I and the Bird #75

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Mount Molloy

Far North Queensland was built on tin and copper, gold and wolfram.

James Venture Mulligan, an Irish immigrant, discovered the most important ore deposits in the Far North. In 1873, following directions given by explorer William Hann, he confirmed the presence of gold on the Palmer River.

It was Mulligan's party that proved the Palmer payable, a river of gold, thus causing the mighty rush which within a few short months saw a fleet of ships within the mouth of a far northern river that had barely seen a ship since Captain Cook beached his stricken Endeavour there. Little did Captain James Cook dream … that this wild, outlandish spot would one day be called Cooktown, the broad river mouth packed with vessels of all descriptions, from the new cities of the south and even from China, brought there by the most romantic gold rush in Australia's history.

Ion Idriess, Back o' Cairns

Mulligan discovered alluvial tin in the Wild River (1875), which led to the founding of Herberton, more gold in the Hodgkinson fields (1876) and silver in what became known as Silver Valley (1880).

Thirty years after his first big discovery, he gave away the nomadic life of a prospector. He married and became a pub landlord in Mount Molloy, a town founded on copper ore. It was probably a relief for him to live in a town that wasn't connected with one of his finds.

There seems to be confusion over the identity of Mulligan's pub. Mount Molloy locals say it was the Pioneer Hotel, which no longer stands. The Queensland Environmental Protection Agency's book on heritage trails of the North identifies it as the National Hotel, which is still open for business on the main street. So here are some photos of what may be — but is probably not — the right pub.

The National Hotel, built in 1903

By this time, John Moffat — another big name in the Far North's mining history — had taken over the Mount Molloy Copper Mining Company. After establishing a tramway to transport ore to Chillagoe, he found that the smelters there were unsuitable. He then built smelters on site at Mount Molloy and also opened a saw mill.

Remains of the sawmill boiler

Things went well for a few years. The town prospered under a series of copper booms and construction of the railway south to Biboohra promised greater things to come. (Not for James Mulligan, unfortunately, who was killed while trying to stop a brawl between railway workers at his hotel.)

Memorial for James Venture Mulligan in Mount Molloy Cemetery

But the copper ore was running out and the smelters were finally shut down in 1909. After that, Mount Molloy persisted as a timber and railway town with a dwindling population. Closure of the sawmill in 1963 and the railway in 1964 almost finished it off. Now Mount Molloy is thriving again as an agricultural centre and tourist destination.

Spectacled monarch

Kingfisher Park near Julatten in Far North Queensland boasts a bird list as long as your arm. Being the world's second worst bird watcher, I only ticked off a thumb's worth but I was happy with that. The spectacled monarch (Monarcha trivirgatus), an active and attractive flycatcher, is one of the more frequently encountered species on the list.

Did I say it was active? I spent the best part of an hour trying to snap this fellow as he darted and danced through the foliage above my head. I got him in the end. Sort of.






The next day, one of the little charmers perched on the back of a chair as I had my breakfast on the patio. Who says birds don't have a sense of humour?

How could I resist?

Now I'm back in mobile phone range, I'll try to catch up on the bits I've missed



Abattoir Swamp is just off the Rex Highway, which runs between Mount Molloy and Mossman. It's only a few minutes drive from Kingfisher Park (more of which later). A boardwalk leads to a hide overlooking a small wetland with reeds and paperbark and a Persian carpet of Azolla.



There wasn't much in the way of avian life when I first visited, which made me wonder whether the sign saying 'bird hide' was actually an instruction. Still, the paperbarks and grevilleas were in flower so I switched my attention to them. They can't play hide and seek, after all.

View from the hide

Paperbark

Grevillea pteridifolia

Grevillea that I should be able to name but can't

Callistemon

Yellow-faced honeyeater

Intermediate egret

Forest kingfisher

That first trip was in the early afternoon and most birds were having a siesta somewhere. But I went back early the next day and the place was ringing.

Rainbow bee-eaters at dawn

White-throated honeyeater on mistletoe

Also present but not posing for the camera were dusky honeyeaters, which make up for their lack of colour (they're lignite brown all over) with their delicate curved beaks and boisterous nature, and scarlet honeyeaters, with their Christmas red front ends. So not a bad haul.

