably why they were there. But by far the best thing of the night came towards the end of the walk, not too far from getting back to the road that goes between Mt Whitfield and the Centenary Lakes and you may have guessed it from the title. I saw something quite large moving in a tree directly above me which I thought at first was a White-tailed Giant Rat. It moved through the canopy and onto the trunk of a tree directly opposite the path from me and then when it stopped halfway up the trunk was when I realised what it was. I couldn’t quite believe it: a Striped Possum! Right there sitting in front of me was a striped possum! This is a notoriously difficult possum to find in the wild and really was very high up on my desired mammals list, up there with things like the Malayan Tapir, also black and white hence the title. This possum was about four metres up a tree directly opposite the path from me and they really are amazing animals. Such striking colouration and a really rather distinctive shape too. Black and white striped with the stripes looking particularly stunning on the face. Absolutely gorgeous animal. It sat there for a while and then moved along the tree to another spot just along a branch and sat there moving around a bit for a good ten minutes before suddenly zooming off quite noisily through the canopy. I watched it for over ten minutes about 7 metres away from me at a comfortable viewing angle, though not keeping the torch in full on it the whole time because the full torch light was clearly bothering it so I just had the torch on it to get some decent pictures before just watching it on the edge of the torch beam.
I should note that I found it by the sound and not by eyeshine at all as it moved very noisily for its size. I also hardly got any eyeshine off it at all because unlike other possums which just stare directly at the torch, this one looked away instantly. Obviously a much cleverer possum then. Really a wonderful species and it’s definitely worth spotlighting Mt Whitfield for it!
Tomorrow I leave Cairns for two nights staying at Mossman. I probably wouldn’t have bothered with that stay if it was just me on the trip and the main thing that I really want to focus on for me is doing as much proper wildlife watching in the Atherton Tablelands area as possible, but the rest of my family really wanted to do it and hopefully I will see some cool wildlife there anyway. It is technically the same block of forest and I think the same National Park as where everyone goes to see the Daintree River Ringtail, which is going to be the most difficult of the endemic ringtails for me to get given my itinerary, so I’ll have to try and work out what the situation is and hopefully I’ll be able to get them. I’d really like to get a full set of the endemic possums. The Mount Carbine Tableland and Mount Lewis is supposed to be an extremely good spot generally for them, but I don’t know if you can actually get to the proper high elevations from the Mossman side, the normal mammalwatching side is around a bit accessed from Julatten. Anyway, I’ll just have to see what I can do but for now I’m very happy with Striped Possum.
Birds:
Brown Noddy
Bridled Tern
Buff-banded Rail
Black Noddy
Brown Booby
Spotted Dove (somehow this is not on the list yet. I must have missed it off at the start then assumed it was always on or something)
Great Frigatebird
Sooty Tern
Silvereye
Lesser Frigatebird
Beach Stone-curlew
Australian Pied Oystercatcher
Cicadabird
Grey Whistler
Lewin’s Honeyeater
Heard only: Noisy Pitta
Mammals:
Humpback Whale
Red-legged Pademelon
Fawn-footed Melomys
Striped Possum
Australia really is rather expensive isn't it? $100 for a return 50 minute boat ride. I'm still comparing everything to Malaysia which I really have to stop doing. Anyway, today we're going to Green Island which is the most popular island on the Great Barrier Reef and one of few sand cays with rainforest on it. Last time I was in Cairns I went to Michaelmas Cay which is a Cay which is known for nesting seabirds, but it's very far away and very expensive to get to, but Green Island has some different birds anyway and should be well worth birding for a half day as we did. Green Island does also allow sightings of most of the terns and things that nest on the sand cays of the reef like Michaelmas Cay, though just of birds flying over and not nesting.
