What's About: Cairns & Tablelands Birding, 10 - 16 August 2026

Some weeks the birds come to you. This one, everyone went to the birds. A Common Redshank, a wader that belongs on the other side of the world and turns up only rarely in Australia, appeared on the Cairns Esplanade and set off the best local twitch we have seen in a good while.

The Redshank that stopped the traffic

You could follow the whole thing unfold through the day. From early morning the reports came in one after another, the same bird, the same stretch of the Esplanade, logged by birder after birder as word got round. By early afternoon a steady stream of people were making their way down to the northern end, and the "unconfirmed" tags that hang on a fresh rarity began dropping away as more and more observers pinned it down. Best of all, it obliged: by late afternoon it was still working the same stretch of mud, to the relief of everyone who had made the trip, and it was still being reported as the light went. If you were anywhere near Cairns and wondered why the foreshore was suddenly full of scopes and long lenses, that was why. It is exactly the kind of good-natured scramble that makes a find like this an event rather than just a line on a list. The pull showed in the numbers, too: birder turnout on the coast on Sunday ran at more than double the recent average as people came out for it. Better still, the record was confirmed by reviewers, and the bird was still on the Esplanade the following morning, so the twitch rolled on into a second day. Better still, the record was confirmed by reviewers, and the bird was still on the Esplanade the following morning, so the twitch rolled on into a second day. Better still, the record was confirmed by reviewers, and the bird was still on the Esplanade the following morning, so the twitch rolled on into a second day. Better still, the record was confirmed by reviewers, and the bird was still on the Esplanade the following morning, so the twitch rolled on into a second day.

A Sanderling on the Barron River mouth the same day gave the coast a genuine two-rarity morning, and out on Green Island the Ashy-bellied White-eyes kept showing for anyone making the crossing.

A yellow figbird moment

Up on the Tablelands the story was a colour. Numbers of the yellow form of the Australasian Figbird turned up through the week, building to a notable little gathering around Atherton and Kuranda by the weekend. It is the sort of local movement that is easy to miss unless people are out logging it, and this week plenty were.

Around the region

Away from the headline birds it was a busy week in the field, with strong activity up top around Yungaburra, Hasties Swamp and the Mount Molloy country, and good numbers on the coast through the Daintree and Cattana Wetlands. Fresh arrivals kept the season ticking along too, with a Black-faced Monarch and a Spotless Crake at Hasties Swamp, a Hoary-headed Grebe at Cattana, an Atherton Scrubwren at Mossman Gorge, and a Wedge-tailed Shearwater offshore.

Flagged as unusual by eBird

Several records were flagged as unusual by eBird over the week. As always, we treat these as provisional until they are confirmed:

• Common Redshank - widely reported and since confirmed, on the Cairns Esplanade.
• Sanderling - reported at the Barron River mouth.
• Australasian Figbird (yellow) - multiple reports on the Tablelands.
• Australian Boobook (red morph) - reported on the Tablelands.
• Australian Masked-Owl - reported near Ravenshoe.
• Ashy-bellied White-eye - reported from Green Island, off Cairns.

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.

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. When a bird like the Redshank turns up, there is no better time to be out.