Daintree River - Kingfisher Park Birdwatchers Lodge

We drove up to Daintree in the early hours, and headed straight to the boat ramp where we were to meet Murray for our cruise along the river. The scenery up here was very different, with rolling hills and green meadows more reminiscent of Devon than Australia. As the boat left we saw our first Yellow Oriole of the trip, followed by several nice sightings of Shining Flycatcher, Little Bronze Cuckoo, Azure Kingfisher, Sacred Kingfisher and best of all, a huge Great-billed Heron.

Great-billed Heron

Sacred Kingfisher

Shining Flycatcher (male)

Shining Flycatcher (female)

One disappointment was that the resident Papuan Frogmouths had disappeared, and our best shot at seeing them has disappeared..... 

So we drove back to Kingfisher Park and made a short detour along a side road. We were fortunate to see a group of Lovely Fairywrens in the Eucalypt wood here...

Lovely Fairywrens

Anyway, back at Kingfisher Park, Andrew gave us directions to the roost site of their resident Papuan Frogmouths. After a bit of a search we located a pair high up at the edge of the orchard. Result! And that was lifer 5,988...

Papuan Frogmouths

Down at the river we staked out the Duck-billed Platypus site and after another wait we nailed it! What a weird creature... A Pied Monarch also showed here as well...

Pied Monarch

Also nailed a couple of animals we saw in the gardens tonight: Fawn-footed Melomys and Northern Brown Bandicoot.