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Birdwatching holiday in Northern Queensland - Little Bronze Cuckoo & lunch with waterbirds! Extracts from guide Carol Iles' diary ...
Purple Swamphen by Jon Hornbuckle
The lushly vegetated Atherton Tableland, was the meeting point with my Naturetrek clients, in the historic village of Yungaburra. It was a beautiful sunny day, so after coffee we took our lunch to the shore of nearby Lake Tinaroo, a renowned birding spot. Naturally waterbirds such as Pacific Black Duck, Little Black and Little Pied Cormorants featured immediately. During lunch Australian Pelican, Wood Duck, Australian and Great Crested Grebes, Purple Swamphen and hundreds of Plumed Whistling-ducks were noted and a Caspian Tern gave us a fly-past. Brown Honeyeaters serenaded us from the flowering bushes, but the star of the show was a Little Bronze Cuckoo, which perched only a few feet away. For the encore we admired great views of a diminutive but gorgeous male Mistletoebird. A short drive along the entrance road gave us the chance to view a male Scarlet Honeyeater, beautifully camouflaged amongst the equally red Bottlebrush flowers.
Read more about our 'Birding in Queensland' holiday.