Realizing that it had been well over a month since I’d explored the Ross River Bush Gardens, I cycled to that planting of native species alongside the Ross River in Townsville early this morning. Along the way, I spotted glorious rainbow bee-eaters and lorikeets, handsome crested pigeons, and my first common greenshank, a reasonably large wader that flushed from the Annandale Wetlands, issuing its characteristic warning call on take-off and giving me a clear view of its white rump and grey-brown wings unmarked by wingbars. Pelicans cruised the river, and from Aplin’s Weir, I observed the swift, darting flight of welcome swallows, as well as a little pied cormorant and an anhinga drying its wings.

An olive-backed oriole and leaden flycatcher sang from the Gardens edge, and nutmeg and chestnut-breasted mannikins chirped and flitted in dense marsh grasses and reeds between the shore and Baza Island. A male koel called imperiously from high in a gum tree, his red eye gleaming in the sun, his black plumage glossy. Two dollarbirds – the white ‘dollar’ spots clearly obviously on their wings in flight – flew among shrubs on the island, providing me with only my third sighting of this chunky, blue-green bird species. Comb-crested jacanas foraged from floating vegetation adjacent to the river shore, their astoundingly long toes allowing them to exploit a feeding niche unavailable to other less agile and less self-supporting birds.

When the sun began to heat up the morning, I turned away from the Gardens and cycled home, adding two somewhat unusual avian species to my morning list – reef heron, Caspian tern – along with more of the old familiars inhabiting the many habitats bordering the river. That’s one thing about birding – you never know what you might stumble across, even in the most familiar of environments.

Today’s birds: blue-winged kookaburra, peaceful doves, koels, magpie-larks, white-gaped honeyeaters, rainbow bee-eaters, blue-faced honeyeaters, house sparrow, figbirds, rainbow lorikeets, Australian magpies, brown honeyeaters, masked lapwings, crested pigeon, great bowerbirds, mynas, welcome swallows, crested tern, rock doves, *common greenshank, striated heron, Brahminy kite, spangled drongos, pied imperial-pigeon, collared sparrowhawk, helmeted friarbird, black-faced cuckoo-shrikes, pheasant coucal, white-breasted woodswallows, white-throated honeyeater, yellow honeyeaters, brush cuckoo, Australian pelicans, little pied cormorant, anhinga, white-bellied cuckoo-shrike, leaden flycatcher, mistletoebird, olive-backed oriole, nutmeg mannikins, dollarbird, scaly-breasted lorikeets, chestnut-breasted mannikins, Australian white ibises, comb-crested jacanas, great egret, little friarbirds, Caspian tern, reef heron, little corella. (*denotes lifelist sighting)