Australian Good Birding Guide: Northern Queensland. Ted Wnorowski
and 140o16’18’’E
Burketown
Burketown Boat Ramp
Burketown Sewage Treatment Plant
Burketown Hot Springs
Leichhardt Lagoon
Normanton
School Dam
Normanton Sewage Treatment Plant
Gulfland Caravan Park
Old Croydon Road
Mutton Hole Wetlands
Mutton Hole Lagoon
Goose Lagoon
Corduroy Creek Crossing
Delta Downs Station
Karumba
Karumba Road
Star Finch Sites
Ferryman Cruises
Karumba Mangroves Walking Track
Airport Beach
Sunset Caravan Park
Cemetery Road
Further reading
Bird index
Site Index
List of Wader Sites
Introduction
The call of an open road
Queensland is the second largest Australian State, after Western Australia. According to Geoscience Australia, the State covers over 1.7 mln square kilometres (22.5% of surface area of Australia). Population of Queensland is about 5.1 mln people (Australian Bureau of Statistics, Dec 2019), with nearly half of the residents (2.3 mln) living in Brisbane as per 2016 census.
Consecutive to our Australian Good Birding Guide: Southern and Central Queensland published in May 2019, this book addresses birdwatching locations in the northern part of this vast State, from the very top of Queensland down to the line running approximately between the point just north of Rockhampton (past St Lawrence) on the east coast, and Winton in the west, i.e. the line running approximately along the Tropic of Capricorn, the 23 parallel that cuts through the middle of Rockhampton.
Northern Queensland is blessed with a wide variety of birdlife. It is the region of the greatest numbers of bird species in comparison with any other region in Australia. About 520 bird species are mentioned just in this book.
Eighteen endemic species can be found in Northern Queensland. These are:
| Golden-shouldered ParrotLesser Sooty OwlTooth-billed BowerbirdGolden BowerbirdEungella HoneyeaterMacleay’s HoneyeaterBridled HoneyeaterFernwrenAtherton Scrubwren | Mountain ThornbillCarpentarian GrasswrenKalkadoon GrasswrenChowchillaBower’s Shrike-thrushPied MonarchVictoria’s RiflebirdGrey-headed RobinWhite-bellied Crimson Finch |
Cape York Peninsula in the far northeast of Queensland has 20 “Cape York specialists” which in Australia can only be found there. These are:
| Black-backed ButcherbirdGolden-shouldered ParrotRed-cheeked ParrotEclectus ParrotPalm CockatooYellow-billed KingfisherChestnut-breasted CuckooPapuan PittaFawn-breasted BowerbirdNorthern Scrub-robin | Trumpet ManucodeMagnificent RiflebirdGreen-backed HoneyeaterWhite-streaked HoneyeaterTawny-breasted HoneyeaterWhite-faced RobinFrill-necked MonarchBlack-winged MonarchYellow-legged FlycatcherTropical Scrubwren |
A venture into Torres Strait islands, which are part of QLD territory, should reward you with some of the many vagrants from Papua New Guinea (PNG), separated from these islands by just a few miles of water.
Since we started to write the Australian Good Birding Guides (the first book was published in 2017) many changes to bird nomenclature have occurred. Some species were split, other were lumped together and some just changed their common of Latin name. All taxonomy changes are recorded in Birdlife’s Working List of Australian Birds. In this book, we followed the latest version of the Working List, v.3, dated August 2019. Otherwise, nomenclature used in this book follows Systematics and Taxonomy of Australian Birds by Les Christidis and Walter E. Boles, CSIRO Publishing.
To help our readers navigate among the current changes, the main changes affecting birds of Northern Queensland have been summarised below (Northern QLD species highlighted in boldface). Only time will tell how long these names will last; a review of the taxonomy system is undertaken every few years.
| Emerald Dove | Name changed to Brown-capped Emerald-Dove |
| Intermediate Egret | Name changed back to Plumed Egret |
| Sooty Owl | Split into Lesser Sooty Owl and Greater Sooty Owl |
| Gull-billed Tern | Spilt into Australian Gull-billed Tern and Common Gull-billed Tern (was: Asiatic ssp. of Gull-billed Tern) |
| Spotted Catbird | Lumped into Black-eared Catbird |
| Black-chinned Honeyeater | Split into Golden-backed Honeyeater and Black-chinned Honeyeater |
| Crested Shrike-tit | Split into three species: Eastern Shrike-tit, Northern Shrike-tit and Western Shrike-tit. |
| Grey Whistler | Split into Grey-headed Whistler and Brown Whistler |
| Crimson Finch | Split into White-bellied Crimson Finch and Black-bellied Crimson Finch |
| Pied Imperial-Pigeon | This species was split into several new species. The species which was known as Pied Imperial-Pigeon in Australia is now called Torresian Imperial-Pigeon |
| Purple-backed Fairy-wren | Lumped back into Variegated Fairy-wren |
| Eastern Osprey | Lumped back into Osprey |
| Eastern Great Egret | Lumped back into Great Egret |
| Eastern Curlew | Name changed to Far Eastern Curlew |
The regions described in this book include Mackay Coast, Bowen-Ayr Coast, Townsville, areas north and west of Townsville, Ingham area, Cassowary Coast, Cairns, Atherton Tablelands, Daintree Coast, Cooktown, Cape York including Torres Strait islands, Central North QLD, Mt Isa region and Gulf of Carpentaria. The birds, like people, largely favour the coastal regions of Queensland, and these are described in the book in detail. However, many sought-after birds can only be found in the arid landscape of the Outback.
The tropical Northern Queensland climate has basically two seasons: