Kutini-Payamu NP Iron Range: Part Three

First some words about Kutini-Payamu, Lockhart River and Portland Roads. 

To finally behold the stunningly beautiful red bellied, blue chested Papuan Pitta was the carrot on the end of the stick for me to travel to Kutini-Payamu NP in January, full stop. That magnificent visitor from New Guinea was the main reason for my trip. There were no other possible life birds for me in the region, but there were other wondrous things to see, as well as many excellent birds that I wanted to see again.

This is not an easy thing to explain, but the rainforest jungles of the Iron Range are more than their flora and fauna. Lockhart River and Portland Roads are unique places. Not to over-use a theme, but it truly is ‘the vibe’ up there. It is different. It is also very, very me, in both good, and perhaps not so good ways. There’s a relaxedness with life in general that I find wonderful and I embrace. It can be mad dashing about whilst birding, herping and trying to look at everything when you only have a week. But... there is an undercurrent of ‘chill.’ And that is the vibe. I treasure that feeling, not everyone feels it. I am grateful that I do.

As told in “An Australian Birding Year” I first went to the Iron Range (Kutini-Payamu NP) in October of 2015. I met a young man with long dread-locks named Cal at my favourite restaurant in the world (Out of the Blue Café Portland Roads, more about that later in the blog). He lived in Lockhart River and ended up taking Lynn, Robert and me in his boat up the Claudie River where we saw Spotted Whistling Ducks. They were not as ubiquitous back then as they have become in the years since. But I digress (as I am want to do). 

Cal and his boat October 2015

I remember sitting and talking with Cal. There is quite an age difference but he is a kindred spirit. We bonded in our dislike of big cities. I will never forget his exact words, “I loathe Melbourne.” Me too, mate and that also applies to Sydney or any big city. I completely avoid them if I possibly can. Cal said that not many people could live up there in the Iron Range. He said it takes a very unique type. And then he paused for several seconds, looked me in the eye and said, “You could.” It was a statement of fact, I have always remembered those exact words as well. Because, I could too. I’ve heard Cal is now off somewhere living a life of a fishing guide. However I will never forget his, “You could.” I took it as a compliment because it was. 

I live where I do because I am married and I have step-children and grandchildren in this part of Victoria. Don’t get me wrong, I do not hate it here (Although I would hate it if I had to live in Melbourne). But my heart lives in a lot of places that I do not get to visit very often. 

This third blog entry about the adventure in Kutini-Payamu NP will feature some amazing snakes, frogs, bugs and people. I will do at least one more post that will focus on the birds and a few other critters. First I will share the snakes because seeing the phenomenal Green Tree Python was one of my targets for the trip. I had seen photos so many times and I wanted to see the emerald beauty-noodle live and I did. My first view of one was this baby yellow version. I want to thank the delightful, Jasmine Zeleny of Faunagraphic for sharing it with us. And so was my second, which James spotted from the vehicle.  But of course we did end up seeing quite a few mature Green Tree Pythons.

Speaking of pythons, I saw my first Scrub Python as well. The can reach up to 8 metres in length. We saw at least two, but neither of them were 8 metres long.

Scrub Python head

A crazy old man and a Scrub Python

Brown Tree Snake in the roof over our veranda 

Then there were the more dangerous snakes. I saw my first Coastal Taipan as well as my first Northern Death Adder. Thank you Doug Herrington for sharing the Death Adder with us. He spotted it crossing the track up near Portland Roads. We had the Taipan crossing the track in the daytime. We looked at it, but really kept our distance. It is the most venomous snake I have seen in the wild. It kept moving and I grabbed some photos.

Costal Taipan moving on

Northern Death Adder 

Doug Herringon's photo of the Northern Death Adder crossing the road. 

We also had very cool frogs and bugs. My knowledge of them is limited to say the least, but here are a few. I think I have identified them correctly (I will get James to check them for me). Other critters will be included in the next 'bird' post.

White-lipped Tree Frog

Cape York Graceful Tree Frog

Water (Wood) Frog

Mr Rhinocerous Beetle

Gold Christmas Beetle

                              

Although we do have them in Victoria, this was my first Blue-banded Bee (thank you James for finding it for me).

I will close (did someone say, “finally”?) with the incredibly wonderful, Portland Roads Out of the Blue Café. I could write an entire blog entry just on that place. Sheree and Greg have created a wondrously unique, utterly delightful, restaurant with the best view and food possible. I have fantastic memories of eating there in October 2015 with Lynn and Robert (see photo). We went several times for lunch. So I was not going to be up there and not eat there! And as it turned out, I did it twice!

