Finally, a full day of sun, or at least only a few clouds. The morning found me along the Border Track and back up the Tree Top Walk trying to photograph some of the rainforest specialities, especially those in teh canopy. I also spent a lot of time trying to get a good photo of a Southern Logrunner and I thought I did, but upon pulling it up on the computer, I realized it wasn't any good. These small birds are rather common along the tracks around Lamington National Park, but are very difficult to photograph because they spend most of their time on the ground foraging in the chaos of the leaf litter.
In the afternoon, I decided to go back out and have a shot at photographing what I was told was a Yellow-throated Scrubwren building a nest. When I arrived at the supposed nest only to find that there weren't any scrubwrens around and I don't believe it was actually a nest. Instead, I spent an hour or so photographing the creek and a rapid in the creek, just before it tumbled down Moran Falls. I really liked the green leaves bordering the rushing water as seen in the above photo.
After returning to camp, I was joined by two other birders as we went for a walk to try and spotlight some night birds and mammals, in particular the Marbled Frogmouth which is found in this area and one other small region farther north. We set out about 7:00 and by about 8:00 could hear a distant Southern Boobook (an owl) and a not as distant Marbled Frogmouth. Eventually, we were able to locate a pair of Frogmouths and got great looks at both of them, including the large plumes at the base of their bill which is specific to the subspecies found in Lamington. It was my first spotlighting trip and I look forward to many more.
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