Undara

Am at Undara. Unfortunately, I can only get an internet connection through my mobile phone if I hold the phone above my head, like a contemporary version of the Statue of Liberty.

I'll be able to post again once I get back to the coast on Thursday. Which, incidentally, is my birthday. I think. I'm now in the sort of state where the only two questions I ask are 'what day is it?' and 'have I gone out with toothpaste round my mouth?' Except I'm not so bothered about the day. Or, now I think of it, the toothpaste, either.

______

A friend just pointed out my birthday is on Wednesday. I knew it was sometime in May.

Possum surprise

I was expecting sugar gliders but there were none around. Nary a glider to be seen. They must have all been down at the Lake Eacham Hotel, knocking back a few cleansing ales after a hard day's sleep. Instead, I saw something that I really wasn't anticipating — something more exciting than a sugar glider — a striped possum (Dactylopsila trivirgata).

Although widespread in NE Queensland (it also occurs in New Guinea), this species is not seen often. Certainly not by me. I feel privileged to have come face to face with one, even if the feeling wasn't reciprocated. The possum was rather less impressed by me than I was by it.

Striped possums demonstrate a beaut adaptation. The fourth finger is skinny and elongated, similar to that of an aye-aye. It's used in much the same way — for winkling out beetle larvae from wood. They are not exclusively larvivores (did I just make that up?) and feed on a wide range of foods, including the sweet liquid used to bring in sugar gliders. (When they're not down at the pub.)








Later on, the next shift turned up — a bandicoot and a white-tailed rat. See if you can work out which is which. (There's no prize, so don't try too hard.)

Lake Eacham

I've been doing the Lake Eacham circuit each morning. It's only 3km and is mostly flat, so isn't a terribly arduous walk, but it takes about an hour with frequent stops for watching the birds and admiring the scenery. It seems to be popular with the locals who power walk around the lake. It's certainly a good place for the morning constitutional.

Not being here with a botanist — or any botany books — I have no idea about the plants. So I'll just put up some pics and you can appreciate the vibe of the landscape if not the details. Before you look at the photos get this in your mind — it's humid, pleasantly mild and the birds are singing like crazy in the canopy …

Above and below: Bleeding heart, the food plant of the massive Hercules moth

Everyone loves cauliflory

Cunjevoi (not the sea squirt kind)

Wild ginger

New leaves

Old leaves

Sulphur-crested cockatoo …

… making a galah of itself at Hasties Swamp.

I'm ready for my close up

I like travelling on my own but occasionally I think it would be handy to have someone riding shotgun to draw my attention to things I miss when I'm concentrating on the road. I'm picturing the scene from Twister where Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton — Pullman? No, it's Paxton, isn't it? Anyway, it's some Bill with a two-syllable surname beginning with P and ending with n — are driving through the rain of tornado-supplied debris. Only on the Atherton Tablelands it would be 'Jabiru! Cattle egret! Policeman with radar gun!' (Not that any of these are being hurled out of the sky by a violently rotating wind but you get the idea.)

So I guess I miss a lot. But not everything. (I did, in fact, see all those listed above.) And early on Sunday morning I saw this — a pair of bush stone-curlews hanging around at the edge of a maize field on the road that runs past the Curtain Fig.



When disturbed, stone-curlews usually freeze, relying on their superb camouflage to hide them from predators. Unfortunately, those big yellow eyes are a giveaway. So confident was this bird it let me approach close enough to take its portrait. You can see the reflection of the road, the canopy of an overhanging tree and me in its eye.



I'm curious about the blue-grey in its feathers. All the birds I've seen (almost all of them in Townsville) have been shades of brown, so I'm not sure if that's the true colour or an artifact of the morning light.

Circus of the Spineless #32

The latest edition is up at Deep Sea News. It's a work of art!

Birding from the balcony

I don't have to move from my accommodation to see birds. Here's the list so far from the chair (in no particular order). The ones with E after their names are endemic to the Wet Tropics.

