Cania Gorge & Kalpowar

Common Sheathtail Bat

We spent eight days in the Upper Burnett region, north-west of Brisbane, visiting Cania Gorge, Kalpowar and the Eidsvold region. On the way we saw a Black Falcon just before Munduburra. First stop was Cania George for three nights in the camping ground at the entrance to the national park.

Common Sheathtail Bat

Cania Gorge is an outlier of the extensive sandstone escarpment country further west, best known at Canarvon Gorge. Among the many caves seen on the Cania park walking trails is one containing a colony of Common Sheath-tail Bats. The species must be at or close to the southern end of its distributional range here.

Cania Gorge

The trails pass through steep-sided sandstone gullies containing dry rainforest, with eucalypt woodland on the flats and slopes.

Cania Gorge

Whiptail Wallaby

Whiptail Wallabies are among the many macropods in the area.

Red-winged Parrot

Some of the birds here are more typical of western and northern Queensland, such as Red-winged Parrot, which occur side-by-side with their close relative, the Australian King-Parrot. Some of the birds out and about:

Rainbow Bee-eater

Leaden Flycatcher  

Pacific Baza

Southern Boobook

Freckled Duck

After leaving Cania Gorge, a few kilometres before Monto, a Freckled Duck was seen along with a few Red-kneed Dotterels on a roadside dam.

Red-kneed Dotterel

Next stop was Kalpowar, an interesting site comprised of dry woodland interspersed with extensive areas of vine scrub. There were plenty of disbanded mine shafts from a long-gone gold-digging era. We had the campsite here to ourselves for two nights. Of considerable interest was the recording of both Large-tailed Nightjar and White-throated Nightjar from the campsite. We saw and heard White-throated Nightjar in the early evening, while Large-tailed Nightjar was calling fairly distantly at intervals during the night, presumably from a nearby scrub patch.

Our campsite at Kalpowar

Jacky Winter

Jacky Winter was probably the most plentiful small bird.

Little Bronze Cuckoo

Dusky Honeyeater

Some nice birds about included  Dusky Honeyeater, Little Bronze Cuckoo and unusually good numbers of Speckled Warbler. White-eared Monarch, Wompoo Fruit-Dove and Noisy Pitta were heard in the vine scrubs.

Speckled Warbler

And a couple of butterflies. See the next post for the Eidsvold area.

Chequered Swallowtail

Common Pencil-blue