Great Barrier Reef

Went to the Great Barrier Reef yesterday. I made sure that I went on a trip that included Michaelmas Cay, known for its seabirds. Well, it was not a disappointing trip, that's for sure! I added Lesser Crested Tern, Least Frigatebird, Brown Booby, Noddy and Sooty Tern to my list, bring the lifer total to 147 (can't remember the overall trip total).

I also did some snorkling, for the first time ever, and once you get over the urge to hyperventilate (very unpleasant) it's easy. The hyperventilation soon passes, especially when you encounter your first corals and brightly coloured fishes! I saw brain coral, mushroom coral, giant clams, and many fish whose identities I have no idea of. A couple I do know of were Yellow-tailed Fusilier and Batfish, and that's because they came begging to the boat and the crew ID'd them for us. Being a strong swimmer, I also dispensed with the fins as I found them a hindrance not a help.

Michaelmas Cay was easy to do snorkling in, you could just swim from the beach but the other place, Paradise Reef had to be done from the back of the boat in choppy seas but that was good fun too.

I am flying to Sydney tomorrow and while Cairns has been a bit wet for most of the time I've been here, it has been relatively hot and I'll be quite glad to duck back down below the Tropic of Capricorn again to a cooler climate. Sydney will be chilly and probably windy. I'm not ruling out wet either but I hope it's not too wet. Going birding this weekend, then a trip to the Warrumbungles if I can work out how to get to Coonabarabran from Sydney.

Wet wet wet

It was another vile wet day in Cairns. I know this is the 'Wet Tropics' but the rain is getting more than a little tiresome, especially when I am told the couple of weeks prior to my arrival was glorious warm sunshine. I met expat birder Tony for some birding around Cairns Esplanade and despite the shit conditions in which we both managed to get soaked feet (I was wearing soft shoes) we managed to get three more lifers for my list:

Beach Stone Curlew
Mangrove Robin - these proved easier to see than we thought, we eventually saw 4 and I even managed to get some (bad) photos of one as it perched briefly on a pillar at someone's front gate
Golden-headed Cisticola - this was on some 'waste ground' and it was only as we were leaving the area we saw it.

Other birds were:

Sacred Kingfisher
Black-fronted Dotterel
Osprey
Whimbrel
Fairy Martin
Varied Honeyeater
Brown Honeyeater
Brahminy Kite
Forest Kingfisher
White-bellied Sea-eagle
Silver Gull
Caspian Tern
Gull-billed Tern
Intermediate Egret
Little Egret
Straw-necked Ibis
Australian White Ibis

We drew a blank on Bar-shouldered Dove, Far-eastern Curlew and Nankeen Night-heron.
The total number of lifers now comes to a nice round 140 and I hope I can add a few more before leaving Australia on the 26th.

Yorkey's Knob

This afternoon Tony (local expat British birder) and myself went to Yorkey's Knob (oh go on, giggle, I know you want to ;) ) which is a 20 minute bus ride from Cairns and is a good little birding spot, especially by the golf course, where there is a lagoon holding plenty of waterfowl. As usual with golf courses there are plenty of people 'ruining a good walk' and there is the outside chance of an errant golf ball coming your way but it's relatively safe.

Thanks to Tony I added four new species to my list:

Green Pygmy Goose
Rajah Shelduck
Mistletoebird
Scaly-breasted Lorikeet

With these four additions that makes 137 lifers on this trip so far.
The Mistletoebird was a right little sod - we could hear them, but they were very difficult to see but we eventually tracked down a male and female over by the football pitch and I managed to get some good (I hope) shots of the very pretty male bird, all decked out in black, white and red.

Other birds were
Yellow-bellied (Olive-backed) Sunbird
Spice Finch
White-breasted Woodswallow
Little Black Cormorant
Rainbow Bee-eater
Brown Honeyeater
Dusky Honeyeater
Australian Darter
Intermediate Egret
Little Pied Cormorant
Forest Kingfisher
Figbird
Double-eyed Figparrot
Sulphur-crested Cockatoo
Pacific Black Duck
Australian Grebe
Laughing Kookaburra
Spangled Drongo

According to Tony they are thinking of renaming Yorkey's Knob because of the ridicule and giggles the name causes - it's a bit like the unfortunately named village of Fucking which is in Austria and which tourists from English-speaking nations just love to visit purely for the novelty of visiting a town with a rude name. Actually, there's a place called Twatt in Shetland. I've seen photos of birders posing by that sign.

[caption id="attachment_155" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="Laughing Kookaburra"][/caption]

This coming week

I have booked myself a trip to the Great Barrier Reef on Wednesday. I now have to nip into town tomorrow or Tuesday and buy a new cossie, shorts and underwater disposable camera! The trip I've booked on goes to Michaelmas Cay where I should see a few seabirds such as frigatebirds, noddies and boobies (why do the last two names sound rude?!), but even if I don't see many birds, I should see some cool, colourful fish.

Off to Yorkey's Knob (now that's a name guaranteed to raise titters among British schoolchildren) this afternoon. I have no idea who Yorkey was or why a place is named after his knob (titter) but it is a good Cairns birding spot, I'm told.

Planning to spend rest of week birding round Cairns before flight to Sydney on Friday morning. Then I have to work out how to get myself from Sydney to Coonabarabran for the 19th May (astronomy event in the Warrumbungles) - doing much in Australia without your own vehicle is a pain.

