Every November a wonderful man named Fred Forsell spends a month in Daintree, staying here at Red Mill House in our purpose-built ‘dog-house’ - and every day he spends the pre-dawn and early morning in a particular piece of forest in the Daintree Valley, observing and photographing the local population of Buff-breasted Paradise Kingfisher.
This year’s aim was to capture video footage of these birds actually excavating the termite mounds and Fred came armed with motion-sensing equipment to achieve this.
Well - - on his first attempt, setting up the camera tucked away in the buttress roots of a large tree late yesterday afternoon, we have footage of a pair of kingfishers methodically working away at the mound, on retrieval of the camera this morning. He is stoked!! It is a much more gentle and measured process than we imagined and it’s great to think that more and more detail can be captured over the next couple of weeks. The birds only arrived from New Guinea 3 days ago, which is relatively late, but have already paired up and have started nest building, so watching this from the very beginning is very exciting. Fred’s patience and unobtrusive way of observing and photographing these birds for years is paying off. This is one of last year’s photos - more to come!
Buff-breasted Paradise- Kingfisher Fred Forsell Nov 2014
Other Daintree birding news.
Wompoo Fruit-Dove and Superb Fruit-Dove both seen and heard around Red Mill House, along with Azure Kingfisher becoming a regular again the pond. Some great fruit-eaters around such as Cicadabird, all three cuckoo-shrikes, Eastern Koel, Channel-billed Cuckoo and Double-eyed Fig-Parrot feeding locally. Cassowary sightings common at Jindalba boardwalk and more sightings of Bennett’s Tree Kangaroo at Maardja boardwalk as well. Very nice.
A fabulous season for frogs and the night chorus is something else at the moment!
