O'Reilly's & Lamington National Park 10/21-10/23--14 Life Birds, 1 Year Bird

CRIMSON ROSELLAS (click photo to enlarge)

We arrived at O'Reilly's Rainforest Retreat, atop the Lamington Plateau, in the late afternoon, just as the sun was about to set. O'Reilly's has an interesting history. It was originally settled when the Australian government was giving away land, which provoked a backlash which caused all the area around the O'Reilly's to be proclaimed Lamington National Park, effectively isolating the family since the government also reneged on the road they had promised to build. Eventually, a timber baron built his own road and the O'Reilly's turned their farm into a resort. The road itself is winding, one lane in many parts and seems endless, but the birds are worth the travel and travail of getting there.

We spent two full days there (3 nights, which was a luxury in terms of packing and unpacking) and much of that time was just spent on our porches, feeding the exceedingly tame CRIMSON ROSELLAS, Australian King Parrots, REGENT BOWERBIRDS, Satin Bowerbirds, Lewin's Honeyeaters, and extremely aggressive Pied Currawongs and Australian Brushturkeys. The drill is to cut up a banana and place the disks along the railing of your porch. The birds quickly find the food. I have to admit I felt a little queasy about feeding the wildlife until I realized it is really no different than having feeders at home. It's just that there the birds are so inured to people that your presence has no effect on them, whereas here, a chickadee will flee if I get too close to the feeder. 

The birds are also not particularly picky about what they eat--when we had no banana, I put out a row of mixed nuts (they were pretty stale when we bought them) and the birds, as they saying goes, ate 'em up. A Regent Bowerbird was also determined to eat the cheddar cheese I was trying to snack on. And woe betide you if you had no food. When we got up the next morning, I pulled away the shutters over the glass door and there at the foot of it was a rosella, just waiting to be fed. 

Regent Bowerbird

LZ with King Parrots

There are also a number of trails around the retreat, one of which is elevated into the tree tops. Walking around those trails we were treated to new birds like AUSTRALIAN LOGRUNNER, WHITE-BROWED SCRUBWREN, and pretty good looks at the elusive ALBERT'S LYREBIRD.

One evening, Kim, Mike and I went out looking for nightbirds and while we didn't see any, we did hear MARBLED FROGMOUTH (a kind of nightjar), SOUTHERN BOOBOOK (an owl, which we did see the next night) and my year Barn Owl. You don't think of Barn Owls as being in a rain forest, so at first we were stymied until Glen (our guide for the Kerry Valley) identified it for us when we saw him on the road, also owling. As he pointed out, there are lots of farms hidden away behind the tall stands of eucalypts. 

We made a few trips into Lamington National Park, where the best bird we saw was the PARADISE RIFLEBIRD (our 2nd bird of paradise on the trip). And more honeyeaters, confusingly named.

A photograph of Mike photographing a King Parrot

Probably the hardest bird for us to find was the NOISY PITTA. Easy to hear (sort of sounds like a slow whipporwill, in reverse no less), hard to see, but Kim was able to find one for Mike and me and we got good looks but no photos.

The easiest bird to both see and hear was the Eastern Whipbird. If you are unlucky enough to be standing near one at ear level, it sounds like someone shot a gun off near your head. 

We also saw our second bower of the trip, this one built by the Satin Bowerbird, which only wants blue objects for its bower. So any blue bottlecaps in the area are immediately swept up by these birds who put them in front of the archway they build with sticks.

                                                                                              Satin Bowerbird bower (click to enlarge)  

Satin Bowerbird

AUSTRALIAN LOGRUNNER

While there aren't a tremendous number of birds to see in the area, we managed to see almost all of what you'd expect to find. We had 43 species for the stay. 

Species                               First Sighting Australian Brushturkey   O’Reilly’s WHITE-HEADED PIGEON   O’Reilly’s Brown Cuckoo-Dove   O’Reilly’s Wonga Pigeon   O’Reilly’s Brush Cuckoo   Lamington National Park MARBLED FROGMOUTH   Lamington National Park Barn Owl   Lamington National Park SOUTHERN BOOBOOK   Lamington National Park Laughing Kookaburra   Lamington National Park Sulphur-crested Cockatoo   Lamington National Park Australian King-Parrot   O’Reilly’s CRIMSON ROSELLA   O’Reilly’s NOISY PITTA   O’Reilly’s ALBERT'S LYREBIRD   O’Reilly’s Green Catbird   O’Reilly’s REGENT BOWERBIRD   O’Reilly’s Satin Bowerbird   O’Reilly’s White-throated Treecreeper   Lamington National Park Variegated Fairywren   Lamington National Park Superb Fairywren   O’Reilly’s Eastern Spinebill   O’Reilly’s Lewin's Honeyeater   O’Reilly’s WHITE-THROATED HONEYEATER   Lamington National Park WHITE-NAPED HONEYEATER   Lamington National Park Noisy Friarbird   Lamington National Park Yellow-throated Scrubwren   O’Reilly’s WHITE-BROWED SCRUBWREN   O’Reilly’s LARGE-BILLED SCRUBWREN   O’Reilly’s Brown Thornbill   O’Reilly’s Brown Gerygone   O’Reilly’s AUSTRALIAN LOGRUNNER   O’Reilly’s Eastern Whipbird   O’Reilly’s Pied Currawong   O’Reilly’s Gray Shrikethrush   O’Reilly’s Golden Whistler   Lamington National Park Rufous Fantail   O’Reilly’s Gray Fantail   O’Reilly’s Torresian Crow   Lamington National Park PARADISE RIFLEBIRD   Lamington National Park Eastern Yellow Robin   O’Reilly’s Welcome Swallow   O’Reilly’s BASSIAN THRUSH   O’Reilly’s Red-browed Firetail   O’Reilly’s

Superb Fairywren contrasted against model of airplane which famously crashed, leaving only 2 survivors who were found after a two day trek by Bernard O'Reilly, after being presumed hopelessly lost in the rain forest, an incident which metaphorically put O'Reilly's on the map. The model of the airplane was one used in a movie made about the heroic rescue.