| Birding
On My Own - Australia and New Zealand 2002 Emmalee Tarry |
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Queensland North |
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The day before my trip with Chris Dahlberg, I drove to Daintree Village. The road goes through Mossman, a town large enough to have a bank and grocery stores. There is another steep drive down the Great Dividing Range. The Daintree River separates North Queensland from the York Peninsula most of which is without paved roads. There are two places to take boat trips on the Daintree. The ferry terminal is 8 km from the mouth and Daintree Village which is further up river. I arrived about 10:30 and went to the ferry terminal area.
The ferry terminal is home to several tourist oriented boat trips which operate on large flat boats. At the far end of the road I found a shaded parking lot with a ticket office shaped like a crocodile. I really didn't intend to take one of these trips, but it was already hot and muggy. What else was I going to do in the afternoon. I ended up buying a ticket on the 12 o'clock tour for AU$32
While waiting for the trip to start, I hung out at the picnic table by the ticket office chatting with Masie the ticket agent. Masie lives up on the York Peninsula and commutes to work every day on the ferry. Business was slow and Masie had plenty of time to talk. She is very interested in birds and knew most of the common birds. She gave me hints on where to bird on the road to Cape Tribulation and especially where I might have a chance for Cassowary. While we chatted I was watching for birds in the surrounding trees: Spectacled Monarch, Leaden Flycatcher, Sunbird, MacLeay's Honeyeater, Large-billed Gerygone, Fairy Gerygone.
The Daintree River area was first exploited for Red Cedars Trees some of which were 800 years old. The trees were cut up river and floated down to the ocean. In a short 20 years they were wiped out. With the trees gone, the river economy is totally dependent on tourism and sport fishing. This is the end of the tourist season so there were only about five people on the boat trip.
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Adam was both the boat driver and tour guide. In his spare
time his favorite activity is pig hunting and he has a scrapbook of pictures of
himself with dead pigs. Feral pigs are a menace to wildlife and the world needs
more pig hunters. Crocodiles are the main objective of the tourist trips and we moved from one croc to another seeing a total of five. The river is quite warm at this time of the year and the crocodiles can stay in the water rather than sunning themselves on the banks so they are actually pretty hard to find. |
| This guy fully hauled out on the mud was an exception. A
close up of his jaw is above. Notice the teeth outside the upper and lower
jaw. . I managed to see Great, Intermediate, and Little Egret, Masked Lapwing, Whimbrel, Eastern Curlew, Mangrove Striated Heron, Darter, White Ibis, White-faced Heron, Black Cormorant, Jaiburu, and Brahminy Kite. |
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I looked very hard for Great-billed Heron. I am not sure of the proper strategy for finding this bird, but I was told they had seen one several days prior to this. This turned out to be one of the big misses of the trip. The trip goes to the sand bank at the mouth of the river where we got out and walked on the beach. The beach was covered with cuttle bones from the squid fishing fleet.
Daintree Village
If you really want to see the birds you need to take an early morning trip on a quiet boat that can navigate the shallow channels of the river. Chris Dahlberg's trip leaves at 6:30 AM from the boat dock at Daintree Village. Daintree Village is very small tourist town. A Bed & Breakfast (reservations required) provides accommodations and there are several restaurants.
The campground is right next to the boat dock. The campground is under new ownership and everyone is furious about the new owner. His first act was to cut down most of the trees in order to increase the number of sites. In adding sites, he somehow managed to break the power outlets. When I arrived about 3 PM, he was gone but the sign said I could pull in and pick a site. It didn't say anything about the power not working something I figured out after trying several spots. One thing I learned here was to always test the power outlet before you get too established. Finally someone told me that the only place to get power was to go to the lower level and plug in to one of the purple extensive cords. I moved Willy down to the lower level and managed to get the last spot with a purple extension cord. It was under a lovely flowering tree with Sunbirds and Honeyeaters. Then I realized that I would have to climb up a long flight of steep stairs to get to the amenities block on the upper level. It was long after dark when the campground owner finally showed up to collect AU$10. I was too tired by then to berate him about the problem with the power. He is hopeless anyway.
Daintree Village is quite nice and I had dinner at the outdoor restaurant where the waitress filled me in on the gossip about the new campground owner. He is from Britain and quite lazy. The locals dislike him and have managed to block his getting a permanent resident status. Every 3 months he has to leave the country and then come back with a tourist visa.
This was the first I heard about the visa problem. I had applied for a 3 month visa over the internet. I assume I would be able to extend it without leaving the country. When I entered the country, immigration did not even ask about the visa. I had forgotten all about it. There certainly wasn't anything I could do about it at Daintree Village so I forgot about it again. It became an issue when I left Australia.
The campground was quiet and I watched a pair of Sunbirds in the tree over the campsite. Biting insects were not much of a problem. With only one purple extension cord, I had to choose between running the refrigerator and lights or using the fan. . As it turned out it wasn't too hot at night and I didn't need the fan.
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