Recent literature about north Queensland birds: October 2025

Compiled by Don Franklin | Guest Contributor

Cassowaries

Webber et al. (2025) identified 215 cases of vehicle collisions with Cassowaries in the Wet Tropics from 1991 to 2018 that had a date and the location could be identified to within 50 m. Their analysis of these records showed that “At a landscape scale, vehicle collisions increased significantly when the proportion of cassowary core habitat in the landscape was >50% and as the density of major roads increased. To a lesser extent, collisions increased when minor road density exceeded 400 m/km². At a location-specific scale, vehicle collisions are more likely to occur on straight sections of major roads that have high canopy cover on both sides of the road and were less likely to occur on roads passing through land use types with low canopy cover.”

Anderson et al. (2025) deployed 454 motion-sensitive cameras (‘camera traps’) across 240 Wet Tropics sites for a total of 26,014 trap days to detect Cassowaries. Approximately half the cameras were placed along roads or tracks, and half within forest, a factor accounted for in subsequent modelling. The authors employed a resampling technique resulting in 566 independent Cassowary observations. Unsurprisingly, “Cassowary detections were significantly higher in rainforests compared to adjacent wet sclerophyll closed-canopy forests.” Abundance varied most markedly with rainfall and, perhaps counterintuitively, was greatest in rainforest with (relatively) lower rainfall. Abundance was also markedly greater in forests that were in better condition. “Abundance was not strongly affected by human footprint or elevation.”

Kookaburras and Bee-eaters

Ritchie (2025) provided a photo essay of Rainbow Bee-eaters in a cemetery in Cairns.

Beauty on the wing: a Rainbow Bee-eater in Cairns Cemetery northern Queensland. Photo by Scott Ritchie.

Emmott and Frith (2025) photographed a bee-eater swallowing a stone, and reported it doing so a number of times with one stone being about 4.5 mm in diameter. It seems likely that the stones contained beneficial minerals, gypsum or calcium carbonate.

Scambler and Daly (2024) “observed a breeding pair of Blue-winged Kookaburras on Magnetic Island, north Queensland, over three years, which defended a territory of ~5.5 ha from 2-3 neighbouring groups of Laughing Kookaburras”. This included 25 observed chorus and display events when Laughing Kookaburras were present, one occasion in which the Blue-wing pair repelled two Laughing Kookaburras, and one in which a fight occurred.

A new bird for Australia

Baxter et al. (2024) observed a Blyth’s Hornbill on Dauan Island in the Torres Strait present over a 14-day period, and provide photographic evidence. This is not only a new species for the Australian checklist, but a new family as well.

Blyth’s Hornbill: female (left), male (right): Waigeo Island, Indonesia, March 2017. Photo by Dominic Chaplin.

Squatter Pigeons

Most Squatter Pigeons (Geophaps scripta) in north Queensland (Qld) are the northern subspecies (S. s peninsulae) with orange-red eye ring, but the southern subspecies (S. s scripta) with blue-grey eye ring has been recorded as far north as Greenvale and Townsville (Lloyd et al. 2025).

Squatter Pigeon: northern subspecies. Note the orange-red eye ring. Photo by Jennifer H Muir.

These authors found that “Southern Squatter Pigeons showed a preference for alluvial plain landforms but also used a range of other landform types. Similarly, most nest records were on alluvial plains. Southern Squatter Pigeons were associated with gentle slopes averaging 0.64–2.36° in all land zones, with 95% of records on slopes <3.3°.

Southern Squatter Pigeons were mostly recorded in eucalypt woodlands, particularly those dominated by Reid River Box Eucalyptus brownii or Poplar Box E. populnea, Narrow-leaved Red Ironbark E. crebra or Queensland Grey Ironbark E. drepanophylla, Silver-leaved Ironbark E. melanophloia, and River Red Gum E. camaldulensis or Forest Red Gum E. tereticornis. The records were located an average distance of 496 ± 554 m from the nearest perennial water source and 95% were within 1.7 km of a perennial water source. Nests were located 245 ± 214 m from a perennial watersource. Average ground vegetation cover in remnant or high-value regrowth communities inhabited by Southern Squatter Pigeons ranged between 24% and 73%.”

