The last of the 12..

Before I get on to the subject of todays little posting just to clarify something from the Sunbird post - the nest is not complete yet, when finished it forms a hanging basket and she sits inside peeping out.
Anyway moving on...
Today was a timing run for part of our Southern Tablelands tour aimed at getting as many of the twelve Wet Tropic Endemic birds as possible. We headed off to Mount Hypipamee today, I left early as I had to make sure I was back in time for the children. I am not sure what is going on with the weather this winter but having had a dry wet season we are now having a wet winter - and it was certainly wet today. Most unpleasant.
Our main target bird wise today was Golden Bowerbird - the last of the endemics that I had not seen. Hypipamee is relatively speaking quite high altitude and as such is considerably colder as we had found out to our cost when we visited in late April - this time we were prepared long trousers, jumper and waterproof coat were the order of the day.
Our information was that the place to look was on the forest edge along the entrance track but despite much searching we could not find the active bower. I suspect that in another few weeks when the male is more territorial we will be able to locate it. I had been joking with Tony that as we had not seen Cassowary when we did our recce last week that we would probably be tripping over them today as they do occur in these forests. Much to our surprise my prediction turned out to be completely accurate as we saw not one but two adult Cassowary at very close range, the second individual we almost literally tripped over him as we nipped into the forest no more than ten metres from the track to find ourselves nose to beak with a rather startled male! Needless to say we retreated in an orderly manner and having put a nice tree between us and him settled back to enjoy prolonged views of him. He was completely unconcerned and after a while we backed out and left him in peace, only to find him following us down the track five minutes later. He decided to make up for his good temper the first time and started to get a little bit feisty with us so we retreated further until he disappeared back into the forest.
Unfortunately I only had my camera phone so the images are not up to my normal standard..

My phone does take video but in my haste to get out of his way I managed to miss this opportunity to get some footage - oh well next time!
The rain did eventually ease up for about 30 minutes which was enough to get three species of Bowerbird actively feeding - Spotted Catbird (yes I know its called a Catbird but it is a Bowerbird); Tooth-billed Bowerbird and the target for today two female types and a male Golden Bowerbird
The yellow blob in the middle is a Bowerbird not a soft toy

Having got our main target we moved on to a couple more sights including Hasties Swamp which was alive with ducks

The majority were Plumed and Wandering Whistling-Ducks and Magpie Geese.
Mixed in were at least 80 Pink-eared Ducks

These attractive little ducks are very nomadic and rarely reach this part of Queensland in any number so it was great to see them. Mixed in with the the commoner species was also a single Freckled Duck - this is one of Australia's rarest ducks and this individual (which has been around for several weeks) is I think the first one to be recorded in North Queensland. It was unfortunately far too distant for me to get any pictures of it!
Tomorrow I am a steward at the Cairns Show - raising funds for Hamish's Cub Pack, should be interesting!