Birding Cairns

We had a good Birding Cairns club outing today, with 19 people to share it. We met outside the front gate of Kingfisher Park (just over 200m a.s.l.) at 0730hrs because that is where the sun hits at that time of day. And we needed the sun after a cold foggy Tablelands morning. Keith Fisher met us there and much socialisation began but good birding soon eclipsed that.

Orange-footed Scrubfowl, Whistling & Black Kites, Bar-shouldered Dove, Brown Cuckoo Dove, Sulphur-crested Cockatoo, Scaly-breasted & Rainbow Lorikeets, Laughing Kookaburra, and Forest Kingfisher started off our list of seen and/or heard non-passerines for the day.
And the passerines seen in front of K Park was good too. Lewin's, Yellow-spotted, Graceful, Yellow-faced, Yellow, Dusky, Scarlet, White-throated, and Mcleay's Honeyeaters were all there (yes, K Park is on the ecotone between wet schlerophyll and rainforest). And Figbird, Olive-backed Oriole, Drongo, Spectacled Monarch, Pale-yellow Robin, Silvereye, Mistletoebird, Sunbird, made up list.

From there to the base of Mt Lewis we identified Pacific Black Duck, Grey Goshawk, Masked Lapwing, and Bee-eater; and especially in a short patch of rainforest at Ck, Satin Bowerbird, Brown Gerygone, Varied Triller, Grey & Rufous Whistlers, Little Shrikethrush, Bower's Shrikethrush, Yellow-breasted Boatbill, and female-plumaged Victoria's Riflebird were mostly seen very well.

We stopped here and there up the long, winding road to Mt Lewis (about 100m a.s.l.) seeing or hearing Noisy Pitta, White-throated Treecreeper, Spotted Catbird, Mountain Thornbill, Bridled Honeyeater, Chowchilla, Eastern Whipbird, and Grey-headed Robin along the way. The pitta and many calling Yellow-breasted Boatbills were a feature of the lower slopes while all the remainder were in the upper half of the mountain.