      

Lynn was tired of me taking photos haha. October 2015

On Friday night our group of four had made a reservation and I had a delightful dinner. I adored their prawns in 2015 and Sheree remembered me from 7 years ago (I honestly felt honoured that she did). Although it wasn’t a menu item, she cooked them for me that night (with chips and salad as you do). And then... on Saturday, I ran into my dear friend, Laurie Ross with my dear friend Tony Pallister (the reader might remember him from Chapter 20 of MABT) and dear friend, Geoffrey Jones. Laurie invited us to join them for dinner. David and Clint had food to cook at the house so James and I went. I was so glad for James to get to hang with truly great guys who happen to be true legends in birding. Also that night, at the table behind us were more birding royalty, Margaret and Richard Alcorn and another of my favourite people, Doug Herrington. He took one of my favourite selfies of the trip of him and me at the airport in Lockhart River. I like that guy! I have also been using the word favourite a lot, because there are not really any appropriate synonyms for ‘favourite.’ 

      

James and me with David and Clint

      

James and me with Laurie, Geoff and Tony and at the back table are Doug Herrington and Margaret and Richard Alcorn

Doug Herrington and me at the airport

This has been a large post about a large and wonderful time. I will stop here. Phew. There will be more coming soon-ish.

Sending love as I do ❤️

Kutini-Payamu NP Iron Range: Part Two

 

I saw that Papuan Pitta! This is David Adam's gorgeous photo of it. They are that beautiful.

Tuesday morning I awoke early in the dark (as I would). I was excited. I coffeed hard as I say and drank my usual 3 morning mugs while I played Wordle (it’s good to have working internet). By 6:30 I was ready to go. 

I knew the bird was around and I was extremely keen to start looking for it. After all, it was my main target of the trip. James and I were out and walking down the track by our house before Clint and David. They both wanted to get photos and in the dim ‘rainforest jungle’, light in the early morning is scarce. 

A portion of the track into our house.

Then James and I heard the bird. It has a very distinctive call and call they do. That does not mean that you will see it. 

It seemed that the pitta was close-ish to the track and we found a place where we could move in a bit to look. The plan was to sit quietly on a camp stool (I had bought an inexpensive tripod stool for this trip). I placed the stool on the ground quietly and carefully. James was squatting off to my side (he is young and good at squatting, I am neither of those things). As I lowered my weight onto the stool, the back leg sunk straight into the wet earth and I fell over backwards landing like a turtle on its back. Thank God James was there to help me get back up. I was in a very awkward position on the ground holding my camera out of the wet. Thank you once again, James. At least my damn phone was in my waterproof bum-bag, no worries there. 

However, all of the commotion that I had made falling over and James helping me up, had spooked the pitta. Now it was calling from much farther away. So we headed down the track a bit. We came to a small path in and again, we could hear the pitta calling. By now, David and Clint had come down too. They moved into an area to the right side of James and me. The bird sounded like it was calling somewhere between us and them, but closer to them. We went back out and came in closer to where they were. We could really hear the bird. We went closer and then we saw them. 

I have written before about birders being able to ‘bird’ other birders. By that I mean, being able to tell what is going on by interpreting body language. As soon as we saw them, we knew that they had seen, or were seeing, the pitta. I approached slowly and quietly from behind. And then, out in front of them in a very small 'open' area, I had quick, clear, beautiful views of a Papuan Pitta. It sort-of bounced across the leaf litter and disappeared to our right. I had beheld my target bird. I had it. Joy. Massive joy!

The pitta moved around to further to our right, between us and the track. It crossed a log. It was in constant motion. I had several more glimpses as it moved. I managed a few recording shots and as poor as they are, I will include them here. I was over-the-moon just having seen this gorgeous, gloriously colourful visitor from New Guinea. Here are some photos including one from James. His camera is only 5 or 6 years old and its ISO can be set as high as 16,000. 

James' shot of that first Papuan Pitta. The others are mine.

Going and...

gone

I will now break with the chronological order and leap ahead from Tuesday 10 January, to Saturday 14 January and the second time I beheld the Papuan Pitta. Following this post, I will return to 10 January and move more chronologically through these tales. There is much that I want to share! 

Okay, back to the pitta. My dear friend, David Mead had told us about a spot where he was hearing the pitta out on Portland Road not far from the triangle three-way turn. We headed out there Saturday morning and we heard the bird. We made our way into the rainforest toward the calls. The four of us positioned ourselves looking toward an area with a small amount of visibility through the undergrowth as well as some logs on the ground. 

