Cooper Creek by night ...

If you've read much of this blog, you'll know that nighttime is the best time to see many animals, and this is especially true of the rain forest. When I was organizing this trip, the only night tour of the rain forest that I came across was on a private property called Cooper Creek Wilderness. They did both day and night tours, and I duly wrote off for information about availability. Prue wrote back to say that this was an unusual year in terms of tourism (where had I heard that before?), and that so far noone was booked on the days I was interested in, but to phone when I was in the area.

So here I was at the signpost at the entrance to the property. The sign said not to enter without permission, so I tried my mobile phone - which rang but then cut out - and then the courtesy phone by the entrance sign - which also didn't work. Faced with the alternative of giving up, or entering without permission, I opted for the latter. Prue was waiting for me outside the house. An indomitable woman, perhaps in her 70s, she was expecting someone as her phone had rung and then cut out. The news wasn't good: there were no other bookings for the next few days, and I didn't want to spend longer than that in the Daintree as I had other plans. It was four o'clock in the afternoon, so we agreed that I'd call back at six. I wasn't over-optimistic, but amazingly a couple had called about a night tour in the intervening time. So at eight o'clock I was back at the house, ready to leave for the forest. Ready included an umbrella as I wanted to take photos and it was starting to rain. It rained steadily all evening, but the umbrella did its job and even survived the trip. Incredibly, since six, another couple had called to book a trip for the morning, so at the eleventh hour my original plans had fallen back into place.

Our guide for the evening was Prue's son Neil, and our first stop was an orchard that was being steadily reclaimed by the rainforest. Neil showed us a large, exquisitely camouflaged spider ...

... and a praying mantis ...

... before we headed into the forest proper. We stopped and turned our torch lights out, and the black enveloped us, but as our eyes adjusted there were flashing spots of light dancing around us: fireflies! The males flash their display, and watch for females signalling back, but the constant spots of light on the forest floor weren't females, but luminescent fungi, each perhaps a couple of millimeters across. The fungi fool the males into landing on them - and so get their spores dispersed. In the photo, the forest floor is lit by the flash, but the head of the fungus is glowing white.

Once inside the forest, we didn't follow a marked trail, but followed a route that Neil had learnt through the forest. We hadn't gone much further when we came upon our first Boyd's forest dragon - or rather Neil spotted it for us - clamped to the side of a sapling, just as the signs at Mossman Gorge yesterday (was that only yesterday?) had proclaimed. He was perhaps 50 cm long, and his head spines and coloration were both subtle and splendid. Apparently, there are two reasons that the chances of seeing them at Mossman Gorge are small: the first is that in daylight they move around the tree trunk to stay on the far side from prying eyes. The second, more sadly, is that they are taken and sold to be kept as pets - and those at Mossman Gorge and other public reserves are vulnerable to such poaching. We went on to see 6-10 more (I lost count) over the course of the evening.

It was obvious that Neil was exceptional at finding animals in the forest at night: he'd decided that he wanted to become a guide, and set out to train himself - including spending three years in total with three different aborigine groups to acquire skills at finding both animals and his way in the forest.

Besides the dragons there were various frogs:

In the light of the flash, some of these look quite obvious, but they can be well camouflaged against a background:

We saw birds, too, but Neil asked us not to take photos. When roosting, they are vulnerable to snakes, which can hunt in the dark using heat sensitive organs on their face. The birds roost at the very tips of thin branches, where vibrations alert them to the approach of a snake. Neil pointed them out to us with his torch beam, but taking care to draw a circe of light around them, rather than shining it directly at them. The other animal that Neil asked us not to photograph was a giant white-tailed rat, busy foraging on the forest floor. They occur in both New Guinea and Australia, and the narrow Torres Strait that separates the two is only 12 meters deep. For much of the last 250,000 years, up to about 10,000 years ago, sea level was lower and the two islands were joined by a land bridge. The giant white-tailed rat is one of of several rodent species that walked to Australia at that time.

We still had more insects to see, including this katydid, or bush-cricket. Katydids often have extraordinarily long antennae: this one's reach almost to the top edge of the photo.

Almost our last sighting of the night was a cicada, freshly emerged from its nymphal exoskeleton. Although we're most aware of cicadas from their loud songs during the few weeks that the adults live above ground, the majority of their life cycle, including a series of nymphal stages, is lived underground, using their stylet like mouthparts to suck on the roots of plants. This subterranean phase lasts anything from two years up to 17 years, depending on the species. This adult had emerged from the now-empty exoskeleton hanging below the leaf.

Be Cass-o-wary!

The road through the Daintree winds its narrow way through the lower part of the rainforest. Despite the relatively light traffic (mainly tour buses to Cape Trib) and almost no road junctions, there are regular sections with a 60 kph speed limit and speed bumps. The road signs explaining why begin as soon as you enter the Daintree:

That hump-backed bird is the southern cassowary, a relative of emus, ostriches and rheas, and, like them, flightless. It occurs in Indonesia, New Guinea and tropical Queensland, with only 1500-2500 individuals in Australia - and decreasing. They live in the tropical rainforest, and one reason for their precarious situation - 'vulnerable' in the classification of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature - is the loss and fragmentation of the forest - originally through logging and clearance for agriculture, but currently continuing for residential and tourist development. Other threats include feral animals, especially pigs, raiding their ground nests for eggs, dog attacks, hunting, and - you guessed it - roadkill:



Probably the best known road sign combo in Australia

Not only would a collision not do much good to the cassowary, but also not to the vehicle: males are about 1.5 meters tall, and weigh about 35 kilograms, and the larger females reach 1.8 meters and 60 kilograms. It's the male who does all the work raising the kids: after she's laid the 3-5 eggs, the female leaves the male to incubate the eggs and tend the chicks from when they leave the nest soon after hatching until they become independent more than a year later.

Close encounters are not that advisable on foot either. The Guinness Book of Records lists cassowaries as the most dangerous birds in the world: they can deliver a double-footed kung fu kick powered by their large thigh muscles, deploying the 12 cm-long toe nails on the inner toe of each foot as daggers. Cassowaries don't make unprovoked attacks, but males will defend their chicks against all-comers. Warning signs urge people to be 'Cass-o-wary' - and not approach cassowaries, particularly males with chicks.

With all the signs on the roads, most toursist are keen to see a cassowary, but the chances of seeing one are tiny as they're shy and secretive birds. I'm resigned to the probability that I won't see one, but I'll keep the backpack handy all the same ...

Mangroves

Within the Daintree, there are three short forest walks that are managed by the Daintree National Park. The one that I enjoyed most was 'Marrdja', which - as the National Park leaflet puts it - offers "mud-free" viewing of mangroves.

Much of the coastline of the Daintree is either sandy beaches, or rocky terrain that drops steeply to the water's edge, ...

... but where silt and mud can build up - particularly at river mouths - mangrove forests develop. Usually mangrove habitat is muddy and tidal, but at Marrdja there is a raised boardwalk through the mangroves. I noticed that, as the walkway went further into the mangrove forest, there was heavy gauge wire netting - on the outside, so to stop something getting onto the walkway. There are estuarine crocodiles - the species that is a threat to humans - along the coast and in the lower reaches of rivers in northern Queensland.

This particular mangrove forest is bordered on one side by Noah Creek:

One of the problems that mangroves face is getting sufficient oxygen into their roots. Those species that live highest in the tidal range where the mud is periodically exposed have various structures on their roots - like the bumps on the roots of this mangrove - that allow them to 'breathe':

The species that live in deeper water, have stilt roots that prop them above the water level, and pores called lenticels through which they absorb air. The reflections of the stilt-rooted species were magical, if somewhat disorienting when cropped by the photographic framing:

Up through the canopy

Tropical rain forest isn't easy to get to grips with: it's diverse - with maybe 120 to 150 different species of trees in 1 hectare (100 meters x 100 meters) - and high - from down on the ground you have only a limited view of the different layers of the forest.

This is a photo of an explanatory sign at the Daintree Discovery Centre


The solution to this problem in the Daintree is a trip to the Daintree Discovery Centre: written and audio guides identify the key plant species, and an aerial walkway and canopy tower give insight - and oversight - of the forest. The aerial walkway is 5-10 meters above the ground and gives good views of the mid-layers of vegetation:

In addition to the sort of species usually found in rain forests in other parts of the world, palms form an important element of rain forest in the Daintree, and four species can be seen at the Centre. The tallest is the Alexandra Palm ...

... with an elegant trunk:

Fan palms can also grow tall, although this youngster shows off the eponymous arrangement of fronds rather well:

The third palm is found throughout the rainforests of northern Queensland, and is not a tree at all, but a vine. The trunk has impressive downward pointing spines, and the plants use these to gain a purchase on other plants in their upward quest for light. This palm's known as wait-a-while - because it can make the understorey impenetrable in places - or lawyer vine - beacuse once it has its spines in you ... On the older parts of the trunk, the spines are not needed any longer and are shed. The smooth flexible stem is rattan: used for making cane baskets and furniture - and, in the past, for caning naughty (British) schoolchildren. On the photo, you can see the thin vertical leading parts of the stems, searching upwards for their next 'tendrilhold'.

The last of the four species of palms, the walking stick palm, is the most modest, and the trunk seldom reaches more than 2 meters in height. It's not difficult to guess what the early settlers used this plant for.

The aerial walkway also gives good views of some forest floor plants - the fronds of this king fern are about 3 meters in length - ...



... and there are also some trails at ground level which allow close inspection of plants like this relative of ginger.

At the end of the walkway is the 23 meter high canopy tower...

... with a small interprative centre at its foot, including a reptile centre where I caught up with the Boyd's forest dragon that had eluded me at the Mossman Gorge. They were being kept in subdued blue light, presumably to encourage them to be active during opening hours. They're certainly impressive and it would be exciting to see one in the wild.

It was coming on to rain, and most of the visitors were fleeing in the direction of the shop and cafe at the entrance. It occurred to me that the tower had five viewing platforms - four of which are effectively roofed by the platform above, so while everyone else was headed down, I was headed up, and had the tower to myself. Sitting quietly, the birds ignored me and came in to feed on the fruit in the tree canopy growing around the tower. The birds I saw could also be seen elsewhere, but here they were going about their business at my eye-level, instead of being silhouetted in the treetops. The magnificent looking - and sounding - pied imperial pigeon roosts and nests on small offshore islands, and comes to the mainland daily to feed. Small flocks can be seen - even in Cairns - commuting overhead in the morning and evening.

I was also royally entertained by a small flock of metallic starlings feasting on a fruiting tree.

The top of the tower gave a splendid view out across the top of the canopy. (Because the tower is built on quite a steep slope, some of the trees are higher than the tower.) The Centre is an extraordinary achievement in allowing large numbers of visitors access to all levels of the forest without destroying the impression of continuous unspoilt forest, despite being cramped on a tiny 7 hectare site between the side road where the entrance and parking are located, and (as I only realised afterwards) the 'main' road through the Daintree.

Daintree

If someone says 'Daintree' you need to make sure you know where they are talking about. There is a village marked Daintree on the map - and which is refereed to as Daintree Village. It's on the south side of the Daintree River. On the other hand the Daintree refers to the area on the north side of the river up as far as Cape Tribulation (referred to as Cape Trib). Just to thoroughly complicate matters, Daintree National Park is split into four separate parts: one large piece and two smaller fragments to the south of the river, and a medium size piece with a rather dissected outline in the Daintree.

I arrived at the Daintree River as the light was beginning to fail.

The River is quite wide where the road crosses but there isn't a bridge; ...