The highlight of the boat ride there though, as well as a few seabirds, has to have been a rather good view of a humpback whale. Apparently this is a good time of year to see them in the area, although they are not a guaranteed sighting on the boat journeys across. Although Green Island is a sand cay, it is one of the oldest and most established and has forest on the cay itself although it is more of a low forest with casuarina trees and things rather than a rainforest as such. Green Island was absolutely crawling with Buff-banded Rails. They were absolutely everywhere and weren’t scared of people at all. Although the island was quite busy, most people were on the swimming/snorkelling beach area and the other side of the island was good for seawatching for birds and also looking out onto the rocky shallow water and beach area for waders. I really wanted to see a Beach Stone-curlew and they can sometimes be seen on Green Island but I couldn’t find any unfortunately although there were lots of other waders, some birds of prey, and a few small birds on the island like trillers and silvereyes in addition to the rails. I had seen on the bird list that Noisy Pitta is recorded, but I don’t think they’re regular on the island. I didn’t hear or see any at least, and it’s not big.
It is also worth noting that there is a small ‘zoo’ on the island that I didn’t visit called Marineland Melanesia but I believe all they have there are eight Saltwater Crocodiles and some tropical fish tanks and I wasn’t about to pay $20 for five minutes looking at a crocodile. Although they do claim to have the largest captive croc. Included with the boat ride to the island was a 30 minute ride in a glass-bottom boat so I did see the reef a bit even though I don’t like swimming or snorkelling and there were a few turtles around too.
After we returned to Cairns and had lunch, we headed back to the accommodation, but I went via the esplanade to see what birds were about. This turned out to be an extremely good decision. As I was walking along looking at the waders, I noticed a rather interesting looking wader that wasn’t quite like a Masked Lapwing or Egret or Curlew/Godwit. I put my binoculars up to it and I couldn’t quite believe what I saw. A Beach Stone-curlew! Right there on the Cairns Esplanade in the middle of the city! They’re supposed to be quite shy birds and generally occur on more secluded beaches but this what right on the esplanade and the tide was in high enough that it wasn’t too far in the distance at all. I watched it for a while as it stalked around on the mud flats and suddenly would run forward and pounce on something, very velociraptor-like. Really cool bird with a great looking beak and just really interesting shape and patterning. It stayed there for a decent while, posing nicely for photographs, before it flew off when it was scared by a White-bellied Sea-eagle.
The plan for the afternoon had been a visit to Cattanna Wetlands and Yorkey's Knob but I decided that there weren't too many target species there since the wetlands birds are basically the same as NT so it would be better as a shorter trip maybe tomorrow morning before leaving Cairns. My parents are also feeling a bit under the weather with colds and I was just birding on my own that afternoon anyway so I decided to visit the nearby Mt Whitfield Conservation Park. This is a remnant patch of rainforest on a hill near Cairns, the entrance to which is from a trail head just opposite the Botanic Gardens and there was the potential for some nice species there with an afternoon of birding. The most exciting being Noisy Pittas which I had read were relatively common here. There were some pretty steep paths going up to the park itself which seemed very popular with joggers going up and down passing through the secondary forest, but these opened into the park which, interestingly, contains a mixture of rainforest and adjacent dry eucalyptus forest.
There were a few birds around, particularly once I was away from the main jogging route, including a Cicadabird which I almost passed off as a Black-faced Cuckooshrike before looking closely and realising it looked nothing like one. I have a feeling I might actually have managed to ignore this species in the Northern Territory too. My excuse is that my field guide is so unwieldy to flick through with its non-taxonomic order and having to go to the index every time that I avoid just having a flick anyway when I think I am sure of the ID. The wording also made me thing it was totally migratory throughout the range rather than resident, or at least partially resident, in the North
Despite staying in the proper birdy bit of Mount Whitfield until dark I didn't find any Pittas, but at dusk and into the night, lots of Red-legged Pademelons started to come out which are nice. So I walked for a couple of hours one way, then at sunset did the same distance back spotlighting, then spotlighted the Botanic Gardens on the other side of the road for a little while before being picked up and having a light dinner. I find that this is preferable to having dinner first and then spotlighting because that way I finish earlier and get more sleep as well as being out for the animals that come out at dusk. Of course it depends on the species targeted, for really intense targeting of tableland possums, I think my best plan will be to spotlight until as late as I can possibly get away with, into the wee hours of the morning ideally I think, but macropods seem to be more active earlier in the night from dusk. I would be interested to know if other mammalwatchers with Australian experience agree with that assessment?
