Australian Good Birding Guide: Northern Queensland. Ted Wnorowski

and 140^o16’18’’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: