Duck Creek Road, Needletails, Glossy Blacks and a Rufous Scrub-bird

Here are a few observations from a four day bushwalk in the back blocks of Lamington National Park (SEQ) over Easter.

Duck Creek Road has deteriorated a lot over the last couple of years. It is a private road with maintenance funded by a donation box. A lot of wombats get their jollies traversing this “four wheel drive” track. If you are thinking of birding along the road, early morning is definitely best as there are few of them around at that time. The flat rainforest section up the top is not too bad (just lots of potholes). The steeper sections are heavily worn with sump challenging obstacles for low clearance vehicles (i.e. hire cars) – far more creeping along in low range than previously. Not sure when the next lot of maintenance is likely to happen.

The route my companions and I took went from Christmas Creek, past the Stinson wreck to Pt Lookout, then along the border to Mt Worendo where we headed north across the Lost World and then back to Green Mountains via the Commando Track. A lot of route along the border has been recently marked with pink tape, which makes things easier for experienced walkers (others are still likely to get bushed). In terms of the birds of interest

1. We had a flock of up to 20 Needletails zipping around Kalinya Lookout east of Mt Westray (28 18 17.7S, 153 08 36.2E) at 11 am on Saturday 26 March. Some came in close enough to hear them slicing through the air.
2. One of the highlights of the walk was crossing the eastern razorback to the Lost World – epiphytes + steep rock + views = drained camera battery. Shortly after we entered the rainforest towards the top and before we hit the first nothofagus we had a good view of a Rufous Scrub-bird bounding along a log. The nothofagus summit was delightful …
3. The haul up the Commando Track on the last day was a bit of a trudge (very few people pass that way these days) but made more pleasant by the presence of a couple of Glossy Blacks in a band of casuarina trees …

All in all, it was nice reconnecting with the Lamington Plateau outside of the graded track network and associated humanoid masses (mind you, we did come across three groups in four days – it is a busy time). There was a large Lamington Blue (crayfish) out in the rain near Rat a tat …

Regards, Laurie.