23 July 2010

We got home to the latest National Geographic magazine and an article about bowerbirds. Just a couple of days before and we’d had the pleasure of watching a Golden Bowerbird at his bower deep in the forest at an altitude of about 900m on the Atherton Tablelands.

How did we manage this? We contacted Alan Gillanders from Yungaburra. Alan knows these birds well and can take you right to them. Our aim was to get some video with Alan and we expected we might get brief views of the bird. Our expectations were well exceeded.

The other thing we’d hoped we would see with Alan was Tree Kangaroo. Alan used to have a nearly 90% success rate finding these elusive animals. Since cyclone Larry, they have extended their ranges due to lack of food and now he expects them on 60-70% of spotlighting sessions (he knows most of the animals by name). We were not lucky enough to get them at night. Alan and I did have one hop across the track on the way to the bowerbird site but at Malanda Falls, Alan turned up to meet us for the first time, just seconds after one appeared in a tree above us (see Wildiaries report for, Malanda Falls). “I’d heard you were good but not that good”, I exclaimed!

You could say that as a guide, Alan’s worth his weight in “golden bowerbirds”. You have to hear his story about the Attenborough sex doll used in a BBC documentary on bowerbirds…a story no doubt reserved for his exclusive guests.

For this and the chance to see spectacular birds and Tree Kangaroos, I’d strongly recommend Alan to anyone visiting the Tablelands.

More about that trip on the Birding Tropical Australia Wildiaries page: http://qld.tnq-birding.wildiaries.com/trips/10255 | Contact Alan Gillanders