Early mornings around Paluma are invariably accompanied by a wide range of bird songs. The most distinctive and noisy of these is produced by the Chowchilla (Orthonyx spaldingii), although the whipbird and the catbird run a close second.
Chowchilla calls recorded by Andreé Griffin
Chowchillas are endemic to north Queensland, with two subspecies: O. spaldingii melasmenus occurring from near Cooktown to the Daintree, and O. spaldingii spaldingii ocurring south of the Daintree to the Paluma ranges. They are found in rainforests mostly above 450m. Chowchillas don’t vocalise much during full daylight hours, but its not hard to spot them as they run along the ground across, or next to village tracks, or reveal themsleves as the rustle through the leaf litter. Male and females both have handsome plumage, with the rich rufous throat of the female being particularly striking.
Male (top) and Female (bottom) Chowchilla. Photos taken by Brian O’Leary at Paluma in 2012.
Chowchillas forage on the forest floor, scratching leaves and debris to expose small insects and other invertebrates in the leaf litter, as well as the odd small lizard or frog. They are sometimes joined by other bird species such as the Grey-headed roobin, Whipbird and Yellow-throated scrub-wren who will take advantage of the disturbed litter to find food for themselves.
Male Chowchilla calling. Photo by Peter Cooke
Chowchillas are well known to form social groups, usually comprised of a mating pair accompanied by male offspring from the last few nesting years. Occasionally unrelated maies will also occasionally join the group. The group jointly defends a territory with all individualls participating in the well-known vocal chorus of rythmic warbles to warn off adjacent family groups. Each group has its own distinct song dialect. The status of the Chowchilla social behaviour is somewhat controversial. Group territoriality is not uncommon in Australian birds (eg Babblers), but in most cases it has been shown that they assist in rearing offspring of the main breeding pair that they are usually related to (cooperative breeding). However in Chowchillas no direct assistance in rearing has been observed in any of the non-breeding group members. An alternative explanation for the evolution of group formation and persistence in Chowchillas is that by assisting in defending the group territory, they enhance the security of food resources that the breeding pair will use to raise offspring.
Chowchillas are one of three species in the genus Orthonyx (log-runners). The other two are found in southeastern Australia and New Guinea.
The name Chowchilla was used by the Dyirbal Aboriginal group and is presumably onomatopoeic. Many local settlers adopted this name, although it was more frequently named the northern Log-runner in early bird guides. (See here for a short article on some other rainforest birds whose aboriginal names have been rediscovered)
Text by Jamie Oliver, Photos by Brian O’Leary and Peter Cooke
One of several ubiquitous yet relatively unassuming birds in Paluma gardens, the Little Shrike-Thrush (Colluricincla megarhyncha) has understated pastel-brown plumage and a quiet demeanour as it flits through the shrubs and understory in search of insects. But its charming and melodious call makes it one of my favourite companions as I walk through our garden or along the village road.
The Little Shirke-thrush has a long and storied history when it comes to its taxonomic status (see below), but currently Colluricincla megarhyncha is considered to be widely distributed throughout northern and eastern Australia, as well as mainland New Guinea and adjacent islands. It favours rainforest habitats (tropical and sub-tropical) but can occasionally be found in mangroves, paperbark swamps and regrowth forests. It occurs mainly in lowlands, although it is also found at altitudes up to 1800m.
On the birding leaderboards, the Little Shrike-thrush is overshadowed by its close relative, Bower’s Shrike-thrush (Colluricincla boweri), whose claim to fame has nothing to do with its physical attributes – it’s even plainer than the Little Shrike-thrush. Rather, its rarity is what makes it special. It can be found in upland rainforests of NE Australia between Townsville and Cooktown, and nowhere else. There are many records of Bower’s Shrike-thrush around Paluma on the Atlas of Living Australia and iNaturalist, although (to my shame) I have never seen one that I could confidently identify. It is distinguished from the Little Shrike-thrush by its dark grey head and back, and all-black bill, so good lighting and a fairly close proximity are needed. The photo below, from Ethel Creek, clearly shows the difference.
