Australian Fauna Collective

Visited: winter

Recommendation: Stopping here while travelling through Cape York is not likely to give you lots of sightings of wildlife but the caravan park and pub is well worth stopping at as the area does attract some very photogenic birds.

Laura is another small settlement geared up for catering to the needs of travellers to Cape York. I stayed there on the way back from Artemis Station. The caravan park was at the back of the pub and behind that was just Outback. The settlement was typical of such places with a lot of dust and relatively few residents. The pub was the centre of the place and not only for the humans.

A very loud family of kookaburra were resident and the pub landlord was telling me which ones were the parents of which chicks. She fed them every afternoon and like clockwork, they appeared right on time. I couldn't not like it.

Laughing Kookaburra (Dacelo novaeguineae)

Underneath the feeding table was a trough of water and the Galah were in and out of it all day long and their raucous behaviour was also wonderful to watch.

Galah (Eolophus roseicapilla)

An endemic bird to the area was the Black-backed Butcherbird and it was great to see a pair of them near Laura. Very much like the Pied Butcherbird but without the black neck and breast, they seemed to be very elegant. Until they started wailing that is.

Black-backed Butcherbird (Cracticus mentalis)

Around Laura, I found the Red-browed Pardalote and had to laugh at it. When it called (a 4 note bleeping sequence), it's black and white spotted crest raised up as if it was amplifying the call. Beautiful.

Red-browed Pardalote (Pardalotus rubricatus)

I had seen on eBird that Radjah Shelducks had been seen at a local watering hole. I am always surprised to hear about waterbirds in the Outback and so was slightly disbelieving of this sighting. Untill I wander down a lane and found the water treatment ponds with a dozen shelduck waddling around. Ah-hah.

Radjah Shelduck (Tadorna radjah)