The Land Down Under, the Outback, and Oz are all names that ring a bell for me. Australia has always fascinated me. As a small child, I sat cross-legged in front of our TV, watching a show on the Platypus. It is where the Tasmanian Devil lives; it is just in Tasmania now. Eucalyptus, Melaleuca, and plants from ancient Gondwana grow there. In graduate school, we studied evolution and all that continent’s marsupials and unique birds. I had never thought I’d get to see the place and all its distinctive inhabitants. Then, in 2012, it took on even more importance when my daughter and son-in-law moved to Sydney. I’ve been lucky enough to visit several times.
In 2023, I was blessed with a granddaughter. I planned a visit and decided to schedule a four-week birding trip in the middle. This break would let me see how much my granddaughter had changed in a month and let me explore more of my daughter’s adopted country. After a period in Sydney, I flew to Cairns to meet two friends and our guide, Jonathan Munro. We would begin a three-week loop around Northern Queensland, traveling halfway up Cape York before flying back to Cairns.
The Trip
The goal was to learn more about the country’s ecology and find birds, crocodiles, reptiles, insects, and plants. We planned stops in tropical forests, dry sclerophyll forests, open plains, and even the Great Barrier Reef. Over the coming months, I will do a series of posts on this trip, visiting key sites and looking for birds and wildlife. I am working on a larger writing project and plan to develop a book based on this trip. The book will explore wildlife and birds’ ecology, evolution, and conservation status. It will consider the influence of geology, continental drift, and climate change on Australia’s ecology.
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Flat Creek Station, Georgetown
The one-lane track ran through red dirt country with low scrubby vegetation. Everything was dry-dry. This landscape was Australia’s true “outback,” as I’d imagined it. I’d just finished the novel “The Lost Man” by Jane Harper and was halfway through “The Rush,” by Michelle Prak. Both mysteries were set in interior Australia, and each had described this landscape in vivid detail. Now, I was experiencing it firsthand. We were a hundred miles west of the Dividing Range in Queensland and headed into Flat Creek Station. This cattle ranch extended over close to a hundred thousand acres, almost twice the size of Seattle or Pittsburgh. Our guide, Jonathan, had gotten permission for us to tour the property’s dirt tracks, searching for birds and marsupials.
A flash of color off the right side caused Jonathan to stop. A large water trough, maybe two feet wide and a dozen long, sat just into the scrub. The tub was full of clear water, and hundreds of Rainbow Lorikeets (see top photograph) were flitting, dashing, and grabbing drinks. A few Squatter Pigeons sipped at the left end, and a flock of Galahs hung in the trees along with some Crested Pigeons. Water is the most treasured commodity in this country. Everything centers around that simple molecule of one oxygen and two hydrogens. The owner had built this trough for his cattle, serving many birds. We pulled over to watch a while.
Australia is the land of parrots, the continent where this group of birds first evolved and then spread worldwide. The Galah is one of the most colorful species, a nectar feeder, and a good symbol of evolution on this continent. They have a mutualistic relationship with flowering plants, carrying pollen between trees and, in return, having a food source. With plenty of sunlight and carbon dioxide, it is cheap for these desert plants to make lots of sugars to feed their pollinators when water is available.
Atherton Tablelands & Cape York Peninsula
We’d spent time on the Atherton Tablelands and near Cairns before heading to the Georgetown area were we found the water trough. Later we would head onto the Cape York Peninsula where many other discoveries awaited us.
Subscribe to my blog to join me in the coming year. We would spend considerable time in tropical forests where water was always available, but here, in many respects, was the country as it is often represented.
#Australiabirds #birdphotography #Queenslandbirds #BirdingAustralia #birding #Australiawildlife #Marsupials
