What's About: Cairns & Tablelands Birding, 24 - 30 September 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These records are flagged as unusual by eBird's automated filters and may be reviewed, corrected or withdrawn afterwards.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.

The Tablelands went off this week. Spring birding hit full stride, with one day alone turning up more than two hundred species, and the checklist tally for the week running at nearly double the norm. Plenty of that was visiting birders, tour groups among them, making the most of the season. If you have been putting off a trip up top, this is the time.

Our photo shows a Russet-tailed Thrush at Lamington National Park in March; this week's bird was the one reported at Mount Hypipamee.

A thrush worth the trip

The standout of a busy week was a Russet-tailed Thrush at Mount Hypipamee, a genuinely good bird and not one you bump into by accident. A shy, ground-dwelling rainforest skulker, it is easily passed off as its commoner cousin the Bassian Thrush and takes patience and a bit of luck to pin down. One at a well-watched spot like Hypipamee is a treat, and a fine reward for anyone putting in the miles on the rainforest tracks this spring.

A fond farewell to the gull

And so an era ends. After the better part of a month holding court on the Cairns Esplanade, and hundreds of reports from birders who came from near and far to see it, the Kelp Gull has finally moved on. It was a remarkable stay, the second world-class vagrant to make the Esplanade its home this spring, straight after the Redshank. The foreshore feels a little quieter without it, but what a run it was.

Spring keeps rolling

Behind the headliners there was no shortage about. A Spotted Whistling-Duck turned up in the Daintree, a genuine rarity, with a Eurasian Whimbrel up at Lake Mitchell and fresh arrivals coming thick and fast: a White-throated Needletail and an Eastern Whipbird, a Yellow-faced Honeyeater and an Atherton Scrubwren, and Satin Flycatchers now scattered right across the region. On the coast the Sanderling held on at the Barron River mouth. The migration is in full flow and the next few weeks should only build on it.

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 rip-roaring week up on the Tablelands, a cracking thrush, and a fond farewell to a famous gull. See you Thursday.