What's About: Cairns & Tablelands Birding, 1 - 7 October 2026

These records are flagged as unusual by eBird's automated filters and may be reviewed, corrected or withdrawn afterwards. We re-check each one against eBird before posting, but a flagged sighting is provisional until it is confirmed.

After a month of back-to-back megas on the Esplanade, this was a quieter, settling week. The Kelp Gull has moved on, no new headline bird stepped in to replace it, and the numbers eased back to something like normal. No bad thing, the spring migration is ticking along steadily, and a quiet week is a good chance to catch your breath and enjoy the regulars.

Our header image is a Satin Flycatcher kindly shared by Chris Rappolt. We are not sure when or where it was taken, so we are showing it simply as a portrait of the bird of the week.

Satin Flycatchers everywhere

If anything was the theme of the week, it was the Satin Flycatcher. What started as a scattered report or two has turned into a proper little influx, with birds popping up right across the region, around Kuranda and Tinaroo on the Tablelands, and down at Cattana, Redlynch, Palm Cove and Thala Beach on the coast. It is a passage migrant, a neat black-and-white flycatcher very like the commoner Leaden, so worth a careful look, and this is the time of year to catch them moving through. A nice reminder that you do not need a once-in-a-decade vagrant for a rewarding week's birding.

Plenty still arriving

The season kept delivering fresh arrivals too. The pick on the coast was an Oriental Plover at the France Road turf farm and an Australian Bustard out at Heritage Lane, with a Spotted Whistling-Duck back at Freshwater, a Grey Teal at the airport and a Pink-eared Duck up at Hasties Swamp. In the rainforest a Shining Flycatcher and a White-throated Treecreeper turned up, a Tawny Frogmouth near Lake Placid, and up on the Tablelands an Australian Masked-Owl was heard out towards Ravenshoe. A Black-backed Butcherbird at Port Douglas rounded off a varied week. The migrants are still coming, and the next few weeks should keep building.

Our thanks, as ever, to everyone who got out and logged what they saw, and to the local photographers who share their shots; the whole picture is built from all of it.

That was the week around Cairns and the Tablelands. A quieter one after the madness, but with Satin Flycatchers about and the migrants still arriving, there is always something to go and find. See you Thursday.