Squatter Pigeon: southern subspecies. Note the blue-grey eye-ring. Photo by Jennifer H Muir.

Waterbirds

Using data from their own and other surveys for the period 1972–2021, Pearson et al. (2024) documented 100 wetland bird species in the extensive wetlands along the coast from Townsville to Ayr. “Richness had a humped relationship with water depth [it was greatest at intermediate depths] .... modelling identified mostly weak relationships between species, assemblages and environmental variables (e.g. nutrients). Abundances mostly increased during the dry season but irrigation tailwater reduced seasonal variation in some wetlands. No apparent change in common species’ assemblages was evident over four decades.”

Jim Bravery, Tablelands ornithologist

Pioneering Atherton Tablelands ornithologist Jim Bravery has been the subject of two (more) historical reviews by Elinor Scambler. Bravery, “a young coal miner from south-east Queensland, was interested in birds and conservation by age 14, although he never collected eggs and no other family members were naturalists. After serving in WWI, he moved to the Atherton Tablelands as a soldier-settler and farmed there for the rest of his life. The most probable influence on Jim Bravery’s early development as a field ornithologist was the ‘new curriculum’, which introduced nature study to Queensland primary schools for his last four years of education, at ages 9–12. .... After recording birds and their behaviour on the Atherton Tablelands for nearly 40 years, at age 60 Bravery joined ornithological societies and began corresponding with leading naturalists .... Bravery’s articles, particularly his 1970 signature paper on birds of the Atherton Shire, have attracted more than 1000 citations in published literature” (Scambler 2025).

“Bravery was the epitome of a farmer earning a livelihood from cleared land, but valuing rainforest for its beauty, vegetation and wildlife. He planted trees and practised soil conservation measures on the small family farm, and was closely connected with the local community through numerous volunteer activities. He engaged the support of high-profile naturalists and journalists in campaigns to protect bird habitat in Far North Queensland, and his diaries and letters give a unique personal insight into wildlife protection, habitat loss and community conservation concerns in northern Queensland in the mid-20th century” (Scambler 2025).

Other birds

On rocky landscapes in the Mt Isa area, Barnes et al. (2025) “conducted a 13-month camera trap study at 60 camera stations, totalling 21,965 camera days, aimed at detecting the faunal assemblage present on these landforms.” Two bird species were detected, the Kalkadoon Grasswren on 194 occasions and Spinifex Pigeon on 13 occasions. The grasswren was detected more often on igneous and metamorphic (cf sedimentary) rocks, more often on east- and west-facing slopes (cf north and south-facing), and more often among boulders than other rocky landforms.

A female Kalkadoon Grasswren, Mt Isa, northern Qld. Photo by Rex Whitehead.

Spinifex Pigeon, near Mareeba, northern Qld. Photo by Jennifer H Muir.

“Photographs of a brood of two Black Butcherbird nestlings showing one in the black and one in the brown morph feathering provide the first documentary evidence of such plumage in nestlings and juveniles in the species” (Frith 2025).

“An Eastern Whipbird …. was observed and photographed performing an intense ‘spreadeagle’ sunning posture as the first record of sunning by the species and genus” (Frith & Emmott 2025).

During a ‘bioblitz’ survey – a brief, but intense survey by many people - of a revegetated riparian corridor and adjacent open area at Malanda, Heiser et al. (2025) reported 55 bird species.

“I examined roadkill specimens of two species of owl and two species of frogmouth from the Australian Wet Tropics for photoluminescence, …. All specimens examined displayed orange-pink feather photoluminescence to varying degrees” (Reinhold 2025).