The bill of the Little Shrike-thrush is paler with a slightly pink base on the lower part. Photo by Jono Dashper, iNaturalist
Insects make up the bulk of the Little Shrike-thrush’s diet. A plate of mealworms in our garden, once discovered, is rapidly consumed on the spot, except during breeding season, when I have seen one bird stuff up to five mealworms in its beak and then fly off to a nest hidden somewhere in the trees. While I have never seen it at our bird seed dispenser or our parrot and honeyeater buffet of fruit and date syrup, Little Shrike-thrushes are known to occasionally consume both.
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Breeding occurs from August to February and pairs of birds have been recorded to attempt up to five broods per season. Nests are about head-height in a tree fork, hidden amongst foliage. Incubation is mostly by the female, but both parents participate in feeding the young, which take about 10 days to fledge. Choice of nesting sites is flexible, as discovered by Colwyn Campbell several years ago when she noticed that her clothespeg basket on her clothesline had been commandeered by what appears to be a Little Shrike-thrush.
Photo by Peter Coke
Text and photos (unless indicated) by Jamie Oliver
Additional optional reading ……
Why is it called a Shrike-thrush?
Common names are often derived from the names used by the public for animals and plants that were sufficiently common or important to come up repeatedly in conversations. These common names often had obscure origins and did not necessarily reflect the nature of the animal or its affiliations to other related species. Scientific names are divided into two parts, first the genus, then the species. The species part of the name can be quite arbitrary and refer to a famous scientist or patron, or to some fairly inconsequential feature. But naturalists of old, as well as current taxonomists, tend to think more carefully when choosing names for the genus so as to reflect some important feature or affiliation shared by all the species in the genus.
So who came up with the name Shrike-thrush? It doesn’t have much scientific credibility since the genus is not related to either Shrikes or Thrushes. I had assumed that Shrike-thrush was coined by early European birdwatchers who found the scientific name Colluricincla a bit of a mouthful to pronounce, and since these birds were really like nothing they had seen before back home, but to their untrained eye looked a wee bit “thrushy” and also a wee bit “shrikey”, the name Shrike-thrush would do in a pinch. After consulting Chat GPT and giving it the benefit of the doubt in relation to accuracy, I found I was right that early birdo’s seem to have come up with this name. But took a much more conservative approach to choosing the name – they simply translated the Greek roots used in the scientific name Colluricincla: “collurio” meaning Shrike and “cinclos” meaning Thrush.
It was actually two very distinguished naturalists, Nicholas Vigors (founder of the Zoological Society of London) and Thomas Horsfield (founder of the Royal Entomological Society) who proposed the genus in 1827. They worked together on a description of the Australian Birds in the collection of the Linnaen Society. Describing birds based on preserved skins in the dusty bowels of a British museum, having never seen these birds in the wild, is not the best way to understand their form and affiliations but on reading their original 1827 manuscript it became clear that the authors used features they could see and measure (bill shape, wing shape etc) to conclude that the closest relatives to the Shrike-thrushes were indeed Shrikes and Thrushes.
We now know this was not the case, but hindsight is not a fair way to judge the quality of scientific enquiry, and there are no formal taxonomic rules about choice of scientific names (except that they be latinised), and thus no reason for the scientific name to be changed. In fact, once a name has been published, it remains forever. It can be removed from use for a particular group or reassigned to another group. But the name itself is immutable. This is not the case for common names (although there have been many efforts to voluntarily standardise common names) so a change in the common name for a genus is theoretically possible.
Peter Slater, the author of the first truly comprehensive Australian field guide for birds, was not a fan of the name Shrike-thrush. In his introduction to the genus, he suggests that the Aboriginal name “Gudilang” might be an appropriate replacement. This is probably a reference to the word referred to by Google AI as “Koodelong”, used by the Noongaar people of southwest WA. This suggestion from 1974 appears never to have been taken up, but it was a good one.
There are great examples of Aboriginal words for place names and fauna adopted into the Australian vocabulary. It’s fortunate that Joseph Banks, the naturalist aboard Captain Cook’s first voyage to Australia, thought to consult the local people of what later became Cooktown about the Aboriginal name for one of the mammals he had just discovered. Otherwise, he might have sent it back as a pelt to England for description and naming. We might then have had something called a “rabbit-deer” on our national coat of arms!
A game of names
The Little Shrike-thrush from Paluma has suffered the indignity of having had both its common and scientific names, as well as the identity of its relatives, changed repeatedly in field guides over the last few decades. When I first arrived in Australia, armed with the first edition of the only authoritative field guide to Australian birds by Peter Slater (1974), I was able to identify it as the Rufous Shrike-thrush (Colluricincla megarhyncha). By 1980 when I got a copy of the newly published field guide by Graham Pizzey it still retained the same common and scientific names but now included a new population of birds from the Northern Territory, formerly the Little Shrike-thrush (C. parvula), that, through no fault of its own, had been deemed unworthy of the status of a separate species and got demoted to a race of C. megarhyncha .
Fast forward to around 2010 when the first digital (iPhone) bird guide by Morcombe and Stewart came out based on taxonomy from 2008. Our Paluma bird had the same scientific species name but was assigned to a new race: rufogaster. It also acquired the common name from the NT population (Little Shrike-thrush).
Some time after 2018. The Pizzey and Knight digital edition had changed the common name of our Paluma bird back to the Rufous Shrike-thrush and elevated its race as a new species: C. rufogaster. The previously demoted Little Shrike-thrush had been rehabilitated as a full species in the Northern Territory and awarded the scientific name previously owned by our Paluma bird as well as all the others on the east coast: C. megarhyncha. with the common name Arafura Shrike-thrush. Our Paluma bird suddenly acquired an enormous extended family!
Most recently, all the populations of the east and northern coasts, together with numerous species and races from New Guinea, have been amalgamated into a single species (C megarhyncha) with a whopping 28 subspecies.
Taxonomists are often categorised as being either lumpers (who tend to merge previously identified species into a single one) and splitters, who do the opposite. This latest revision of C. megarhyncha was a huge win for the “lumpers”. It is very unusual for a species to have so many formally recognised subspecies. The island thrush had nearly fifty subspecies a while ago, but has now been split up. Currently, there are only two other species that have approximately the same number as the Little Shrike thrush. There is now speculation that, as more genetically based studies are conducted on the various subspecies, a similar decimation may occur for the Little Shrike-thrush. It will be interesting to see if any future split affects the naming of our Paluma bird. It seems that it has succumbed to the curse of “living in interesting times”.
The Metallic Starling (Aplonis metallica) is a frequent visitor to Paluma from about August till February, where it can be seen in small groups feeding on the fruit of various rainforest trees. Unless the light is right, they can appear to be fairly nondescript, small dark birds up in the canopy feeding, flitting and calling. But when the sunlight catches them, they are quite spectacular, with glowing red eyes and a metallic rainbow of iridescent feathers. They also called Shining Starlings, with good reason.
Metallic Starlings can be found in rainforests and adjacent coastal woodlands, as well as tropical gardens. They are primarily frugivorous (fruit-eating) but supplement their diet with nectar and insects. They forage in flocks of up to several hundred, although in Paluma flocks are much smaller, often just a few birds. In Australia, most birds are believed to migrate from eastern New Guinea around August, and remain until April.
Starlings have a bit of bad rep, all due to the habits of one out of the 125 species in the Starling family (Sturnidae). The Common Starling (Sturnus vulgaris) is one of the most invasive species in the world. It competitively displaces native species of birds in southern and eastern Australia and is an economic pest in WA. Another member of the starling family (the Indian Myna) is also an invasive pest. However, the majority of starlings are beautiful tropical birds with little if any invasive tendencies. The glossy starlings of Africa are truly spectacular in appearance and a favourite of birdwatchers.
