Mount Barney

Visited: late winter

Recommendation: There are several campgrounds that service this area making it easy to visit. There is potential for a lot of varied wildlife. I'm looking forward to returning.

Mount Barney National Park is a little bit north of Rathdowney, which in itself is just across the border into Queensland from New South Wales. We first stayed at Flanagan's Bush Campground, which is a fantastic place. It's a private campground with a huge number of places to camp within sort of open, semi-cleared forest. 

As soon as we drove in, we found a Bearded Dragon. It was on its way across the road, so after a couple of quick shots we wanted to get it off the track. The dragon had different ideas and it started to blow up the sack underneath its chin, puff out its sides and it turned really black. I've never actually seen a lizard do that in front of my eyes before. It was quite amazing. 

The creek was very pretty, but there wasn't much happening there, even exploring it at night. Somebody told us that there were gliders around, but we didn't see them. However, we did see this beautiful female Tawny Frogmouth. There are three recognized subspecies of the Tawny Frogmouth:

P. s. strigoides: This is the nominate subspecies, found in Eastern and Southeastern Australia, including Tasmania. Birds in this region are generally larger than those in the north.

P. s. brachypterus: Found in Western Australia, northwards to the Great Sandy Desert and east to inland Queensland.

P. s. phalaenoides: This subspecies inhabits Northern Australia. Birds in this region tend to be smaller than their southern counterparts.

The rufous morph of this, most common frogmouth species, is found in female birds of the south southern subspecies. I have never seen them before and she was just wonderful.

Tawny Frogmouth (Podargus strigoides)

The next day we went to Mount Barney National Park and explored the Yellow Pinch Reserve. There are several tracks and some long enough to require camping and permits. We walked up to a small peak through the forest and quickly found a Lace Monitor. It looked very clean, with beautiful markings, but quite sluggish, as have been a lot of the reptiles that we've been seeing. There were a couple of other very small skinks nearby as well.

In terms of birds, there were a lot of thornbill around, a lot of Buff-rumped Thornbill. It took me a while to identify. I could hear a Rose Robin in the distance, Spotted and Striated Pardalotes were calling. I also saw lots of fairywren but only managed to successfully identify this male Variegated Fairywren.

Around the car park there were lots of Grey Butcherbirds. I don't think I've ever seen such a concentration of these interesting and vocal birds. There were juveniles and adults and they were clearly used to humans. At the picnic table they sat on the BBQ fire and even came on to the table and looked at me expectently. I couldn't even get back into my van for the youngster sitting on the wing mirror!

Grey Butcherbird (Cracticus torquatus)

Whilst I was fending off butcherbirds, I spotted a large Lace Monitor weaving between the parked cars. I darted back to the picnic table and waited as it walked towards me through the patchy sunlight. Incredibly, as I sat really still it not only walked directly towards me but came within a metre of my feet. 

Lace Monitor (Varanus varius)