Western Australia, Day 17

Townsville: In early morning, the water of Rowe’s Bay washed gently in among mangroves growing adjacent to the Esplanade in north Townsville. Brilliant sun lit the long, pale sweep of Pallarenda Beach and the green hills of Many Peaks Range and Magnetic Island, as well as painting the ocean an almost unbelievable shade of blue. Varied honeyeaters having yellow breasts streaked with brown sang loud, rollicking songs and flitted about in the mangroves and adjacent park. A silver-crowned friarbird called out nasal, mewing notes, and tiny mangrove gerygones sang cheerful, lilting songs similar to the opening measures of a piano piece one of my sons played as a youngster. As I strolled along next to the mangroves, I heard creaking and snapping of branches and the squeals of flying foxes roosting for the day. Overhead, a Brahminy kite – all grace and elegance in its chestnut, white, and black plumage – soared, perhaps scouting the mangroves for an exposed bat.

In late afternoon, I escaped my empty house, cycling to the Ross River Bush Gardens, where again I spotted what I think of as my pair of tawny frogmouths. The clearing beyond the gardens, which contains rows and clusters of gums and paperbarks, was alive with nectar-feeders (honeyeaters, friarbirds, lorikeets) and pervaded by the scent of paperbark blossoms that smelled like – you guessed it – boiled potatoes. (See yesterday’s post.) One particular paperbark cloaked with drooping spikes of white, tufted flowers hosted so many rainbow lorikeets it appeared as though the lorikeets, with their emerald, blue, red, orange, and yellow feathers, were vivid blossoms growing among fluffy, white leaves.

Western Australia: During their research travels on Cunyu station, the research crew encountered more wildlife. Vilis and Janis learned that red kangaroos may be grey or red and that the tracks of feral camels look like baby’s bottom imprints in the red sand.

Today’s birds: Esplanade – peaceful doves, mynas, rainbow lorikeets, blue-faced honeyeater, magpie-lark, Australian white ibis,*silver-crowned friarbird, brown honeyeater, Brahminy kite, white-gaped honeyeater, house sparrows,*mangrove gerygones, zebra finch,*varied honeyeaters, nutmeg mannikins, welcome swallows, white-bellied cuckoo-shrikes; Cape Pallarenda Conservation Park – Australian brush-turkeys, brown honeyeater, peaceful doves, silver gull, red-backed fairy-wren, leaden flycatchers, rainbow lorikeets, Torresian crow, white-throated honeyeater, brown-backed honeyeater, yellow-bellied sunbirds, mistletoebird, varied triller, white-gaped honeyeater, spangled drongos, rainbow bee-eaters; Ross River Bush Gardens – welcome swallows, rainbow lorikeets, leaden flycatcher, tawny frogmouths, rainbow bee-eaters, brown honeyeater, yellow honeyeater, white-throated honeyeater, little friarbirds, Brahminy kite, magpie-larks, spangled drongo, sulphur-crested cockatoos. Also, a *red-banded jezebel (butterfly).(*denotes lifelist sighting)