Several years ago, Michael Drew pointed out a tree on the range road, which had hosted a colony of metallic starlings but had subsequently been abandoned. Last year Peter Laux reported that the birds were again nesting there, and they are here again this year as well. The tree is on the downhill slope next to the very large landslip on the corner above culvert 151 (now dubbed Starling Corner by Michael).
Nesting Metallic Starlings at “Starling Corner” on the Range Road, November 2024. Photo Jamie Oliver
Metallic Starlings, as well as many other species in the family, are colonial nesters. Up to 1000 Metallic Starlings can build domed nests in an emergent tree. The sudden arrival or departure of flocks to the nesting tree provides a memorable spectacle of coordinated aerial acrobatics.
A flock of starlings leaving their nests to forage for fruit near Julatten. Photo Jamie Oliver
The presence of this many birds breeding in such a small area has been shown to have a profound impact on the fauna below the nesting tree. Huge concentrations of invertebrates, and vertebrates such as turkeys, parrots, pittas, pythons, tree snakes, frogs, toads, native rats and pigs were found to exploit the rain of organic matter (including nestlings) falling from the nests above.
The Southern Cassowary (Casuarius casuarius) is the truly the iconic animal of Australia’s tropical rainforests.
A mature male near Mission Beach (photo by Jamie Oliver)
It features on countless posters, and the name has been applied to geographic areas (the Cassowary Coast), and the common names (plum, satin ash, pine) and scientific names (the genus Casuarina) of several plants. It also features on 2 commemorative Australian coins and is used to celebrate outstanding community contributions to Wet Tropics World Heritage Area management through the WTMA annual Cassowary awards.
The vivid red and blue facial skin, and the pendulous wattles of mature Cassowaries, probably serve to signal sexual readiness and warn off competitors during the breeding season, and may also serve to deter predators. The uniquely large head casque is a prominent feature of fully adult birds and is now thought to play a role as a heat exchanger to regulate body temperature. The Southern Cassowary is the second biggest bird, by weight, in the world, exceeded only by the Ostrich.
Cassowaries are primarily frugivorous. In Australia, they are recorded to eat the fruit of at least 75 plant species. They can travel into nearby habitats such as eucalyptus woodlands, beaches and mangroves in search of fruiting trees. Like most non-carivourous birds, Cassowaries will supplement their diet with invertbrated and small vertebrates including nestlings of several birds, frogs, fish and snails.
Cassowaries play a critical role in the ecology of our rainforests. In particular their penchant for freshly fallen fruit results in them serving as a primary agent of seed dispersal for many rainforest trees. One rare, near-threatened species of tree in the Daintree has been shown to be virtually incapable of germination without first passing through the gut of a Cassowary. It is aptly referred to as the “rainforest gardener” by many naturalists.
Cassowaries are often referred to as ratites, which also includes Ostriches, Emus, Rheas and Kiwis. These large flightless birds lack a keel on their breastbone, which forms the anchor point for flight muscles. Since this condition is now known to have evolved more than once, the term is no longer used by taxonomists.
Cassowaries are most closely related to Emus, both of which belong to the family Casuariidae. There are three species of Cassowary. Only the Southern Cassowary occurs in Australia, as well as the southern lowlands of New Guinea. The other two are restricted to PNA and some offshore islands.
Cassowary Breeding follows the seasonal pattern of fruiting. In Australia, breeding extends from June to October. Very low-frequency calls are common at this time. Like most ratites, male Cassowaries are responsible for incubation of eggs and care of the young up to 12 months after hatching. Males can be aggressively protective of their young. During the first year, the pale brown striped young gradually turn darker and lose their stripes. Full adult plumage and a fully developed casque can take up to 4-5 years.
Apart from their size and impressive colouration, part of the allure of Cassowaries is that they are never very abundant, even in their prime habitat. Catching a glimpse or an extended view of an individual or family group is a special occasion even for long-term residents of Paluma.
Paluma is near the southern limit of the Cassowary’s range and the density of birds here is significantly lower than in areas further north. Even at peak densities, Cassowaries are not very abundant (less than 2 adults per km2). Our best current estimates of abundance are based on a study that examined DNA of droppings (a shitty job if ever there was one!)
