Good News - Cassowaries are no longer endangered.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is a membership union uniquely composed of both government and civil society organisations. It provides public, private and non-governmental organisations with the knowledge and tools that enable human progress, economic development and nature conservation to take place together.
In conjunction with Birdlife International they now class the Cassowary on their Red List is now of Least Concern.

https://www.iucn.org/resources/conservation-tools/iucn-red-list-threatened-species

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Sunrise River Trip - Wednesday 2 August 2017

"Sauce", Anna Ferris Simpson and myself.

It has been eight months since I have been on the Daintree River at Dawn. 

Denise and I have been away and are now back so I can help "Sauce" during the tourist season and more importantly the birdwatching season which starts in spring.

We had an English family along for the trip and the daughter Anna is a keen photographer. The trip yielded 34 wildlife species seen and a further 17 heard. Some of the highlights included two Saltwater Crocodile, both swimming, two Green Tree Snakes, Little, Forest and Azure Kingfishers and at the end, I thought we hit the jackpot with what looked like a Grey Falcon. Grey Falcons are rare and are usually found inland if they are ever seen at all. I certainly had never seen one and as it turns out I still haven't seen a Grey Falcon?

It turned out to be a Grey Goshawk sitting out in the open which must have thrown me. My experience with Grey Goshawks is that they are far more secretive and do not sit out in the open whereas most falcons will. Never mind there is always the next time.

Anna's photo of the Grey Goshawk

There are plenty of indications that spring is upon us and the bird migration is underway; Brush Cuckoos and Brown-backed Honeyeaters have arrived and are busy calling. The migration will go on until November with the arrival of the Buff-breasted Paradise-Kingfishers and a little later Oriental Cuckoos.

Boat trip courtesy of Ian "Sauce" Worcester of Daintree River Wild Watch.

I will be conducting a Daintree Bird Walk on Saturday 5 August 2017:

Details are here:

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WET SEASON 2017

A little rain about? Keep an eye on it and stay out of trouble. Put this on your phone, tablet or PC:

qwe.com.au

qwe.com.au on SMALL SCREENS

qwe.com.au on Larger Screens

New Booking.com app for Daintree

Hot off the press a new booking.com app for Daintree accommodation

daintree.info/apps.html

Cassowary sighting

Saturday 3 September 2016

On the way to Cape Tribulation near the Maardja Botanical Walk my wife and I were talking about cassowary sightings. In 26 years of driving the Cape Trib road I was yet to see a cassowary. Five seconds later and two cassowaries crossed the road in front and walked calmly down the side.

It stopped the traffic.

How it all started - Daintree wildlife viewing.

1000's of Cattle Egrets in Windy reach

Interested in how Daintree became famous for seeing wildlife.

This is worth a read:

http://www.daintreewildlife.com.au/about/

Wildlife Viewing Boat for Sale - $22 000

8 Passenger Commercial Vessel for sale.

Start your own tourism business with this wildlife viewing vessel that has just come on the market. 

The reputation that Daintree has for seeing wildlife was established by wildlife viewing boats like this one.

Large enough to handle an eco-tourism group but small enough to access the more interesting parts of the Daintree River system. (This is where the 50 seaters cannot go because of their size and crippling speed restrictions.)

Rarely do these vessels come up for sale. They are a delight to drive and can be used privately and also used for filming nature documentaries for which the Daintree is famous.

See full details here: Port Douglas Boat Sales

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DAINTREE WILD NEW WEB APP

SCREENSHOT

Daintree Wild Zoo and B & B has a new responsive website:

daintreewildbnb.com.au

Unlike other responsive websites in Daintree this one loads in a flash,  translates into different languages and has a shortcut icon for mobile screens.

By: portdouglas.website

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SPRING MIGRANTS

Brush Cuckoo

The Spring migrants are rolling in. Channel-billed Cuckoo and Brush Cuckoo heard already.

