hahaha. You're not the only one post random stuff for the stats. ( yes! I got another post for my year list )
I am now in Cassowary House near Kuranda after three awesome days doing different tours from Cairns. I think most people who are reading this thread have seen it already, but I have been posting minor updates in the 'Big Year' thread each day. The journey from Cairns to Kuranda was quite difficult and stressful though, the bus had to turn back to Cairns at the bottom of the mountain climb road as there had been an accident halfway up completely blocking it. Eventually we did get up though after over five hours and a lot of hassle, and it didn't help my stress that I found out the results of the Brexit vote halfway through the day... Anyway, I'm in Cassowary House now with the whole day tomorrow for birding which will hopefully include both a riflebird and a cassowary and hopefully lots more besides. It is looking like I may not be able to do any of the animal collections in Kuranda, but that can't be helped, and wild birds are my priority.
you should see riflebirds while eating breakfast Maybe even cassowary at the same time. Can you find out the current situation with their cassowary family? I think the male died a while ago - maybe hit by a car? - and I think a new male has paired with the female. I'm just remembering bits and pieces.
I look forward to breakfast then. That would be my second riflebird of the trip which would be pretty awesome. I'll try to remember to ask about the cassowaries tomorrow.
I used to have some photos in the gallery of riflebirds and catbirds and others taken from the balcony at Cassowary House during breakfast, but they must have been lost in the Great Purge as I can no longer find them.
I asked about it this morning, they have three cassowaries that visit regularly. The old twenty-something year old male that is paired with a five year old female that is only just mature and they have a second single female that has started coming regularly recently. I saw all three cassowaries this morning funnily enough They also until recently had a fourth cassowary that was last year's chick but it was killed by a car on Easter Sunday.
thanks. I must have had the old male/young female the wrong way around. I have never seen a wild cassowary - the two mornings I was at Cassowary House were the only two mornings in ages in which the cassowaries did not visit. And everywhere else I went in Queensland I was also just missing them by a day or by hours. It was frustrating...
Had a great day today doing a bit of birding and zooing. Did a morning guided bird walk around Cassowary House which was awesome and I saw my two main target birds, the Cassowary and Riflebird. Three individuals of each funnily enough. Then we decided to head in to Kuranda for lunch and to have a look around and I managed to fit in four zoos - the Koala Gardens, Venom Zoo, Birdworld, and the Butterfly Sanctuary, all of which were very nice and had some nice species and exhibits. I would have been able to fit in BatReach as well but it was closed today. Oh well, four zoos out of five isn't bad. Did a bit more birding in the evening but didn't fine anything new. I have heard but not seen both the Spotted Catbird and Orange-footed Scrubfowl which are my only target birds that I am yet to see. I have pretty much all day tomorrow to bird as my flight only departs from Cairns at 8 PM tomorrow night so I may see them yet. This evening we will be going spotlighting in the hope of finding a Striped Possum as apparently they do occur on the guesthouse grounds.
That's an animal I hoped to see when I was up that way, but no luck as I didn't really know where to look. I did see the 'White' Possums though.
Hardly saw anything at all while out spotlighting. Got a fleeting glimpse of a Long-nosed Bandicoot but aside from that only saw insects including a few big, impressive spiders. I did hear a Lesser Sooty Owl though which is a pretty cool 'bomb drop' call. I can hardly complain though after lots of successful spotlighting in Lamington National Park and on the Wait-a-while night tour. Is that the white Lemuroid Possum? That would be pretty cool to see! To be honest I would be more excited about that than a Striped Possum, especially as I have seen Plzen Zoo's striped.
I saw several scrubfowl around Centenary Lakes when I visited there. And if you have time, Cattana Wetlands just north of Cairns is pretty good for birds - I saw 23 species in just over an hour, including 8 lifers. Hix
I did look around Centenary Lakes for the Scrubfowl however I didn't manage to find them. I saw them this morning anyway (along with the Catbird) so I'm pretty pleased overall. Unfortunately I won't have time to visit Cattana Wetlands on this trip to Cairns, I'll have to save that for next time
I got back to Perth late last night and I have just over a month remaining of my time in Australia. Due to certain unfortunate circumstances I will probably not be able to do much for the next week while I'm here which will just give me time to rest and to sort out my pictures and my lifelist which has a lot of updating due.
I have now finished updating my lifelists for wild birds, mammals, and reptiles for the trip so far (including the stuff from around Perth from before going to Queensland). For birds I have seen 177 species of which 113 were lifers and 76 were Australian endemic species. I have seen 33 mammal species of which 31 were lifers, And I have seen 11 herp species (9 reptile, 2 amphibian) of which 10 were lifers which is including one skink that I am still optimistic about getting an ID for.
Your first Australian bird was #318, and your last listed one was #536 so shouldn't that be 218 species? Hix
Yep, you're right It's because I was getting the statistics from the 'My Birding' feather of hbw.com which is only re-computed every 4 hours. The actual total is 216 species of which 147 were lifers and 79 were Australian endemics. I think the discrepancy between my ZooChat total and the HBW total is taxonomic.
wow. great job with the birds. I've never been to WA or FNQ so it's killing me to see your 2016 birding updates. Keep up the good work.
