We arrived at O'Reilly's on Sunday, flying in from Melbourne and then driving along the mountainous, winding, sometimes one-lane road to O'Reilly's Rainforest Retreat. When we got to the retreat, we got to room 35, where we were staying, put our bags in the room and went for an introductory talk where we were introduced to our team leaders, the O'Reilly's guides and owners of the retreat, Tim and Peter O'Reilly, as well as the guides Carmen, Duncan, Glen, Bill and Ian. After the talk we went on a walk. We saw satin bowerbirds, eastern whipbirds, lewin's honeyeaters, brown gerygones, white-headed pigeons, regent bowerbirds, Australian brush turkeys and even one crested shrike-tit which flew down in the bush before I could get a photo of it while walking to the Lost World Spa. Then a bus took us to a place called Moonlight Crag, where we had afternoon tea. As it got dark, one of the two buses stopped at a place where the marbled frogmouth apparently occurred to try and spotlight for it. The guides gave us the choice to spotlight for the frogmouth or go back to the retreat. I obviously chose to stay for the frogmouth.
The track was very dark, with various steps. When we got to the end of the track, the guides brought out a big torch and shone it around the trees, looking for the frogmouth. We saw that it wasn't there. One of the guides, Ian, decided to try and play the frogmouth's call to try and get one to fly in. He got his tape and played the call. We switched our torches off and the track descended into darkness. We looked at the sky. OOM, OOM, OOM, OOM. The tape played. We waited for a few seconds, then we heard a response. OOM, OOM, OOM, OOM. Something flew overhead. We played the tape again. Something flew overhead again, landing in some trees. Someone got a spotlight and...
On Monday we woke up early at 6 am for a birding walk. We went out to the front of the guesthouse, where we were greeted to the usual birds of O'Reilly's- Regent bowerbirds, satin bowerbirds, crimson rosellas, king parrots, pied currawongs and Australian brush-turkeys, all almost tame. As you would know if you read one of my older posts about O'Reilly's, the birds around the guesthouse grounds are so tame that they will eat out of your hand and even jump on your heads and in your hands if you are holding anything remotely resembling food.
Male (top) and female (bottom) regent bowerbirds
After some time, the team leaders came and told us we had a variety of options for our bird walk. We could either go on the Booyong Walk, the Border Track or another walk the name of which I cannot remember. We decided to go on the Booyong Walk with the guide Duncan. We saw grey shrike-thrushes, Lewin's honeyeaters, eastern yellow robins and similar birds like the ones we saw last time we were here in July. We also saw a few birds that were either not around or not as noticeable in the winter. These were the large-billed scrubwren, golden whistler, rufous fantail and black-faced monarch, among others. At the old botanical gardens there was even a female paradise riflebird feeding with the green catbirds. Of these new birds, I only managed to get a photo of the whistler and the catbird at that time.
A juvenile golden whistler in the rainforest.
Can you see the green catbird? The catbirds at the botanic gardens were quite easy to see and photograph for catbirds, and I got a few photos like this.
After we finished the walk, we were given another choice- Go to the Wishing Tree Track, or leave on a bus heading for Balancing Rock, stopping at places to see birds like yellow-faced honeyeaters and Lewin's rails. I decided to go on the Wishing Tree Track, because earlier at yesterday dinner one of the guides, Glen, had recommended the Wishing Tree Track as a place to see paradise riflebirds. Since I hadn't spotted the female riflebird from the morning, I decided to go to Wishing Tree.
At the start of the track, a large-billed scrubwren and a brown gerygone greeted us, letting me finally get a good picture of the scrubwren. Some way down the track, one of the birders with us named Drew stopped us and held a finger to his mouth. We slowly looked down into the rainforest on one side of the path, and just in there was a...
The photo of the large-billed scrubwren from the start of the track
The rest of the track was also rather productive. We made a detour to look for noisy pittas near a creek. We didn't see the pitta, but we did see but not photograph black-faced monarchs and even a pale yellow robin. After looking near the creek, we came back up and got back to the main track. We made another detour to look at a huge tower going up into the rainforest canopy. Next to the tower was a satin bowerbird's bower.
After looking at the creek and the tower, we got back to the main 4 kilometer track downhill. Eventually, the track reached a place along the creek I knew from experience you could see lots of glow-worms at. O'Reilly's actually runs glow-worm and spotlighting tours here. I went on one of these tours and got good looks at some glow-worms and a few ringtail possums. In the day, the site seemed to be a good spot for wildlife. Near the seats where people sit down to look at the glow-worms, our guide Ian showed us a black-soled frog that was crawling around on the ground. We continued walking along the trail, to the end where a bus was going to pick us up. A short way along the track, we saw a red-bellied black snake with its head buried in the leaf litter.
We continued along the track to a big grassy area, where the creek flowed into a big puddle edged with wild watercress. In the trees were various birds. In one of the fruiting trees I spotted a brown cuckoo-dove, but that quickly flew away before I could get a photo. In some of the other trees I saw eastern spinebills and black-faced monarchs, and I spent the rest of the time waiting for the other group who were also going along the track to come for the bus taking photos.
A black-faced monarch
After eating lunch, we went on a bus to a eucalypt forest called Duck Creek Road. At this forest we tried and failed to see the two spotted quail-thrushes that supposedly have territories in the forest. The only new ticks we picked up were scrub ticks. After returning from the quail-thrush attempt, we went spotlighting. We drove down the mountain road, stopping at a tawny frogmouth's nest. The torch was not strong enough for me to take good photos. We stopped again at a brush-tailed possum, where someone with a stronger torch came.
And there it was!
We had dinner afterwards, then fell asleep, still thinking of the majestic sooty owl.
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