... just a ferry:

Although the ferry was still running, I decided to stay on the south of the river and head to Daintree Village in the hope of getting a space for the campervan at the campsite. By the time I arrived, it was as good as dark, and like many campsites, not at all obvious where I could find someone to ask. I was just about to give up and leave when someone that I'd spoken to briefly at Mossman Gorge arrived: he was staying on the campsite and on his way to see the owner, so I went with him. I waited patiently while he finalised some details of a day trip that the owner had booked for him. I wanted to go on an early morning birding trip on the river, and had assumed that it was impossible to arrange anything at this late stage for the morning, but here was my chance. So after I'd arranged a site for the van, I asked about trips. In small communities, people are often keen to direct business to others, and the poor tourist trade this year helped. One phone call and it was all booked: I needed to be at the jetty a few minutes walk down the hill at 6.30 in the morning. It wasn't until I got there that I discovered that once again I was the only person on the trip and would be getting a personal service.

Daintree Village is about 10 kilometers upstream from the ferry crossing, and the river is a good deal narrower there.

Like most bird guides, 'Sauce' (his surname was Worcester) knew what to find where, and since it was the breeding season, we visited several nests. The birds seemed much less disturbed by us nosing in in a small open boat than they would have been had we approached on foot. The first nest we visited belonged to a pair of brown-backed honeyeaters: not the most colourful of birds (nor the best of photos), but a beautiful example of the hanging nests that many tropical birds construct over water to maximise protection from predators.

Sauce didn't just know where to find birds, although I have to admit that even though we were only a few feet away, it took me some time to spot this green tree snake:

One of the other nests that we saw belonged to a species that I had really hoped to see in Australia, but was not expecting to see sitting in a nest up a tree over a river. The frogmouths, of which there are several species in Australia, are related to the nightjars. Nightjars hawk at night for insects, such as moths, and nest on the ground. I'd assumed that frogmouths did much the same. In fact, they're voracious predators, hunting from a perch, and much more similar to owls than nightjars in their feeding habits. And they build flimsy looking twig nests up trees:

It's difficult to get an idea of scale, but this is the Papua frogmouth - the largest species - which is 50-60 cm in length (that's 20-24 inches in old money). The tip of the beak is up to the right, and the photo shows how broad the beak is. The jaw joint is right at the back of the head, so that the gape when the beak is open is enormous - large enough for lizards, frogs, rodents and small birds to be easily engulfed.

The boat also provided good views of the plants growing in or near the water, including these beautiful mangrove lilies:

and was small enough to enter the slack sidewaters, ...

where we had good views of the epihpytes growing on the trees, including ferns ...

... and orchids:

We were already on our way back to the jetty when we spotted one of our best sightings of the morning: a great-billed heron - at 110 cm and described in the bird books as 'huge', it's the Papua frogmouth of the heron world:

The bird trip over it was time to leave Daintree Village. Not far north of the Daintree River, there is a viewpoint that looks back over its mouth:

And the Daintree? That's still to come ...

Mossman Gorge

The first piece of rainforest that I visited was at the Mossman Gorge where the forest clothes the steep slopes:

The path initially runs alongside the swift, broad, boulder strewn river ...

... before heading off away from the main watercourse and across smaller streams:

Some of the commonest - or at least most recognizable - of the forest trees are strangler figs. Unlike other trees they grow down, rather than up: the seeds are deposited high up in trees by birds that have feasted on the figs, and when the seeds germinate they send roots downwards that form a mesh around the tree trunk. These roots fuse to form what looks like a single tree trunk, and this arboreal straitjacket then does what it says on the tin - killing the host tree. The dead tree rots to leave a hollow fig tree, whose origin from fused aerial roots can sometimes still be seen. The buttress root to the right of this one is about 2 meters above the ground.

Strangler figs aren't the only trees with buttress roots:

As well as the buttress roots, there are some fairly spectacular lianas, ...

... and a few trees with fruit growing directly from the trunk:

A bit of colour was supplied by this small fungus:

Animal life is not easy to see in rain forests: much of it is high up in the canopy where the light is, and the creatures living lower down are either nocturnal, or, like many of the birds on the forest floor, rather secretive. So I was excited to see an information board telling me to watch out for Boyd's forest dragon on the trunks of tree saplings. 'Dragons' are some of the more spectacular lizards, Boyd's forest dragon growing to up to half a meter in length. I kept my eyes peeled ...

... but didn't manage to see any lizards other than this small skink enjoying a patch of sunshine on the forest track.