
Ravensbourne National Park consists mainly of rainforest with some sections of emerging eucalypt forest as well. This was our first group excursion into a rainforest area and it didn’t disappoint.

It was a foggy day to start with, but the prediction was for it to lift and we assembled at the Blackbean picnic area.


Looking at the map before we left we had high hopes of making it all the way to Buaraba Creek, but the bird life was so thick we didn’t even get half that way – not that that worried us though!
We followed the Rainforest track and then Palm Creek track before stopping at a clearing part of the way on to the Buaraba Creek track.

Because we were covering such a large area we decided to make the first survey a 500 m radius (approx 79 Ha) search.
This is the bird list for this first survey
Australian Brush-turkey | Alectura lathami |
Australian King-Parrot | Alisterus scapularis |
Bar-shouldered Dove | Geopelia humeralis |
Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike | Coracina novaehollandiae |
Black-faced Monarch | Monarcha melanopsis |
Brown Cuckoo-Dove | Macropygia phasianella |
Brown Gerygone | Gerygone mouki |
Cicadabird | Edolisoma tenuirostris |
Crimson Rosella | Platycercus elegans |
Eastern Koel | Eudynamys orientalis |
Eastern Spinebill | Acanthorhynchus tenuirostris |
Eastern Whipbird | Psophodes olivaceus |
Eastern Yellow Robin | Eopsaltria australis |
Galah | Eolophus roseicapilla |
Golden Whistler | Pachycephala pectoralis |
Green Catbird | Ailuroedus crassirostris |
Grey Fantail | Rhipidura fuliginosa |
Grey Shrike-thrush | Colluricincla harmonica |
Large-billed Scrubwren | Sericornis magnirostra |
Laughing Kookaburra | Dacelo novaeguineae |
Leaden Flycatcher | Myiagra rubecula |
Lewin’s Honeyeater | Meliphaga lewinii |
Magpie-lark | Grallina cyanoleuca |
Mistletoebird | Dicaeum hirundinaceum |
Pied Butcherbird | Cracticus nigrogularis |
Pied Currawong | Strepera graculina |
Rainbow Lorikeet | Trichoglossus moluccanus |
Red-browed Finch | Neochmia temporalis |
Regent Bowerbird | Sericulus chrysocephalus |
Rose-crowned Fruit-Dove | Ptilinopus regina |
Rufous Fantail | Rhipidura rufifrons |
Russet-tailed Thrush | Zoothera heinei |
Sacred Kingfisher | Todiramphus sanctus |
Satin Bowerbird | Ptilonorhynchus violaceus |
Scaly-breasted Lorikeet | Trichoglossus chlorolepidotus |
Shining Bronze-Cuckoo | Chalcites lucidus |
Silvereye | Zosterops lateralis |
Spangled Drongo | Dicrurus bracteatus |
Spotted Pardalote | Pardalotus punctatus |
Varied Triller | Lalage leucomela |
Whistling Kite | Haliastur sphenurus |
White-browed Scrubwren | Sericornis frontalis |
White-headed Pigeon | Columba leucomela |
White-throated Treecreeper | Cormobates leucophaea |
Wonga Pigeon | Leucosarcia melanoleuca |
Scot brought his audio equipment and recorded calls from
Brown cuckoo dove Rose crowned fruit dove
Wompoo fruit dove
Large billed scrubwren
Brown Gerygone
Green Catbird
Grey shrike thrush
to add to his collection of bird calls from the Toowoomba region
We did a 20 minute/2 Ha search along the middle section of the Buaraba Creek track and recorded the following 13 species
Crimson Rosella | Platycercus elegans |
White-throated Treecreeper | Cormobates leucophaea |
Lewin’s Honeyeater | Meliphaga lewinii |
Brown Thornbill | Acanthiza pusilla |
Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike | Coracina novaehollandiae |
Golden Whistler | Pachycephala pectoralis |
Grey Shrike-thrush | Colluricincla harmonica |
Eastern Whipbird | Psophodes olivaceus |
Rufous Fantail | Rhipidura rufifrons |
Grey Fantail | Rhipidura fuliginosa |
Black-faced Monarch | Monarcha melanopsis |
Eastern Yellow Robin | Eopsaltria australis |
Silvereye | Zosterops lateralis |
By this stage it was pretty much time for lunch so we went to the Cedar Block day use area and had refresh then did the shorter Cedar block circuit, and these sightings were added into the first 500m radius search as they fell with in that 79 Ha region. Paradise riflebirds have been seen on this track but no luck today but it was still a fruitful little track to look through.
All up we counted 46 species and 182 individual birds in the 2 surveys we did. The full details of our surveys can be found here.
An interesting phenomenon we’re noticing with our surveys is Zipf’s law in the frequency rank distribution of the birds we’re seeing. Roughly if the most popular bird is seen n times, the next most popular birds are n/2 then the third most popular are n/3 etc. Here is all the birds we saw at Ravensbourne ranked by frequency (click to enlarge):

I’m not sure what the ecological significance of this is – it might be a sign of a healthy ecosystem, but remember these are only the birds we detect, not all the ones that are there.
The following are all photos that Tony took on the day







