CAIRNS Day 2: Birding around Kingfisher Lodge

On Day 2 I woke up early. Last night we had driven to Kingfisher Lodge and today we would be doing a guided tour on Mt. Lewis to try and see as many birds as possible.
As soon as we woke up the feeders were full of action, with pretty much all the birds at the previous post flying around and eating food. Most of the others staying in the Lodge were also there but the birds didn't really start to come in until they left! We looked around the Lodge for birds, seeing nothing that wasn't really at the feeder. Then our guide, Carol, arrived and took us out to Mt. Lewis.
First we went to a site where some blue-faced parrot finches had recently been seen. Right in front of the track going to the site was a huge flowering tree in which a variety of honeyeaters and lorikeets fed. Carol was fantastic, identifying birds with just a glimpse and telling us when to watch out for something just by its call. In the tree were several endemic bridled honeyeaters, as well as scarlet honeyeaters, dusky honeyeaters, rainbow lorikeets and scaly-breasted lorikeets. In a smaller tree nearby a lemon-bellied flycatcher and a grey whistler looked for insects.

A bridled honeyeater, endemic to Queensland

The scarlet-red male scarlet honeyeater

As we walked further on Carol heard a yellow-bellied boatbill and it almost immediately sprang to the path after she whistled its call. It was literally right on top of us, but it was too quick to take a photo that doesn't need some cropping.

Spot the boatbill

There were several other boatbills along the way but we didn't get any better pictures. Despite trying to call in the parrot finch at several places we didn't get to see one, but for me the boatbill and honeyeaters were good enough.
Then we drove up Mt. Lewis, stopping to spot mountain thornbills that enjoyed escaping my camera, as well as the occasional Atherton scrubwren which I actually managed to photograph. We reached the famed clearing but as the parrot finches had long since moved off the mountain we walked along the trail.

This Atherton scrubwren flutters along the side of the path

Almost immediately we came to a nest of fernwren that I would never have seen on my own. Atherton scrubwrens and yellow-throated scrubwrens danced fearlessly across the path. A little further off, grey-headed robins hid in the scrub as Bower's shrike thrush called.  At one of the few fruiting trees we got good looks at a beautiful tooth-billed catbird, meaning I have now seen every one of Australia's catbirds. (If the tooth-billed 'catbird' even counts as one). The highlight for me, though, was the chowchilla, a bird that I had always wanted to see since I saw its picture in my field guide. It took us a while, and we had to climb a bit through the forest, but I managed to see a male chowchilla and I don't think I will ever forget it.
Of course, none of these birds decided letting me take a photo would be a good idea. I'll be back!
Even when we went off Mt. Lewis there was still a surprise. Saying I had never seen the papuan frogmouth Carol offered to show me a pair. We drove there and got great looks. Now I've also seen all of Australia's frogmouths! Just for a nice bonus, I spotted an olive-backed sunbird and a brown cuckoo-dove there as well.

There are actually 3 Papuan frogmouths in this photo

It was a great trip and we would have seen only a tiny bit of what we'd seen if we didn't have Carol helping us out.
Plus I saw a bush stone-curlew on the way back to Cairns.