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Sunday, January 27, 2013

Queensland, Jan 2013

A quick side-trip up to Cairns for me coincided with the arrival on the coast of the tail end of Cyclone Oswald: cue four days of torrential rain. Not the best conditions for seeking out any of the higher altitude endemics, but never mind. Rainforest is supposed to be rainy, right?

My last morning was dry, a gave a hint at what could have been... three entirely new families* of bird for me, before breakfast! Not that I'm complaining... how could I, with wonderful things like Buff-breasted Paradise Kingfisher or Southern Cassowary appearing in front of me, plus birds high up on my personal wish-list such as Comb-crested Jacana, Magpie Goose and Green Pygmy-Goose (completing the set), and some great new mammals too.


 
 A female Victoria's Riflebird at breakfast on the last morning: my first Bird of Paradise, a definite highlight.

a slightly (!!) soggy Black Butcherbird

Musky Rat-Kangaroo: the Queensland equivalent of Agoutis
 Mareeba Rock Wallaby: a Queensland endemic with a very limited range, but amazingly simple to see. 

 Little Red Flying Fox. They're little and they're red. And they hang out in their thousands around the Centennial Lakes in Mareeba (plus smaller numbers in the Flying Fox camp in Cairns)

Spectacled Flying Fox, Cairns

( *those three new families being Paradisaeidae, Machaerirhynchidae and Orthonychidae, for the taxonomy geeks out there...)

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