Atlas Moth

I found this Atlas Moth fluttering low over the road through the rainforest at Iron Range while driving along after watching frogmouths at night. Its wingspan was almost 30cm. 

The four panels in its wings shone in the light, but were translucent 'windows' as can be seen above where the dark of night can be seen through one and the hand of the person holding it can be seen through another.

Its feathered antennae indicate that it was male, and they are about an inch long. Its large eyes sparkle in the camera flash. And those legs are large and strong, the whole animal was strong and vigorous. It might have been injured by a passing car, but it seemed to be able to fly alright.

Frogmouths

During an overnight stop at Musgrave on the main road through Cape York I watched a pair of Tawny Frogmouths hunting. They were typical in their behaviour, by looking for prey from a perch on a low branch then swooping down to catch insects on the ground. However, they were much smaller than the birds in south-east Australia where I study them, about half the body size. The female, below, identifiable by the rufous colour on her wings, was especially small.

In the nearby Lakefield national park, I found this Papuan Frogmouth. He was roosting in a shady, thickly-leaved tree, and I was surprised when he flew away as I approached. Frogmouths usually sit very still and rely on their camouflage to conceal them from potential predators. He was immediately identifiable by his massive head and bill, and thick eyebrows. A very impressive bird.

Kingfishers

The rainforest of Iron Range is rich in kingfishers and we caught several of a few species in the mist nets. The Azure Kingfisher above and the Little Kingfisher, below hunt fish in the small slow-flowing creeks. And although they look bright and boldly coloured when in the hand, they are very easily overlooked when they perch quietly on low branches above the water, often in deep shadow, low down as they are under the rainforest canopy. 



One of the more flamboyant kingfisher species is the Buff-breasted Paradise Kingfisher, below. These birds have spectacular long white tail-streamers which flash as the birds swoop through the lower layer of the rainforest. And these birds are migrants from Papua New Guinea. They all had freshly-grown flight feathers, including their tails, which must have been grown before they flew across the sea to Cape York.

The Buff-breasted Paradise Kingfishers hunt terrestrial animals on the forest floor. And like the other species they are difficult to see except for the white flash of their tails and backs as they dash through the trees.



On the road north

Northern Queensland is crocodile country - and they are there, lying quietly, watching.....

I kept a list of birds seen on the trip and there were 222 altogether. Here is a selection of some seen on the way north.

 Plumed Whistling Ducks Dendrocygna eytoni

 White-bellied Sea-eagle Haliaeetus leucogaster

 Squatter Pigeon Petrophassa scripta

 Australian Bustard Ardeotis australis

Golden-shouldered Parrot Psephotus chyrsopterygius

These parrots are rare and vulnerable to extinction as they live a specialised life. There might be about 2000 of these birds in the wild, eight of them in this one tree. They are restricted to nesting in cavities in termite hills which they did each year, and they feed in grassy wooded savanna which is often burned. If their habitat is lost, so will they.

Bush Stone-Curlews

During the past two weeks I have been in northern Queensland, on a trip to the Iron Range national park where I was part of a group banding birds. On the way north I flew into Cairns and went bird-watching in the local botanic gardens and adjacent cemetry - a well known haunt of Bush Stone-curlews Burhinus magnirostris.

These birds forage and breed quite happily on the short turf and bare patches of earth between the gravestones. Once a familiar bird in southern Australia, the stone-curlews are now rare wherever there are red foxes. These are European predators which were deliberately introduced by man over a hundred years ago. The foxes have not yet colonised the far north-east and the stone-curlews find sanctuary in this cemetery.

 A pair of stone-curlews lead their chick through the tombstones.

A group of six stone-curlews pass the middle of the day under the shade of a tree. They are nocturnal birds and their calls at night have an eerie beauty.