Peak density estimates were found for Tully and Russel River. (~1.8 and 1.5 adult birds per km2). No dung was found around Paluma during the study, but an extrapolated density of 0.02/km2 or about 15 individuals was predicted for the region.
This very low estimate, and the general lack of data on densities around Paluma, prompted the recent work by Wren Mclean to carry out a more comprehensive survey that used counts of scat (and other signs) as well as camera traps to derive an updated population size for the Paluma region.
Last month, Paluma hosted a presentation from Wren and others to report on the results of this project.
For most bushwalkers around Paluma, this is the most you will normally see of a Cassowary. Note the uniform but differing colour of seeds in each scat, indicating that these birds are likely to stay and eat their fill under a fruiting tree once it is encountered. (photos by Juanita Poletto)
During the weekend survey on Oct 31 -Nov 1, teams covered 53km of ground and detected 4 cassowary scats [2 fresh and 2 mature] on Jourama and Dolerite Falls tracks to the north and north east of Paluma dam. These observations and other signs, contributed to a new encounter rate of Cassowary signs for the overall project to one sign per/14.5km.
While further analysis will be needed to turn these results into a reliable new estimate of Cassowary densities around Paluma, the data do suggest that Cassowaries are certainly still present in the Paluma Range and, interestingly, that they move between the upland rainforests and lower altitudes at different times of the year, presumably in pursuit of fruiting trees.
While the project is wrapping up, if you see any Cassowaries, or signs of their presence, feel free to contact me, or use the QR Code on the Rotunda sign at the village green to lodge a report.
PS – If you are lucky enough to encounter a group of cassowaries in the forest, the popular literature says they can be referred to as a “dash of Cassowaries”. Google searches and careful consultation with ChatGPT suggest that this is a recent appellation and it might not take hold, if only because it would be so rare to see one!
Westcott et al 2014, Estimation of the population size and distribution of the southern cassowary, Casuarius casuarius, in the Wet Tropics Region of Australia
Webber and Woodrow 2005, Genetic diversity and plant propagation in the rare rainforest tree, Ryparosa kurrangii
Have you got your Friday night sorted this evening. Don’t feel like cooking? Come and listen and watch the presentation on the Paluma Cassowary Project by Wren McLean and enjoy some delicious complimentary Thai Curry as well.
The distinctive calls of the whip-bird are often heard coming from dense and usually moist habitat, but they are rarely seen out in the open.
They are generally shy, so it was quite a surprise to see this bird happily foraging amongst leaf litter and fallen tibouchina flowers only metres from the road in downtown Paluma recently.
Whipbirds are found in dense habitats all the way as far south as eastern Victoria but two sub-species of Psophodes olivaceous are distinguished geographically.
The sub-species expected here at Paluma is the northern race, sometimes known as the northern whipbird (Psophodes olivaceus lateralis) found in the wet tropics from Townsville to Cooktown.
The call is usually a duet between the male and female, the male producing the long note and whip crack and female the following notes.
Whipbirds are monogamous. Breeding occurs from late winter through spring; a loosely built bowl of twigs and sticks lined with softer material such as grasses, located in shrubs or trees less than 3–4 m above the ground. Several broods may occur in an extended breeding season
The female incubates the eggs and broods the nestlings, though the male helps feed and take a more active role in looking after fledglings for six weeks after leaving the nest.
The male and female are similar in plumage, so it’s hard to tell which pronouns the bird pictured bird might prefer.
Photos by Peter Cook. Text gleaned mostly from Wikipedia by Peter Cooke.
The Spectacled Monarch (Symposiachrus trivirgatus) is a small and colourful songbird with an international range — from Eastern Australia, through New Guinea into the Islands of Indonesia and Timor.
There are multiple subspecies. In eastern Australia the northern subspecies is albiventris, with melanorrhous further south and gouldii at the southern limit of its range, Port Stephens in New South Wales.
