Plenty of places to go birding!!

The iron roof was pinging a fair bit overnight and again this morning.  That was reflected in the small dog being very uninterested in going for a walk this morning.  So she got returned home and Frances and I walked on our own.

This huge yellow flower was interesting, but a nonny mouse!

 This blurry photo - due to rain not poor focusing  - shows a male Scarlet Honeyeater (I refuse, with passion, to call them Scarlet Myzomelas, whatever the hell that means to anyone except a taxonomist) on some Grevillea.

Note the raindrops on the foliage!

I had a very pleasant chat with Alan Gillanders (of Alan's Birding Tours) in which he mentioned seeing 2 Barred Cuckooshrikes fly out of the Mathers Rd Fig tree (planted 26 years ago by his wife).
I ascertained that I hadn't missed them by much and took off to visit a site listed in the Birds of the Wet Tropics which had a lot of good stuff.

This is Rose Gums Wilderness Retreat and was on the far side of Lake Eacham.  The drive there was livened up a lot by seeing a Pale-vented Bush-Hen running across the road and along the verge.  A big lifetime tick!  It was travelling pretty well so I didn't get a snap.  A Forest Kingfisher was more obliging.

 I got to Rose Gums and went to reception to ask if I could go birding there (expecting the answer to be "Yes, here is where the goodies are.")  Instead I scored "No, we are an accommodation business."  I expressed some surprise at this as they were in the book and was told "There are plenty of other places to go birding." I have suggested to the author of the book that he removes references to this site from any later edition. I am advised that this was a very unexpected reaction and possibly due to the owners being away.  However I suggest to any readers of this blog that they enquire closely before staying here if they have birding on their mind.

On the way out I finally got a photo of a Cattle Egret on a bovine!

When I got back to Yungaburra Frances was just heading out for a walk with Tammy, in celebration of the rain stopping.  I went along and as we headed back past another tree full of figs,  There was a moderate sized dark bird in one of them.  Yes!! Barred Cuckooshrike - another lifer!

Back home I managed to get my first reptile image of the trip.

Thanks to the Atlas of Living Australia I am game to call this as Carlia rubrigularis the Red-throated Rainbow Skink'

Some entities took it upon themselves to improve the acceleration of said skinks!

• Bird of the day: Barred Cuckooshrike won over Pale-vented Bush-hen as I got a far better view of the former.  The ubiquitous Masked Lapwing won a prize in the flock category
• Vegetation of the day:  Fig trees along Mather Rd.
• Memorable moment:  Not really: a quiet day.
• Comment of the day: See title of post>  I couldn't believe this attitude from a place apparently flaunting their environmental tourism credentials.
• Pie of the day: Quincan cafe again.  They had run out of steak pies and I took Vegetarian Pie as a second prize.  It was quite tasty and lotsa filling but just not as good as the meaty sample from Saturday.  I rate it as about 6.5, mainly because it wasn't to my taste.
• Troppo moment of the day.  This was tough as one could give the receptionist at Rose Gums a third award on the basis that she must have been out in the sun too long.  But it was still raining!  So no award today.

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