Cutta Cutta Cave National Park

Visited: dry season

Recommendation: The Cutta Cutta Caves Park is a popular tourist attraction in the Northern Territory, Australia, known for its stunning limestone caves. It is approximately 200 kilometers south of Darwin, near the town of Katherine. The park boasts a network of interconnected limestone caves, featuring impressive stalactites, stalagmites, and other formations created over millions of years. Outside the caves, the park is home to a variety of wildlife, including wallabies, kangaroos, and bird species.

It was very warm and dry when I went to the Cutta Cutta Caves. I didn't actually go into the caves, although they are famous for a range of reptilian and bat species there. It's just not my cup of tea, so I let my partner head out while I stayed around the car park. I often find in places like this that the car parks attract birds. I don't know whether it's human presence, the different kind of vegetation simply by having a human presence or the possibility of a water source, but that's how it is. And Cutta Cutta didn't disappoint. I walked back up towards the road via the woodland walk behind the visitor's centre. It was very pleasant, but it was all quite quiet to start off with. It was only as I just sat, waited and watched that I started to see and hear more birds. First of all, there was the Black-faced Cuckooshrike with their familiar metallic kind of buzz call. As usual, there was a family of them zooming about but they don't tend to stay still for too long. I find them quite charismatic so it's always good to be able to photograph them. 

Opposite to the elegance of the cuckooshrike is the babbling nonsense of the Grey-crowned Babbler. These birds are very appropriately named, always in small groups, always making a noise, always bouncing around on the ground, or low down in the bush. And these were no exception. But even if they are a bit silly. It's just great to photograph them. If you can get them to stay still. 

A Leaden Flycatcher caught my attention and I spent some time chasing that only to be distracted by Little Friarbirds, who again have a very peculiar call. 

Back in the car park, an Olive-backed Oriole and a Pied Butcherbird. They were both singing, beautifully. The call of the butcherbird is very, melodic and belies the viciousness of this bird. It is so-called because it has a tendency to impale its victims on a stick and let them decay a little bit before they eat them, which is not very nice. The oriole is a very stunning bird, much more so than its cousin, the Green or Yellow Oriole (whichever it is called at the moment), which is larger and dumpier and kind of much plainer colouring. I think it might be the bright red eye of the olive-backed aureole that really sets it off. 

You can listen to both calls below.

And in between them was the White-throated Honeyeater. Just chirping away, going about his business. This is another bird that is usually found in small groups. Even though it is one of the most common honeyeaters in the country, its acrobatics and agility makes it ever entertaining. And then just outside the ablutions block was a Sacred Kingfisher with its familiar kek-kek-kek call. They're easy to identify by sound alone and always pleasant to look at.