Julie Lake led a small team of Stephen Sims, Gail Molson , Susan Cantrell, David Sykes and Nadia O’Carroll into the wilds of Palm Grove for the November bird walk.

We looked at the importance of rainforest trees and shrubs to our local birds, and the difference in habitat between rainforest and wet sclerophyll.

Little shrike thrushes and catbirds called regularly throughout the walk, a wompoo pigeon was heard feeding in a strangler fig towering above the canopy, striated thornbills (not common in Palm Grove) were seen on the eastern side of the track while brown thornbills were active in both types of habitat.

Bird of the day was definitely the noisy pitta, heard calling in the upper forest on the way back to the main entrance. This bird has been rarely seen or heard in recent years so perhaps the promise of heavy rainfall has stimulated breeding – hence the call.

We stopped for smoko at the overhang which looks down into Guanaba Gorge, where a cicada bird was calling and Lewin’s honeyeaters were squabbling in the bushes on the edge of the scarp.

Another good moment was finding a pale yellow robin’s nest, well tucked in against a lawyer vine stem and so perfectly intact that it could only just have become vacant.

Birds seen were: Noisy pitta, brush turkey, king parrot, crimson rosella, sulphur-crested cockatoo, rainbow lorikeet, kookaburra, white-throated treecreeper, spotted pardalote, brown thornbill, striated thornbill, large-billed scrubwren, Lewin’s honeyeater, pale yellow robin, eastern yellow robin, whipbird, little shrike thrush, drongo. Cicada bird, torresian crow, catbird.