Wet Season at The Iron Range - January 2023

I had a great trip to Iron Range this January with 2 groups of 4 people each.

Group 1 - Carol Popple, Andrew Crouch, Paul Newman and Steve Popple

 I arrived with the first group of 4 people on 4th January.

Group 2 - George Appleby, Chrissy Freestone, Richard Alcorn and Margaret Alcorn

I had a wonderful day off between groups and managed to catch up with a few locals and get in a bit of photography for myself.

Papuan Pitta photographed on my day off

We soon got into the pattern of the weather this year. It was much wetter than usual and seemed to rain most afternoons from around 2.30pm until around 5pm so we did not get in much birding in the afternoons.

A rainy afternoon at Green Hoose

We sometimes had a few showers in the evenings also but it was mostly okay for spotlighting.

Immature Green Python found whilst Spotlighting

Green Python on one of the spotlighting evenings

We stayed at the Green Hoose where there is plenty of good birding on the property. We breakfasted at 6am each morning and then headed out to the rain forest or the scrub enjoying a great variety of birds, insects and reptiles. Lunch was back at the Green Hoose at around noon followed by a bit of a break and then back out into the bush for more birding if it was not raining too hard.

Black-faced Monarch

Red-cheeked Parrot

White-streaked Honeyeater

We found the morning birding to be much more rewarding than later in the day. Our lovely hosts at Green Hoose had dinner ready for us each evening at 6pm. We generally headed out for a bit of spotlighting after dinner. The wet weather seemed to be bringing out a lot of Green Pythons but putting a bit of a damper on the Marbled Frogmouth which where difficult to find in the usual spots!

Northern Death Adder found on the road at night

Marbled Frogmouth

Besides the Rainforest we also visited Chilli Beach, Quentel Beach and Mango Dam.

Scoping shorebirds at Chilli Beach

Lovely tranquil Mango Dam

I found Iron Range very busy this year but did run into a lot of interesting people, particularly R. Bruce Richardson and Ian Lock.

Bruce and myself at Lockhart Airport

As I neared the end of the two weeks I was really looking forward to getting home and getting dry but as usual, wishing I could stay a bit longer in this awesome place!

Saw-shelled Turtle we rescued from the road.