References

Anderson SE, Amir Z, Bruce T, & Luskin MS (2025). Range-wide camera trapping for the Australian Cassowary reveals habitat associations with rainfall and forest quality. Ecology and Evolution 15: e71464. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ece3.71464

[Editor’s note: if this Link doesn’t work, try listing the authors exactly as follows: Skye Elise Anderson, Zachary Amir, Tom Bruce, Matthew Scott Luskin].

Barnes JC, Brunton EA, Sanders MG, & Clemente CJ (2025). Rocky landform specialists of the Mount Isa Inlier: camera trapping reveals seasonal occupancy and habitat associations of a unique faunal assemblage in an ancient landscape. Australian Journal of Zoology 73: ZO24030. https://www.publish.csiro.au/zo/pdf/ZO24030

Baxter R, Hattingh T, & Nisbett A (2024). A Blyth’s Hornbill Rhyticeros plicatus on Dauan Island, Torres Strait, Queensland, February to March 2024: A new bird species and family for Australian Territory. Australian Field Ornithology 41: 199-203. https://afo.birdlife.org.au/afo/index.php/afo/article/view/2353/2380

Emmott A & Frith CB (2025). Australian Bee-eater Merops ornatus swallowing stones. North Queensland Naturalist 55: 1-2. https://www.nqnat.org/_files/ugd/570194_41e66f5cfd0441dbaabc7f0982dc016a.pdf

Frith CB (2025). Both a black and a rufous-brown plumage morph nestling in a Black Butcherbird brood. North Queensland Naturalist 55: 82-84. https://www.nqnat.org/_files/ugd/eb4488_fb91e9504e534f27944bcff30472b443.pdf

Frith CB & Emmott A (2025). Intense sunning by an Eastern Whipbird Psophodes olivaceus. Australian Field Ornithology 42: 25-25. https://afo.birdlife.org.au/afo/index.php/afo/article/view/2359/2386

Heiser AG, McDowell SR & 22 others (2025). A snapshot of diversity – a North Queensland BioBlitz exploring plant and animal diversity at a reforested urban park in Malanda, Atherton Tablelands. North Queensland Naturalist 55: 22-39. https://www.nqnat.org/_files/ugd/eb4488_3b879d825f144e8abf508e2466806258.pdf

Lloyd P, Williams ER & 8 others (2025). Habitat associations of the Southern Squatter Pigeon Geophaps scripta scripta in Queensland. Australian Field Ornithology 42: 156-167. https://afo.birdlife.org.au/afo/index.php/afo/article/view/2381

Pearson RG, Zunker-Mellick B & Nolen JA (2024). Waterbird assemblages of Australia’s largest east-coast wetland complex: environmental determinants of spatial and temporal distribution. Pacific Conservation Biology 30: PC24030. [Burdekin-Townsville seasonal freshwater wetlands]

Reinhold LM (2025). Photobleaching of pink photoluminescence in owl and frogmouth feathers. Biologia 80: 275-286.

Ritchie S (2025). The bee-eater chronicles. Australian Birdlife 14(2): 42-47. [Cairns Cemetery]

Scambler EC (2025). James Andrew (Jim) Bravery, 1896–1975: miner, soldier, farmer and an outstanding field ornithologist on the Atherton Tablelands, far north Queensland. North Queensland Naturalist 55: 3-21. https://www.nqnat.org/_files/ugd/eb4488_b3c1a0acda434290ab2aaaf6f3199657.pdf

Scambler EC & Daly PJ (2024). Interspecific territoriality between Blue-winged Kookaburras Dacelo leachii and Laughing Kookaburras D. novaeguineae in eastern Queensland, with observations from Magnetic Island. Corella 51: 16-24. https://birdsqueensland.org.au/sunbird_issues/articles/Vol_51/Scambler_2024_v51_1_16-24.pdf

Webber BL, Bradford M, Ota N & Westcott D (2025). Predicting cassowary-vehicle collision in the Wet Tropics of Australia. Wildlife Research 52: WR23089. https://www.publish.csiro.au/wr/pdf/WR23089