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Visited: dry season
Recommendation: Green Island is a beautiful place, easily accessible from Cairns and it has migratory waders, rainforest birds and a whole heap of Buff-banded Rail. It is a great day out.
Green Island is a 45 minute boat ride from the marina in Cairns. It sits on the Great Barrier Reef and is a small pocket of rainforest atop a sandy base. Half the journey is taken clearing the headland south of Cairns so you aren't long in open water. Regular and inexpensive boat trips depart from Cairns Marina several times a day. There are opportunities to stay overnight at the resort, as well as glass-bottom boats, snorkelling and just dipping your toes in the ocean - something you can't often do in Far North Queensland!
Access to the island is from a long jetty. The island itself is very small, taking less than half an hour to walk the perimeter. There are sandy beaches and rocky areas surrounding thick rainforest. It is quite an odd place with the resort in the centre area. After leaving the jetty, you enter the resort area which smells strongly of seabird guano. It is also present on the boardwalk areas around the small area of shops and coffee places. The resort looked a little run down on the outside but pleasant enough inside. The initial negative impressions soon wear off as you begin to see some fabulous birds. In fact, it is worth returning and staying at the resort to see the seabirds coming in to roost overnight.
Access to the island is from a long jetty. Later in the day, I saw the need for it at low tide when the water so was shallow the surrounding reefs were visible. The island itself is very small, taking less than half an hour to walk the perimeter. There are sandy beaches and rocky areas surrounding thick rainforest. It is quite an odd place.
After leaving the jetty, you enter the resort area which smells strongly of seabird guano. It is also present on the boardwalk areas around the small area of shops and coffee places. The resort looked a little run down on the outside but pleasant enough inside.
I headed to the northern beach where there was some shelter from the wind. There were several species of shorebird dotted around the island but it must have been tricky for them as they were continually disturbed by the tourists. The species were all those that can be seen on the Esplanade at Cairns but with care, you can get closer to them.
The shoreline alternates between sandy beaches and more rocky areas. As you might expect, they attracted a range of shorebirds. Only present in ones and twos, there were several species and while easily flushed by human presence, they were quite tolerant of slow moving photographers. The birds I saw could all be seen on Cairns Esplanade so there were no great finds but I did like how this Grey-tailed Tattler stood elegantly for me.
Grey-tailed Tattler (Heteroscelus brevipes)
Ruddy Turnstone (Arenaria interpres)
Pacific Golden Plover (Pluvialis fulva)
Throughout the island were lots of Buff-banded Rail. This usually shy bird appears to be quite feral here, scrounging scraps from the visitors. It was still interesting to watch them. I saw 2 leucistic birds, chicks and even some bathing in the sea.
Buff-banded Rail (Gallirallus philippensis)
It was a real surprise to me to find a white morph Reef Heron skulking around the bush on the edge of the beach. More surprisingly, I then saw another and another. There were up to 8 white morph and 3 dark morph present. I always think of this heron species being very solitary but they obviously didn't get the memo. Usually quite shy, I even saw one dipping its toes in the swimming pool in the middle of the resort!
Pacific Reef-Heron (Egretta sacra)
The highlight of the visit was seeing a pair of Rose-crowned Fruit-Dove building their nest. The male bird would fly down, gather material and then return to the female who was beginning to weave it into a nest. It was quite amazing that these stunning birds were here.
Rose-crowned Fruit-Dove (Ptilinopus regina)
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