Now. Trying to have four birders sit still very quietly and can be a challenge. I have no complaints about my companions on this trip. I would bird with them all again at any time. We sat there, ‘mostly’ still and quiet and waited. We could hear the Pitta calling closer. And then we all saw it. Joy. What a fabulous bird. 

James and my views were mostly from the side and through a lot of undergrowth. Low light and many small trees and sticks were making my auto-focus lose its mind. David and Clint got a little bit better views as it moved around more in front of their positions. The beautiful photo of this bird that I featured at the opening of the post was generously shared with me by David Adam. He is truly an excellent photographer as well as being an excellent birder. That is sometimes a difficult combination to achieve and he does it very well. Often one or the other will suffer. The cover shot of the Opalton Grasswren on my last book is his. I had been standing beside him as we both photographed the same Opalton Grasswren on the same rock. His photo was crisp and perfect, mine was good but not enough to be a cover photo. 

James' recording shot of the second Papuan Pitta. He had the same angle on it that I did.

Yes indeed, on this trip I finally accepted that my old Canon 7D 100-400mm is truly out of date. It is fourteen years old. Shooting in that low light, my ISO could not go any higher than 6,400 and that wasn’t enough. In most of these shots, my shutter speed was 1/20 or less. I was not able to get any clear images of the pitta. BUT please make no mistake, I am deeply grateful for the views I got and the recording shots that I managed to take. I have said repeatedly and will continue to say, I am not a bird photographer. I am a writer who also takes pictures. Sometimes they are good, sometimes, not so much. 

This past week, I did go a camera store here and I have finally entered the ‘low end’ of this new mirrorless technology. Things have come a long way in fourteen years. I have a Canon R7 body now as well as the affordable 100-400mm (my old lens won’t work with the new cameras) . Haha, I reckon I am sticking with ‘sevens.’ My last “7” certainly served me amazingly well. I still have it and I will keep it, and sometimes I will use it too. 

I do not know how to use it yet, but I have entered the world of mirrorless photography.

Back to Saturday, 14 January and a surprise visit from a Southern Cassowary.

After the Papuan Pitta had ‘left the building’ we went up the road to Rainforest Campground in hopes of a Northern Scrub-robin. It would be a Lifer for Clint. We walked a few score metres into the jungle and looked around. It was calling and some of us saw it (I saw my Lifer in 2015 in the same area). It was not being very confiding and we wandered back out. Clint decided to go back in to try and get a photo of the bird. The rest of us were hanging around our vehicle when I spotted a Southern Cassowary between us and the area where Clint was trying photograph the Scrub-robin. We did not want him to miss out on this bird. They are very rarely seen in Kutini-Payamu NP. So I yelled in, “Clint, there’s a cassowary near you!” 

This was Clint’s first visit up there and he had never seen a Cassowary in the wild. However he had heard the stories of how dangerous they can be. He saw it and started back toward us and it followed him. It was a younger bird and I reckon it was just curious, but Clint was a little concerned. James called out to him not to run. Later Clint said that he wished someone had taken a video of him slowly, but deliberately walking out of the forest with the Cassowary following along close behind him. He did not run, but the look on his face was priceless. The bird walked around us and then wandered off again. I am sure Clint will always remember his Lifer Southern Cassowary. 

James, me and Clint by our vehicle shortly after the Cassowary encounter. This was just down the road at Cooks Hut Campground, David Adam took this photo of us.

I will make that the end of this second blog entry. Now I am thinking that there will be four entries. We will see. 

Sending love as I do ❤️

Kutini-Payamu NP Iron Range: Part One

Definitely one of the stars of the trip, the Palm Cockatoo

Back in September 2022, Robert Shore had put together a Facebook messenger group of people interested in going to Kutini-Payamu NP (the Iron Range) in January 2023. Clint Hook was part of that group and did some pricing research and bottom line, I decided I could do it. My buddy, birding/nature partner and the other half of Team Troopi, James Cornelious was keen as well. I contacted David Adam and he was in. Now we had four of us going to the jungle in the wet season. And it was a very wet season. 

Meanwhile, I was also planning finally doing my December trip to Cocos and Christmas Islands that had been paid for and booked for 3 years! I have already posted the blogs about those. But my point is, after the Covid years, I was finally getting out there and it was a lot of ‘out there’ that I was doing in just two months. Comfort zones? We don’t need no stinkin’ comfort zones. Seriously, I had my usual (or worse) battles with anxiety and as I usually do, I won. And I do not mean to minimise that struggle, it is not easy. I just want to affirm that it is doable. 

Many thanks to Clint for sorting the flights up from Cairns and the what turned out to be a wonderful accommodation in the duplex up the hill from Greenhoose. I loved it. 

