Sunday fun

On Sunday I went out birding with Pat in the morning and early afternoon before we all met up at Pat and Annelies for tea.
Pat had not seen Golden Bowerbird among other things so he picked me up early and we headed off to the Southern Tablelands. Having been back to the same bower several times over the last few weeks it has been fascinating watching how it has changed. When i first saw it it was completely unadorned but now it has been dressed
Start of the month

Sunday

The adult visited his bower several times whilst we were there, once to remove something and twice to bring some fresh lichen in

On one occasion he shot off from his song post above the bower and had an argument with a second male Golden Bowerbird - unfortunately I was not able to get any pictures as the argument was out of view.
We also visited an area of dry forest only 20 minutes away as there were several species that Pat had not seen either. I was hoping to get some better pictures than my last trip here but did not really manage it, although my Crested Shrike-Tit is slightly better..

What I wasn't expecting was to get a new species for me in the form of White-cheeked Honeyeater

On the drive back to Pats though we found the highlight of the trip and a species that I have been looking out for, a Lumholtz's Tree Kangaroo

The first picture is mine the other two are by Pat

When we got back to Annelies we joined the families at the local stream where the children were trying unsuccessfully to skim stones

On returning to the house the children and Tish played a version of dodgeball

Tish at times was up to her normal tricks...

A great way to end the weekend!

Cairns Festival Carnival

This weekend was the start of the Cairns festival in the form of a carnival and fireworks display. Tish and Hamish went (unfortunately Xanthe and Cameron were grounded!)
The carnival was a combination of bands, dancers and floats from local clubs

There were so many that getting them all was impossible so here are a few of the better ones

Dragon Boat Club

Chinese Dragon - the yellow one ate Hamish!!

The History of Australia

and my favourite the Great Barrier Reef - love the jellyfish!

Beautiful Bowerbirds..

Today Tish and I went back to the Southern Tablelands as she wanted to see the Golden Bowerbird so we dropped the children off at the Before School Club at 7am and headed off - before I hear shouts of poor children what about breakfast etc they have a great time with breakfast provided plus heaps to do!!
Anyway by 0845 in the words of the satnav (which we did not use) "you have reached your destination - windows up, sunnies on and dont let the seagulls steal your chips..." well not sure about the sunnies it was more a case of putting on a jumper but you get the drift....
Although it was cool the sun was out and the car park was heaving with birds. The Laurel trees around the car park still had plenty of fruit on them and some were also coming back into flower so there was a huge amount of food, although some of the residents preferred a more unnatural food source....
We wandered off to the bower site. At the start of the month the bower looked like this..

but the male has clearly been working hard and today it had changed...

the lichen and fruits were actually more green than this picture shows but the bower is in such a dark corner of the forest that in order to get any sort of picture we had to use the flash. We stood around for a couple of minutes a reasonable distance from the structure and we were just starting to wonder where the male was when Tish looked up and he had silently flown in and was inspecting us

we had to move back a bit to get the camera to focus.
He was so unconcerned that he started to sing - if you have headphones then listen carefully on the video and you can hear him call four times a very odd series of rapid knocks and buzzes
http://youtu.be/AjA6HGp5iV4

Having had such brilliant views we headed back to the car park to check out all action there and have our breakfast - fruit cake (made by Jen our neighbour) and fruit. We were sitting quietly at one of the picnic tables when we were joined by this Lewin's Honeyeater

When it first appeared the video camera was not ready and so we missed his song as we unfortunately disturbed him when we got it out of the bag. it didn't take long though for him to return and take his reward...

http://youtu.be/m99mm4TePDA

 

Most of the other birds were less photographically obliging...

 

This male Golden Whistler refused to turn round although he was a bit more helpful than this

White-throated Treecreeper

who played hide and seek around the tree trunks with me!

Back home the big news though is that our Olive Backed Sunbird has taken up residency in her nest...

Think we are going off out this evening with Alan looking for Crocs etc.....

 

Spring Days

Having been stuck inside for the most part of the last three weeks we decided  to go and do a few more of the touristy things on the Tablelands whilst the children were at school.
On Monday a return to Lake Tinaroo was the order of the day

We had visited parts of the Lake for Jens birthday party a few weeks earlier but Tish and I fancied doing the complete drive around it.
The Lake is artificial and acts as a reservoir for irrigation water for the agriculturally rich areas of the southern Tablelands.

It drains via the damn wall and the water is then circulated through a network of ditches, culverts and pipes to the areas that need it.
At times the water levels drop considerably exposing the lake bed - on these rare occasions the birding can be spectacular. At the moment the levels are still quite high and the combination of water and flooded landscape features makes a striking contrast

The views aren't bad either

From Tinaroo we took a scenic route back through some of the small settlements on the Tablelands. One of my favourite is Yungabarra that has retained its original architecture and has a very colonial feel

We ate our lunch at one of the many Platypus Viewing areas but alas we did not see even the smallest ripple

although this was probably due to the fact that it was midday and the Platypus are out at dawn and dusk!
Today we went to Mareeba. We started off at Granite Gorge

where some of the wildlife was not so wild..

...although if he thought you were going near his girls he certainly got a bit annoyed!
The highlight and main reason for going there though are the endangered Mareeba Rock Wallabies.

They are quite hard to resist and we succumbed and bought some food to dish out..

They have very gentle hands until they think you are about to take the food away and then the claws come out.
They were very photogenic and I took a short video of them as well
http://youtu.be/iU8R773EOuI

But a day out with me would not be complete without a few birds and today was no exception. The highlight was also at Granite Gorge where these clockwork Squatter Pigeons tried to get some of the Wallaby food

They were unsuccessful but did keep following us to see if there was anything left.....
http://youtu.be/mM8qXR1mMy8