Cairns Twitchers

Sunday, 19 August 2018

Grey heron and Freshwater Creek

Ginger flower

Early morning serenity

Two Papuan frogmouths

Curtain fig tree

Papuan frogmouth

Black butcher bird

Spot the goanna at the top of the tree!

Is it a bird, is it a plane, is it a …?

Water lilies

Chinese pavilion

Legless!

In remembrance

Eternal flame

Palm Cove

Looking tropical

We had an early start to Tuesday (someone actually saw the sun rise over the hills!) as we planned to join the birdwatching tour at the Botanic Gardens and needed to be there before 8.30am.  Our small group of about eight was led by two members of the local birding community.  After being shown a large mound made by the scrub fowls, we were quickly led through the gardens to the street behind to look at the rainbow bee eaters and two Papuan frogmouths.  After being suitably impressed, it was down to The Tanks for a much closer look at another frogmouth before crossing into the Centenary Lakes section.  Here there were many more birds: sunbirds, curlews, drongos, black butcher birds, fig birds, fig parrots and a first for us, banded cuckoo shrikes and yellow honeyeaters.  We were also lucky enough to have a lady point out a large goanna high up in a tree, hoping for an inattentive bird to land nearby.  After looking at the waterbirds on Freshwater Lake, the Chinese Garden and the new children’s playground, we returned to the Botanic Gardens via the pandanus swamp.  Two and a half hours disappeared very quickly.

Tuesday night saw us back at Edge Hill for our usual game of bowls and Himself came home with some money after his team won the second prize.  With the temperature dropping below 18 degrees during the evening, it didn’t take long for the jackets to come out of the bag!

We did have a bit of drizzle one morning, which threw all the new arrivals into a panic – it had been six weeks since we had rain (apart from a little mizzle on the morning of the ballet).  Fortunately, it didn’t last very long and we were soon enjoying clear, blue skies and a rising temperature.  It has been much hotter this week.

The vehicle had a service on Thursday, which took up most of Thursday.  After being advised that the very noisy tyres were in urgent need of replacing and a few telephone calls for quotes, it was booked in for Friday at 1.00pm.   Being assured that Bridgstone was “just round the corner from Cazaly’s,” we decided to walk back to the club for lunch while the tyres were changed.  However, just round the corner was nearly 1.5 kms away and with the temperature on 29 degrees in the shade – and there was no shade – we were able to walk off some of the kilojoules!  Unfortunately, the tyre replacement took longer than anticipated, so we were able to enjoy watching 7Mate in the waiting room for an hour.  Observing the wheel alignment was interesting though and after being told that one of the back wheels was nearly going sideways, it was easy to understand why the tyres needed replacing.  The new ones are very, very quiet.

Saturday was Vietnam Veterans’ Day and we planned to attend the Cairns service which has always been held at 5.00pm.  Himself decided perhaps he should just check the time (about 2.00 pm) and was told it had been held at 11.00am this year!  Oh well, to make up for the disappointment we went into the Cenotaph anyway and then treated ourselves to an ice cream.

This morning we appreciated a stroll along the beach at Palm Cove – it was truly delightful walking along the water’s edge with a light breeze keeping us cool.  Once again, the stinger warning flag was flying – and being totally ignored by a number of people!  Not to mention the crocodiles …

Very hot this afternoon; we even turned the air conditioner on for a short period.