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.