• Golden whistler
• Grey fantail
• Grey-headed robin (E)
• Brush turkey
• Pale-yellow robin
• Eastern whipbird
• Brown gerygone
• Spotted catbird
• Spectacled monarch
• Bower's shrike thrush (E)
• Orange-footed scrub fowl (heard)
• King parrot
• Lewin's honeyeater

And here are some photos taken from the comfort of said chair on balcony.

Golden whistler

Grey-headed robin

Spotted catbird

Female leaden flycatcher (Myiagra rubecula)

While I was watching the plumed whistling ducks at Hasties Swamp, this one landed on the tree in front of me and snatched a dragonfly out of the air. I think the insect was the only one not entertained.

Signs and portents

And they do too although I've never seen them.

On the road to Curtain Fig, near Yungaburra

Lucky they're nocturnal, otherwise they might have to contend with bike riders on what seems to have been the Tour de Atherton Tableland. 'Tableland' sounds as if it might nice and flat and … well … like a table. And it is like a table, if you include the legs. Some of those hills are long and steep and the riders suffered.

Checking messages

Just to let you know that I'm reading comments whenever I can, so please don't think I'm ignoring you! Internet access is still on and off. I uploaded the most recent posts from the hide at Hasties Swamp, hoping that no one would visit while I had the laptop, mobile phone, binoculars and camera spread out over the benches. I should have put the GPS there too so it looked as if I were engaged in interestin' research or summat.

Will also update the bird list when I get a chance.

Off to Julatten tomorrow. But it will be a couple of days before those posts start because I'm still uploading photos from the Tablelands.

Mangrove invertebrates

Mangrove swamps teem with invertebrates. You don't have to go very far in to discover that. Insects make themselves known the moment you step under the canopy. Green tree ants. Mosquitoes. Sand flies. All your blood are belong to us. (Although, strictly speaking, the ants don't feed on blood. But they would, you know, if they could ...)

Green tree ants (Oecophylla smaragdina)

Butterflies are abundant in the sunny patches, especially when the trees are in flower. The orange mangrove (Bruguiera) is near the end of its flowering period but there are enough blossoms to keep both the insects and the friarbirds happy.

Eggfly (Hypolimnas)

Orange mangrove (Bruguiera) flower

But most of the animal life loves the mud. Every footfall and shadow sends crabs scurrying into their burrows. The most noticeable are the maroon mangrove crabs (Perisesarma messa) with their burgundy-coloured claws and eyes like pearls. They aren't as nervous as the other species, so they hang around for longer before finally diving into burrows or scuttling under logs. Even so, they're not easy to photograph in the gloom of the forest — dark glistening carapace against dark glistening mud.

Maroon mangrove crabs

At the water's edge, orange-clawed fiddler crabs (Uca coarctata) pick through the mud for tasty tidbits.

Orange-clawed fiddler crab

Perhaps the most obvious crustaceans are the ones you never see. Snapping shrimp make popping and clicking noises from their burrows in the mud. They're distributed throughout the mangroves but down in the Rhizophora zone, where the mud is sloppy and moist, they perform like an orchestra of percussionists.

Here be snapping shrimp

Molluscs are also plentiful. And they don’t move as fast as crabs. The most obvious species are Terebralia and Telescopium, which graze on the microscopic algae on the surface of the mud. Other species live among the tree roots or on the leaves in the canopy.

Terebralia

Snails aren't the only things you sometimes find in the canopy …

Hasties Swamp …

… near Atherton is a remnant of the Nyleta Wetlands. Just under 60 ha of swamp and surrounding woodland is conserved as national park.

Views from the hide

It's rich pickings for birdos and Birds Australia North Queensland has recorded 230 species from the area. I didn't get quite as many.

Plumed whistling ducks (Dendrocygna eytoni)

Bookends

An intermediate egret (Ardea intermedia), far enough away for a crap photo but still close enough to demonstrate that it doesn't do the weird neck thing when it's hunting unlike the great egret

Purple swamphen (Porphyrio porphyrio)

It's a big world

Pacific black duck (Anas superciliosa)

Hardheads (Aythya australis) are the new grebes

Yellow-faced honeyeater (Lichenostomus chrysops) gets curious about a leaf at just the wrong moment

Leaden flycatcher (Myiagra rubecula) poses for the camera