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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Andrew Whitehouse" data-source="post: 1555024" data-attributes="member: 3550">Day Twelve: June 30th Sydney, NSW to Cairns, QueenslandAbout 24 hours after leaving Perth I arrived at the opposite end of Australia in Cairns.  It was, and this was really a good thing, much warmer up there than it had been in the southwest.  After settling in at my accommodation (Caravella Backpackers) I had a wander along the famous Cairns Esplanade.  The tide was well out, which meant that birds were fairly hard to come by but I still managed to see plenty of Australian White Pelicans, Royal Spoonbills, Masked Lapwings, Gull-billed and Caspian Terns and one or two Eastern Reef Egrets and Brahminy Kites.  There weren't too many waders except for the odd Whimbrel, Bar-tailed Godwit and Australian Pied Oystercatcher.  Eventually I found a fetching Black-fronted Dotterel in amongst the channels in the mud.There were a few landbirds in the palm trees along the Esplanade including lots of Rainbow Lorikeets and some noisy groups of Australian Figbirds and Metallic Starlings.  One or two Spangled Drongos perched up prominently and there were some Peaceful Doves quietly feeding on the ground.  In amongst the trees I found some Varied Honeyeaters - a bit like the Singing Honeyeaters I'd seen in the southwest but yellower underneath.  I also managed to get better views of a bird I'd seen briefly at the airport: White-breasted Wood-swallow.By mid-afternoon the tide was well up and there were more waders around.  Amongst the Bar-tailed Godwits and Whimbrel were at least 30 Great Knot, a few showing some bits of rufous breeding plumage, and four very long-billed Far-eastern Curlews.  The best were a group of eight Grey-tailed Tatlers that arrived in briefly before disappearing off.I then met up with Tony (Chowchilla) who'd kindly offered to show me around his rather impressive local patch.  Almost immediately he found the long-staying Laughing Gull amongst the Silver Gulls on the mud: a proper Australian vagrant.  Further up the Esplanade we found several more Black-fronted Dotterels, 15 Red-capped Plovers and 47 Red-necked Stints, all adding to the wader list.  This proved to be a good thing because I hardly saw any waders anywhere else in Australia.  One downer was narrowly missing a pair of Beach Stone Curlews, which had apparently flown off just before we arrived.Soon after getting to the northern end of the mudflats where the mangroves begin to encroach I picked out a couple of Mangrove Robins feeding at the bottom of the mangroves.  Some other visiting birders told me that they'd tried several times in the past to see these birds and Tony commented that been unusually easy to see recently.  I was pretty grateful for this.  We concentrated on landbirds after this and Tony soon helped me to see quite a few other new birds including a beautifully patterned pair of Bar-shouldered Doves, some Yellow Honeyeaters and some strange looking Helmeted Friarbirds.  I was impressed with a very smart Leaden Flycatcher and we saw both Black-faced and White-bellied Cuckoo-shrikes.  I had distant views of a blue and white Forest Kingfisher, a bird that's gratifyingly common in northeast Queensland.  I also saw a species I'd seen back in Singapore: an Olive-backed Sunbird.  Things were a bit quieter towards dusk but I was amazed at the vast numbers of Rainbow Lorikeets that head towards the Esplanade trees to roost.  Thanks to Tony for helping me make a great start to my trip to the northeast.</blockquote>

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