Today we have part 2 of Chris Taylor’s journey to Queensland (part 1 is here). His captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.
In this part I will show some of the wild life around the reserve at Yourka.
Yourka is a Bush Heritage Australia reserve in the Einasleigh Uplands bioregion in Far North Queensland, not far from Cairns. Its 43,500 Ha covers the region from the Wet Tropics of Queensland World Heritage Site in the east down to the Herbert River valley in the west, and protects a range of habitats. There are a number of endangered species on the reserve, including a population of Mareeba Rock Wallaby.
We took the bus up to Atherton, where we were met by reserve staff who drove us the rest of the way to the reserve, where we arrived in the lovely tropical twilight:
There had been a quite intense and long-lasting Wet Season this year, and so the billabong on Sunday Creek, just 100m from the accommodation, had plenty of water in it.
I went for a walk around the billabong. With plenty of water, there were also plenty of birds
A Great Egret, White-faced Heron, Egretta novaehollandiae, and a Royal Spoonbill, Platalea regia, hunted in the water among the waterlilies:
Further around was a White Ibis, Threskiornis molucca, next to another Heron:
A Great Egret, Ardea alba, was feeding amongst the waterlilies in the shallows. This is quite a big bird, standing up to 1m tall:
One of the Royal Spoonbills took off and landed in a Eucalypt tree:
I tried to get a photo of the bird’s remarkable beak. The bird stirs up the bottom of the pond and then swings the broad end of the bill through the water, detecting any arthropod or fish prey which it will then capture and swallow:
A Forest Kingfisher, Todiramphus macleayii, was diving from a tree branch to take small fish from the water. This photo was taken at Innisfail, not at Yourka, but I just wanted to show the glossy blue plumage of this bird!:
There was plenty to see around the Blue Waterlilies Nymphaea gigantea:
Many dragonflies were active. This is an unidentified species, probably a female:
This is the male of the Blue Skimmer, Orthetrum caledonicum:
Gorgeous pics in this – what a great place!
A real Billabong, and its animal inhabitants! Thanks for this beautiful tour.
But no swagman. And was there a Coolibah tree?
Thanks for sharing your pics, Chris. Especially like the Royal Spoonbill displaying that….royal beak! And the Blue Water lilies. Nice.
Thank you for that vicarious visit to a place in nature I’ll never be. I was surprised to see an Orthetrum species in Australia and how similar O. caledonicum looks to the European O. cancellatum. Considering how mobile winged arthropods are, they can of course reach Sahul over the sea easily, so there is no real barrier, unlike for mammals. But there could also be arthropods in Australia that evolved independendently since Sahul go disconnected from the rest? Does anyone happen to know?
Thanks for the photos!