The Bunya Mountains is 371 km2 of rainforest, eucalypt forests and woodlands, located less than 200km from the eastern coast. At an average height of 975m the forests are cool and verdant and support a huge amount of flora and fauna.
The Bunya Mountains are also one of the world’s Key Biodiversity Areas and we conducted surveys over two days as part of Birdlife’s KBA programme. It was great to contribute to this international programme, and a wonderful way to end the year for our group.
12 people from our group travelled up for two nights and three days, staying in two cabins.
The evening of Friday the 2nd of December, when most people arrived, was cool and windy and we started a fire in our cabin. The weather abated the next morning and it made for a glorious start to the programme of surveys.
The surveys were organised by Roger and covered a number of forest types and areas.
On Friday afternoon (for those present) the lower end of Rainforest road was surveyed. Then on Saturday morning Westcott south
followed by Paradise (north east)
Then on Saturday afternoon Burtons to Kiangarow trail.
After a nice barbecue that night
It was then time on Sunday morning to visit Cherry Plain West, which had been sadly drought effected in the prior years
and Dandabah to Tim Shea Falls.
All our survey data can be seen here on Birdata.
Across all the surveys 47 species were sighted
| Australian Brush-turkey | Alectura lathami |
| Australian King-Parrot | Alisterus scapularis |
| Australian Raven | Corvus coronoides |
| Black-breasted Button-quail | Turnix melanogaster |
| Black-faced Monarch | Monarcha melanopsis |
| Brown Cuckoo-Dove | Macropygia phasianella |
| Brown Gerygone | Gerygone mouki |
| Brown Quail | Synoicus ypsilophora |
| Brown Thornbill | Acanthiza pusilla |
| Cicadabird | Edolisoma tenuirostris |
| Crimson Rosella | Platycercus elegans |
| Eastern Spinebill | Acanthorhynchus tenuirostris |
| Eastern Whipbird | Psophodes olivaceus |
| Eastern Yellow Robin | Eopsaltria australis |
| Fan-tailed Cuckoo | Cacomantis flabelliformis |
| Golden Whistler | Pachycephala pectoralis |
| Green Catbird | Ailuroedus crassirostris |
| Grey Fantail | Rhipidura fuliginosa |
| Grey Goshawk | Accipiter novaehollandiae |
| Grey Shrike-thrush | Colluricincla harmonica |
| Large-billed Scrubwren | Sericornis magnirostra |
| Laughing Kookaburra | Dacelo novaeguineae |
| Lewin’s Honeyeater | Meliphaga lewinii |
| Noisy Pitta | Pitta versicolor |
| Paradise Riflebird | Lophorina paradiseus |
| Pied Currawong | Strepera graculina |
| Red-backed Fairy-wren | Malurus melanocephalus |
| Regent Bowerbird | Sericulus chrysocephalus |
| Rose Robin | Petroica rosea |
| Rufous Fantail | Rhipidura rufifrons |
| Satin Bowerbird | Ptilonorhynchus violaceus |
| Scarlet Honeyeater | Myzomela sanguinolenta |
| Shining Bronze-Cuckoo | Chalcites lucidus |
| Silvereye | Zosterops lateralis |
| Spotted Pardalote | Pardalotus punctatus |
| Superb Fairy-wren | Malurus cyaneus |
| Tawny Frogmouth | Podargus strigoides |
| Tawny Grassbird | Cincloramphus timoriensis |
| Topknot Pigeon | Lopholaimus antarcticus |
| Torresian Crow | Corvus orru |
| Wedge-tailed Eagle | Aquila audax |
| White-browed Scrubwren | Sericornis frontalis |
| White-headed Pigeon | Columba leucomela |
| White-throated Treecreeper | Cormobates leucophaea |
| Wonga Pigeon | Leucosarcia melanoleuca |
| Yellow-faced Honeyeater | Caligavis chrysops |
| Yellow-throated Scrubwren | Sericornis citreogularis |
There were quite a few highlights – but in particular this male Paradise riflebird that told us where to go in no uncertain terms!
And this pair of Black-breasted button quail, that Scot just managed to get a quick bit of footage of.
With a number of keen photographers in our group we were blessed with the amount of imagery we got. Some highlights follow:
The Bunya mountains are facing a serious threat from Phytophthora fungus, which is killing Bunya pines, and it’s great to see many precautions are now in place to help with this.
And finally – there was a dingo!
Thanks everyone who attended and helped organise thre trip, and everyone who submitted media for this blog entry – what a great time we all had 🙂 (Probably could have done without the ticks though – but who cares LOL!)
One reply on “Bunya Mountains”
What a wonderful weekend you shared, resulting in an impressive list of bird sightings, chief of which were the Black-breasted Button-Quails, well done. An interesting sighting of the dingo too!