Sunshine Coast Birds

Birding and other wildlife experiences from the Sunshine Coast and elsewhere in Australia - and from overseas - with scribblings about travel, environmental issues, kayaking, hiking and camping.

Monday 21 May 2012

Eurimbula National Park

Eurimbula National Park is a nice area of lowland rainforest, wallum, maleleuca forest, beaches and mangroves near the Town of 1770. We camped for four nights at Bustard Beach, where Eurimbula Creek enters the bay. The Fairy Gerygone shown here was one of the common birds around the camp.
The scene from our camping spot at sunset looking north over the Eurimbula Creek estuary. It was strange to be in such a perfect setting with so few people around.
Three Beach Stone-Curlews would spend the day just around the corner from our camp at the beach edge, usually hidden among the branches of fallen trees. The birds would come out to the sandflats at night to feed.
Sacred Kingfisher is scarce in south-east Queensland at this time of year but there were plenty about at Eurimbula, where I watched them feeding on crabs caught during the receding tide.
Other common birds about the camp included Spectacled Monarch.
 And Dusky Honeyeaters were plentiful. Other birds in the scrub patches included Rose-crowned Fruit-Dove, White-eared Monarch and Noisy Pitta.
Twice I kayaked up Eurimbula Creek in the mornings, seeing a total of 12 Shining Flycatchers. I was hoping to find some more northerly mangrove denizens but had better luck later in the trip further north around Corio Bay.
This Striated Heron put in an appearance.
 My upturned kayak had its uses. This young Lace Monitor scrambled up it to escape a much larger monitor which was chasing it.
A soaring White-bellied Sea-Eagle is always a sight for sore eyes.
The rough road to the camping ground passes through rainforest and this interesting wet coastal forest with plenty of Pandanus and Maleleuca trees.
En route to Eurimbula we visited our friends Trevor and Annie Quested at their Bundaberg home. They are pictured here with Glenn.
This Bush Stone-Curlew was in their garden, so we had a two stone-curlew species trip.

2 comments:

  1. What a great place! Now the secret's out!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes Pete it was the first time I'd been there in about 35 years. I'd forgotten how nice it was.

    ReplyDelete