According to the Australian Bird Guide maps, at Paluma we would expect to find sub-species melanorrhous. The differences between subspecies are somewhat subtle so in Paluma we may be seeing an overlap with the far northern sub-species albiventris. Albiventris is described as having a rufous upper breast sharply defined from more extensive white underparts than melanorrhous and gouldii.
Males and females are similarly feathered — blue-grey above, with a black face mask that extends across both eyes, rufous (red-orange) breast, white underparts and a black tail with white outer tips. Immature birds lack the black face and have a grey throat.
As well as subtle changes in plumage the sub-species are distinguished by a variety of songs and calls from rising mellow whistles in the Lesser Sundas to raspier whistled notes in Australia. eBird says that calls vary, but are generally “harsh and unpleasant-sounding buzzes and rattles”.
The eastern Australian sub-species are found in subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests, subtropical or tropical mangrove forests, and subtropical or (as we have here at Paluma) the moist montane forests of the Wet Tropics.
The Spectacled Monarch is not an easy bird to photograph, stopping only for a few seconds to perch as it makes its way, mostly obscured, amongst dense foliage while foraging for insects below the canopy and on tree trunks or vines.
Google search comes up with several spellings for the scientific name: Birds in Backyards says Symposiarchus trivirgatus, most other sites use Symposiachrus trivirgatus
Photos by Peter Cooke and text gleaned and adapted from Wikipedia, eBird and Birds in Backyards. Location: jungle margin behind #56.
The Grey-headed Robin (Heteramyias cinereifrons) is a large, plump robin of the Wet Tropics with a range extending north from Paluma to near Cooktown.
At Paluma it’s often seen along rainforest tracks and margins, usually feeding on or near the ground, scanning leaf litter from an upright perch on tree trunks or low branches before dropping to take its prey.
Both sexes are olive brown above, with gray crown and breast, stark white throat, and white wing patch, prominent in flight. Its upright stance, large size, intricate plumage, and pale pink legs are distinctive.
Breeding occurs from August or September to January, with one or two broods per season. The nest is a shallow cup made of bark, grass, and dry leaves. Spider webs are used for binding or filling, and strips of fern and palm for lining; the outside is decorated by dried vegetation. The nest is generally placed in a lawyer vine up to 10 m above the ground. A clutch of one or two eggs is laid. The eggs are buff, cream- or dark greenish-white, and marked with light brown splotches and spots, usually concentrated around the large end, and they measure 26 by 19 mm.
Photos by Peter Cooke and text adapted from Wikipedia and e-bird.
The grey fantail (Rhipidura albiscapa) has a wide Australian distribution but is also found in the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and New Caledonia.
There are five named subpopulations in Australia. At Paluma, we have the eastern Australian subspecies Rhipidura albiscapa keasti, most commonly found along the coast and ranges to our north and south. This population is regarded as sedentary, while most others are migratory or nomadic.
P. a. keasti is distinguished by having the darkest plumage of the grey fantails.
During waking hours, the grey fantails are almost never still. They flit from perch to perch, sometimes on the ground but mostly on the twigs of a tree or any other convenient object, looking out for flying insects. They are able to catch flying insects using intricate acrobatic chases.
The birds are not shy, and will often flit within a few metres of people, especially in forested areas and suburban gardens. In doing so, it is able to catch any small flying insects that may have been disturbed by human activities such as walking or digging.
Most bird species typically build one nest in a breeding season, but grey fantails commonly build more than one nest before egg-laying, and seven nests have been recorded as the highest number in a breeding season.
There is a hypothesis explaining nest abandonment in this species. Abandoned nests could be used to confuse predators. In fact, a large number of abandoned nests exposed on trees are significantly less concealed than nests that eventually received eggs. Grey fantail eggs and fledglings are a favored prey of pied currawongs.
Some of the materials from decoy nests may be used to construct the subsequent breeding nest. They raise several broods per season, usually each of three or four cream eggs, spotted grey and brown. The incubation period is around two weeks, with incubation and feeding duties shared by both parents.
Photographs taken by Peter Cooke in Smith Crescent. Text is largely an edited version of a Wikipedia entry.