Rain, Cassowaries, big spiders and more rain

I went to Cassowary House for three days, which was quite nice and I am now back in Cairns. I havent got any lists to hand, as I'm in a dingy city-centre internet cafe and everything is back at the hostel I'm staying at (Castaways in Sheridan Street - a dear little place, highly recommended). I'm in Cairns for another week before flying to Sydney.

I did manage to - easily - see the Southern Cassowaries, both the male and the much larger female (she's a big bird, standing head high to me, and I am not short) plus Victoria's Riflebird, Helmeted Friarbird, Red-necked Crake, Macleay's Honeyeater, Spotted Catbird (makes a sound like a catfight), and others which I can't remember off the top of my head.
I had two geckos in my room, a little one which lived on the ceiling and a much larger, foot long one, which lived behind the fridge. Unfortunately I didn't see much of the bigger one, he preferred to remain mostly out of sight. I had the misfortune to be visited by a large black huntsman spider the first night, it took me ages to gather the courage to evict it, using a large glass. It wasn't a big one, as hunstmen go, but at three inches across, plenty (too) big for me. It was duly turfed out.

Went for a walk down Black Mountain Road (dropped off 3km up the road from Cassowary House) and walked back. Unfortunately the heavens opened and I got both soaking wet, then boiled when the sun came out, and plastered in mud. I saw very little and was not happy when I got back. The sole addition to the list was a Barred Cuckoo-shrike.

I don't know if this is the tail-end of the Wet season or not, but Queensland isn't living up to its Sunshine State tag - it's done nothing but chuck it down for days.

I have been stung for $164 to change my Qantas ticket. Austravel told me that it would be GBP50 (why can't foreign keyboards have a pound sign on them? Ours in the UK have $ signs and even, in some cases, Euro signs!) or $100 to change the ticket but what they didn't say was that Qantas would relieve me of another $64 for the privilege. The reason I changed my ticket is that I am burning through dosh quicker than if I'd chucked it on a fire. I knew Australia had got more expensive since my visit in 1997, but what I didn't realise was just HOW expensive - I bought some groceries the other day, just a few items, and it came to an outrageous $23. In some cases it's even worse than rip-off Britain - and the Aussies are rightly complaining.
So, I am leaving Australia on 26th May instead of 12th June. However, because of Thailand's visa rules my flight to London  has also had to be brought forward so, unless I can be bothered to change it again, I'll probably be going home a couple of weeks early. No bad thing, as I want some money left to get my car back on the road (needs MOT) to look for a job - what jobs are left after the latest round of redundancies, the Isle of Wight has had a real hammering recently, I'm told.

[caption id="attachment_157" align="alignnone" width="640" caption="Southern Cassowary"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_158" align="alignnone" width="479" caption="Male Victoria's Riflebird - my first ever Bird of Paradise"][/caption]

Cairns

Very busy couple of days here in Cairns. Went birding round Cairns, including the local Cemetery, Centenary Lakes and the Esplanade yesterday with Tony (a UK birder who moved to Cairns 2 years ago) and today we went to Lake Barrine and Picnic Crossing Road (near Yungaburra), courtesy of local birder and guide John, which meant the list grew quite nicely.

Cairns:

Yellow Oriole
Brown Honeyeater
Bush Stone-curlew
Rainbow Bee-eater
Figbird
Brush Cuckoo
Fig Parrot
Scrub Fowl
Dusky Honeyeater
Yellow Honeyeater
Spangled Drongo
Large-billed Gerygone
Straw-necked Ibis
White-breasted Woodswallow
White-bellied Cuckoo-shrike
Black Butcherbird
Little Kingfisher
Wandering Whistling-duck
Osprey
Intermediate Egret
Australian Goshawk
White-rumped Swiftlet
Great White Egret
Black-fronted Dotterel
Red-capped Plover
Gull-billed Tern
Caspian Tern
Bar-tailed Godwit
Whimbrel
Varied Honeyeater
Masked Lapwing
Red-necked Stint
Royal Spoonbill
Spice Finch (also known as Nutmeg Mannikin)
Metallic Starling (or Shining Starling)
Rainbow Lorikeet
Yellow-bellied Sunbird (aka Olive-backed Sunbird)

 Other animals: Mudskipper; Spectacled Flying Foxes (very pretty)

Lake Barrine and Picnic Crossing Road (birding was a bit quiet today):
White-bellied Sea-eagle
Large-billed Scrub-wren
Brown Gerygone
Lewin's Honeyeater
Eastern Spinebill
Eastern Whipbird (great views, normally hard to see)
Little Shrike-thrush
White-throated Treecreeper
Pied Currawong
Grey-headed Robin
Spectacled Monarch
Pale-yellow Robin
Forest Kingfisher
Sacred Kingfisher
Brush Turkey
Pied Monarch
Red-browed Firetail
Leaden Flycatcher
Black Kite
Spotted Harrier
Other animals: Agile Wallaby and Duck-billed Platypus.

I am off to Cassowary House tomorrow for three nights before coming back to Cairns for a week - I want more photos of those gorgeous Bee-eaters! - then I am flying (no more bloody coaches!) to Sydney. I am planning to go to the Warrumbungles, Wollongong and Sydney before flying home via Asia.

Can I get another 362 species to get to 1000 birds on my life list?

Photos!

I have managed to edit and uploaded some photos, courtesy of my friend Tony in Cairns. I used his Mac to edit them so, as I have never used a Mac in my life before, they might be not quite as well edited as I'd like, but they're on line and looking pretty much okay if a bit big.

If you click on my Flickr RSS link to the right, you'll see them. Click on 'More Photos' to go straight there or go to www.flickr.com/photos/v_birder