Tropical Birding in North Queensland

Morning pickup from your Cairns hotel and a drive north to the Daintree River for a private wildlife cruise. The rainforest grows to the water's edge here and the small mangrove creeks running off the main river are the best chance on the tour for great-billed heron, one of the world's largest herons and a bird that was treated as a phantom by birdwatchers until cruises started working these creeks. Little kingfisher, azure kingfisher, Papuan frogmouth and black bittern are the other targets, with saltwater crocodile, green tree snake and water dragon along the banks. Lunch is at the Daintree Tea House, then the road crosses into the Kuku Yalanji rainforest country of Kaba Kada and on to Cape Tribulation (Kulki), where the valley sits inside a semicircle of hills below Mount Sorrow (850 m) and Mount Hemmant (1,000 m). The mangrove and rainforest boardwalks here are among the more reliable places to see southern cassowary in the wild, with Wompoo fruit-dove, yellow-breasted boatbill, pied monarch, shining flycatcher, Australian little bittern and white-bellied sea-eagle also on the list. Late-afternoon arrival at Kingfisher Park. Overnight: Kingfisher Park Birdwatchers Lodge, Julatten. Meals: L/D.

The morning is spent on the Kingfisher Park grounds and in the Julatten area. The property is a Land for Wildlife sanctuary with around 230 bird species recorded within a 1.5 km radius, and every one of the 13 Wet Tropics endemics is within 15km travel distance. Red-necked crake works the creek and Crake Pond, pale-vented bush-hen turns up in long grass anywhere on the property, and there is a resident platypus in the stream at the bottom of the block. Noisy pitta, red-browed finch, Macleay’s, yellow-spotted and graceful honeyeaters, pale-yellow robin, little shrike-thrush, yellow-breasted boatbill, black-faced and spectacled monarchs, cicadabird and spotted catbird are all resident. The afternoon climbs Mount Lewis (pending access), half an hour from the lodge, where the road runs up into cool upland rainforest and grassy clearings. This is the day’s best chance at Victoria’s riflebird, Bower’s shrike-thrush, mountain thornbill and bridled and Lewin’s honeyeaters, with topknot pigeon, brown cuckoo-dove and Wompoo and superb fruit-doves in the canopy. The clearings here are the most reliable site in the country for blue-faced parrot-finch, though that bird is a wet-season visitor and generally present from about November to April. After dark there is optional spotlighting for barking, sooty and barn owls, with Papuan frogmouth usually heard before it is seen, and Boyd’s forest dragon and northern leaf-tailed gecko both common. Striped and green ringtail possum, white-tailed tree rat and long-nosed and northern brown bandicoot are also about. Overnight: Kingfisher Park Birdwatchers Lodge. Meals: B/L/D.

Check out of Kingfisher Park and move on to the Atherton Tablelands, with the country shifting from highland rainforest through savannah woodland into Mabi forest. Mabi is rare to drive through: a complex notophyll vine forest found almost only on these Tablelands, listed as critically endangered, with about 4% of its original extent left, and most of that in remnants under 5 ha. The morning works the back roads, farms, swamps and creeks around Mareeba for magpie goose, black-necked stork, brolga, sarus crane, Australian bustard and comb-crested jacana on the water lilies, with laughing and blue-winged kookaburras, honeyeaters, robins, thrushes, monarchs, flycatchers and wagtails throughout. The afternoon is at Granite Gorge for the Mareeba rock-wallaby, a species only recognised as separate in 1992 and restricted to a scatter of ranges in the highlands west of Cairns. The granite outcrops and riparian grassland around them hold red-backed fairywren, squatter pigeon, crested pigeon, rainbow bee-eater, dollarbird, treecreepers and pardalotes. Late-afternoon arrival at Chambers Wildlife Lodge. Overnight: Chambers Wildlife Lodge, Lake Eacham. Meals: B/L/D.

A day on the Atherton Tablelands, the upland counterpart to the coastal Daintree rainforest, on freshwater creek trails and walking tracks through mesophyll vine forest. The morning is at Hasties Swamp, a 57 ha seasonal wetland with a two-storey bird hide built in 2001 and identification signage inside it. 202 bird species have been recorded here. Plumed whistling-ducks gather in the thousands, and sarus crane and brolga come through in October and November. The afternoon is in Mount Hypipamee National Park, one of the best places anywhere for golden bowerbird at its bowers, and good for southern cassowary. Eastern spinebill, grey-headed and pale-yellow robins, Lewin’s and bridled honeyeaters, chowchilla, spotted catbird and tooth-billed bowerbird are all here. Five of the 13 endemics can be found in this one park: golden bowerbird, tooth-billed bowerbird, bridled honeyeater, grey-headed robin and chowchilla. The crater itself is a diatreme, a volcanic pipe blown through granite by a gas explosion, almost 70m across, with sheer walls dropping 58m to a lake more than 70m deep and covered in green native waterweed. Evening spotlighting at Mount Hypipamee for green ringtail, Herbert River ringtail, lemuroid ringtail and brushtail possums, with a chance of Lumholtz’s tree-kangaroo. Overnight: Chambers Wildlife Lodge. Meals: B/L/D.

Check out of Chambers Wildlife Lodge and walk the crater-lake country around Lake Barrine (Barany) and Lake Eacham (Yidyam), both maars formed by steam explosions and ringed by rainforest tracks ranging from 30 minutes to two hours. The guide picks the walk to suit the day’s target species. Tooth-billed bowerbird, spotted catbird, Victoria’s riflebird, double-eyed fig-parrot, Australian king-parrot, white-throated treecreeper, yellow-throated scrubwren, chowchilla, eastern whipbird, black-faced, white-bellied and barred cuckoo-shrikes, pale-yellow and grey-headed robins, black-faced and spectacled monarchs and grey fantail are all in this area. The Peterson Creek Wildlife and Botanical walking track runs through the middle of Yungaburra and is one of the better places on the Tablelands for platypus, with Lumholtz’s tree-kangaroo in the creekside trees if the day goes well. The drive back to Cairns arrives at your hotel around 5pm. Meals: B/L.