Paradise Regained!!

After yesterdays wet and all too brief encounter with a Paradise-Kingfisher today I decided to go up into the Rainforest proper and search for some of the specialities that occur here.
We headed off up Black Mountain Road where we parked up and headed off into the trees...

..it was pretty clear that the birding was going to be tough!
I think the children realised this early on and although they denied it I am convinced they were working out if they could dump me and drive home without me...

Anyway it was a cheerful [ish] band that headed off into the trees to see what we could see

The forest was beautiful and so lush - especially so after traipsing through the dry woodlands of the Top End.
After a while we came to this small stream

There clearly had been a bridge once but that had collapsed a long time ago and not been rebuilt. At this time of the year it was not a problem

and I carried them across - the water was only about 4 inches deep and did not come over the top of my walking boots.
As we were walking we could hear several birds calling in the forest but unfortunately could not see any of them, it showed the importance of being able to remember bird song as I know we missed a lot.
The forest though was awash with things to look at, I particularly liked these fungi

ad virtually every pool however temporary had frogspawn in it

That said we did manage to see a selection of the birds the were hiding in the forest, but most were quite skulking in the darker shadows - possibly because that is where they feed and possibly due to the three large monkeys accompanying me!
One bird that was not skulking but was quite flighty was the Pale Yellow Robin

It never really allowed me to get close enough!
The undoubted highlight though, and the subject of the blog title was finding a male Victoria's Riflebird. This is one of the four species of Birds of Paradise that occur in Australia, and the only one that occurs close to Cairns.
It was quite showy but unfortunately spent most of the time in an area of shade and half hidden behind vegetation. I spent a while trying to get some pictures of it - obviously too long for the children who found several ways of entertaining themselves whilst trying to distract me..

and whilst it partly worked I still managed to get these very poor shots of my first Bird of Paradise - they do not do it justice it was absolutely stunning...