Speaking of love, I love my dear friends Janet and David Mead. They were responsible for James and me getting the Nordmann’s Greenshank in February 2021 as told in Chapter 26 of "More Australian Birding Tales". They played a huge part in this trip as well. David has the wonderful Great Northern Birdwatching Tours company and he was already up there with a tour. James and I were arriving in Cairns on Sunday 8 January and flying up to Lockhart River on the 9th. Janet Mead generously offered us transport to and from the airport and accommodation in their lovely home for the night (and for the night of our return on 16 January). It was a delightful visit and so much appreciated. I love the vibe of their home. I can relax there and that speaks volumes. 

Janet and David's lovely backyard

I love the luggage dispensers in Cairns, some are fish too

Flying into Cairns

Ulysses Butter fly in the Mead's backyard (it was laying eggs, more about that in the last blog)

Monday morning Janet dropped James and I off at the Cairns airport where we met up with David and Clint to board the Skytrans small prop plane to fly to Lockhart River (where my father was a staff officer of the 22nd Bomb Group in 1942. That tale is told in Chapter 8 of “An Australian Birding Year”). We landed, stepped off the plane and into the excitement of being in the Iron Range in January. 

Left to right, David Adam, Clint Hook, me and James

Me heading for the plane to leave Cairns

Arrived at Lockhart River

The hire car situation was complex and well, not that great. Paul (the car hire man) is a truly lovely guy. Full stop. However, his organisation is a bit jumbled at times. Clint had booked a 4WD Prado a couple of months ago, but it turned into an old 2WD van (Paul’s family van I think) but his wife promised us a 4WD on Wednesday. We did ‘okay’ with the van but it had issues, i.e. the driver’s window would not open and you could not see out of the back windows and they did not open fully. Not exactly a birding machine. 

We took our bags to our house. We had the front half of a duplex with Sofie (a manager at the Greenhoose and a completely delightful person) was in the back half. I did play the ‘age card’ and had the room with a one bed. Another room had two nice single beds and James had a decent mattress in the large lounge room. There were two toilets and a nice bathroom with a good shower. This was all good. 

Me in front of the house (David Adam photo)

Then we headed downtown to the grocery which has been much improved since Lynn and I shopped there in 2015. Woolworths has bought it. However the prices are still staggeringly dear (don’t look, just buy). The selections are pretty good and the use-by dates are good as well. We took the groceries back to the house and went birding.

Scary Drama (but with a happy ending)

We decided to head down to Quintel Beach (the beach by Lockhart River) and have a look for Palm Cockatoos. We had just arrived on the outside of the parking area when James spotted a Palm Cockatoo in a dead tree top. We hopped out and began taking photos. It was lightly sprinkling rain, but we were looking at one of best birds in the world. And then it flew down and toward the beach. 

Our first view of the Palm Cockatoo on the trip

We spread out and walked over looking for it and or others. We noticed Clint photographing something in a tree. He had a Palm Cockatoo right above him happily munching on the Beach Almonds (I think that’s what they were). We took photos, and more photos. Even my 14 year old, tired, hard-used camera got some wonderful images of these wondrous birds. 

The rain got a little heavier and I tucked my camera under my light, BSBO rain jacket (the very same one Lynn wore in the Iron Range in 2015). I was holding it up and to the side to cover my camera body. I walked the 100 metres or so back to the van. I got in and... I did not have my phone. Bearing in mind my iPhone runs everything. My hearing aids are controlled by my phone. Everything is ‘in’ my phone and it was not in any of my pockets, nor my bum bag. So I attempted to backtrack my steps from the Cockatoo tree. No phone. 

I again walked back to the van. No phone. This was such a big deal that I did not even know how to be upset about it. I was just stunned. I could not figure any way to ‘fix’ this, if indeed it was gone (or in a puddle dying). Others have said that my ‘stuff’ was all in the cloud. Maybe so, but there ain’t no iPhone store in Lockhart River or anywhere within 700 kilometres of us. 

And then I saw James, my dear, dear buddy, James, walking toward me holding an iPhone in his hand. I hugged him within an inch of his life. He had found it laying in the sand back near the new construction between the tree and the van. My God I was grateful that it had been found and it was fine. I was truly grateful. Here are a couple more Palm Cockatoos to celebrate.

On that excellent note, I will end Part One. The Papuan Pitta makes its glorious debut in Part Two (on the first morning there) I reckon there will be a Part Three as well. We will see. I will post a bunch of the Palm Cocky pics with this one because they are so damn cool.

Sending love as I do ❤️