Come on a walk: Daintree Bird Walk

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Daintree Village Wild Fishing Charters

New kid on the block:

fishing.daintree.info

Daintree River Wildlife Cruises

NEW:

On your PC or on your phone

Daintree River Cruises responsive website:

Loads lightning fast, make bookings from it, fits any size screen.

daintree.info/cruises

By Port Douglas Websites

ALL DAINTREE ACCOMMODATION - BOOKING APP

There is no doubt about it, Daintree has some of the best wildlife tours in the world. 

They happen at dawn and dusk.

What does that mean?

It is best to stay overnight!

WHERE?

Choose from the list at:

daintree.info/accommodation

Which can go on your mobile device!

Promoting the Douglas Shire - portdouglas.website

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Flood alert for Tropical North Coast & Tablelands

You can put this on your phone:

qwe.net.au

Join in the lucrative Tourism Industry - $22 000

Join in the lucrative tourism industry with this little beauty

It is boats like these that gave Daintree the reputation for seeing wildlife.

Full details:

boatsales.portdouglas.website

Image: Daintree River Wild Watch

Daintree Village

Wildlife Viewing Boat - For Sale

 

Rarely do these specialised river boats come up for sale.

It is these types of boats that gave Daintree the reputation for seeing wildlife on their 2 hour dawn  river tours and started overnight accommodation in the Daintree.

Offered for sale with boatsales.portdouglas.website

Look under commercial - example

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Birdwatching App for Cairns & Tropical North Queensland

Screenshot of App for Marks Lane

This is an excellent app, such a good resource. We came from the UK during July and August this year and found these notes and excellent directions were exactly what we needed.

MARK'S LANE: This site in particular is not one that visitors would find easily. We had Bustards, Sarus Cranes, Spotted Harrier, several Black shouldered kites and lots of Whistling Kites along this road and thousands of Plumed Whistling Ducks at Lake Tinaroo at the end of the road.

The photographs of junctions and sites are particularly useful when looking for entrances to the right road. Thank you very much for this resource. Best value app we have ever bought!

Any chance of you extending the range to other birding areas on the East Coast?

Tom and Thelma, Focus on Birds

See Cairns Birdwatching

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Early Birds get the worms

Photo by Lance Peters

Wildlife photographer Lance Peters from Horsham in Victoria took out the Daintree Wildlife Photographic Competition in 2009 with this photo of a Black Bittern. He took it at dawn on one of the famous Daintree Dawn River Tours.

Rolf from London, Suzy from Wiepa, Loz from Nottingham and I retraced Lance's steps on Saturday 22 November 2014. We saw plenty including Black Bitterns, Papuan Frogmouths, Shining Flycatchers and Azure and Sacred Kingfishers.

Ian "Sauce" Worcester

We went with Sauce from Daintree River Wild Watch and had a great old time,

Next up we shared an Egg & Bacon Pie on the picnic tables at the jetty, wow.

After that Rolf and I went on a Daintree Bird Walk and Rolf ended up with smashing looks at Lovely Fairy-wren and Pied Monarch both of which are target species on the walk.

There is no doubt about it Daintree Village is a top world class birding spot provided you go with good guides and go early in the summer.

More at Daintree Birdwatching

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Bird Walk - 7:00am - Monday 10 November 2014

Bird Walk

See: Daintree Bird Walk

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They're Back

Buff-Breasted Paradise-Kingfisher

A single Buff-breasted Paradise-Kingfisher was seen and heard at Kingfisher Park, Julatten yesterday.

Photo by Jim Bendon

People watching.

If you look carefully in the centre of the photo there are two Welcome Swallows sitting on the boat.

In the height of the birdwatching season the Birding-Aus community were advising each other what was the best boat in Daintree to do a tour on.

As it turns out visiting birdwatchers have a choice of three operators who will take them out in small roofless boats at dawn and dusk for a modest fee.

That is a good tried and true formula that has been around since 1992. After that there are several factors that enter the equation. The obvious factor is luck. But luck can be influenced by, local knowledge, dedication to the task and lots of experience.

I was tickled to have Ian "Sauce" Worcester send me this photo of two Welcome Swallows watching his passengers during a recent tour.

Ian can be reached at: Daintree Wildlife