Just at sunset a few minutes after I got my torch out and as I was heading back I heard a distinctive call that I had been waiting for. The bloody Noisy Pitta! One called several times from not too far off the path, then stopped. Really pitta? Now? Could you not have called twenty minutes earlier? At this point I was navigating by torch light and in the day I'd have been able to go off the path and find it and/or call it in with tapes but in the dark in an environment with steep drops, I was not willing to try that and I think it must have just been going in to roost anyway. The annoying little bugger. At least I know they're here now and I've got the coordinates so if I still haven't got a pitta by my last day where I've got most of a day until an evening flight on my own, I can come back and get it. At least they do have a very distinctive call. Pittas hate me though. Many birders do count heard onlys, especially when it's something distinctive sounding like that, but I don't so I can't put in on the list quite yet.
The spotlighting back, 3.5km in total, was rather good. A small mousey thing that ran down one tree hopped on the ground and then ran up another turned out to be a very cute Fawn-footed Melomys (distinguished from Grassland Melomys by behaviour and habitat). I then saw a rather larger mousey thing which was a White-tailed Giant Rat (the same as yesterday) but this one didn’t seem to be bothered by the torch light at all and just sat there posing nicely. There were a fair few cane toads around too but seemingly only the secondary forest and drier forest areas rather than in the proper rainforest where the melomys were which is probably why they were there. But by far the best thing of the night came towards the end of the walk, not too far from getting back to the road that goes between Mt Whitfield and the Centenary Lakes and you may have guessed it from the title. I saw something quite large moving in a tree directly above me which I thought at first was a White-tailed Giant Rat. It moved through the canopy and onto the trunk of a tree directly opposite the path from me and then when it stopped halfway up the trunk was when I realised what it was. I couldn’t quite believe it: a Striped Possum! Right there sitting in front of me was a striped possum! This is a notoriously difficult possum to find in the wild and really was very high up on my desired mammals list, up there with things like the Malayan Tapir, also black and white hence the title. This possum was about four metres up a tree directly opposite the path from me and they really are amazing animals. Such striking colouration and a really rather distinctive shape too. Black and white striped with the stripes looking particularly stunning on the face. Absolutely gorgeous animal. It sat there for a while and then moved along the tree to another spot just along a branch and sat there moving around a bit for a good ten minutes before suddenly zooming off quite noisily through the canopy. I watched it for over ten minutes about 7 metres away from me at a comfortable viewing angle, though not keeping the torch in full on it the whole time because the full torch light was clearly bothering it so I just had the torch on it to get some decent pictures before just watching it on the edge of the torch beam.
I should note that I found it by the sound and not by eyeshine at all as it moved very noisily for its size. I also hardly got any eyeshine off it at all because unlike other possums which just stare directly at the torch, this one looked away instantly. Obviously a much cleverer possum then. Really a wonderful species and it’s definitely worth spotlighting Mt Whitfield for it!
Tomorrow I leave Cairns for two nights staying at Mossman. I probably wouldn’t have bothered with that stay if it was just me on the trip and the main thing that I really want to focus on for me is doing as much proper wildlife watching in the Atherton Tablelands area as possible, but the rest of my family really wanted to do it and hopefully I will see some cool wildlife there anyway. It is technically the same block of forest and I think the same National Park as where everyone goes to see the Daintree River Ringtail, which is going to be the most difficult of the endemic ringtails for me to get given my itinerary, so I’ll have to try and work out what the situation is and hopefully I’ll be able to get them. I’d really like to get a full set of the endemic possums. The Mount Carbine Tableland and Mount Lewis is supposed to be an extremely good spot generally for them, but I don’t know if you can actually get to the proper high elevations from the Mossman side, the normal mammalwatching side is around a bit accessed from Julatten. Anyway, I’ll just have to see what I can do but for now I’m very happy with Striped Possum.
Birds:
Brown Noddy
Bridled Tern
Buff-banded Rail
Black Noddy
Brown Booby
Spotted Dove (somehow this is not on the list yet. I must have missed it off at the start then assumed it was always on or something)
Great Frigatebird
Sooty Tern
Silvereye
Lesser Frigatebird
Beach Stone-curlew
Australian Pied Oystercatcher
Cicadabird
Grey Whistler
Lewin’s Honeyeater
Heard only: Noisy Pitta
Mammals:
Humpback Whale
Red-legged Pademelon
Fawn-footed Melomys
Striped Possum
