Mareeba Kay Road

Visited: all year round

Recommendation: The wider area around Mareeba is great for seeing a wide range of wildlife. Just driving back roads like Kay Road can bring some fabulous sightings. 

Mareeba sits on the transition zone between the high-rainfall Wet Tropics and the drier inland savanna, resulting in a unique and diverse geographic, ecological, and floral environment. The area is characterised by rolling hills and low metamorphic ranges, and it lies on the western side of the Great Dividing Range. The town is situated on the confluence of the Barron River, Granite Creek, and Emerald Creek.

Mareeba has a dry tropical climate, due to its rain shadow location, receiving significantly less annual rainfall than the nearby coastal areas like Cairns. Temperatures are milder than the extreme interior and tropical coast. The ecosystem around Mareeba is largely one of sclerophyll woodland and savanna, contrasting with the rainforest ecosystems found just a short distance east on the coastal escarpment. Riparian and Wetland Areas: Along the major watercourses like the Barron River, there are more moist environments, including some Melaleuca swamps and wetland systems.

As part of the Atherton Tablelands, there are a lot of farms surrounding Mareeba resulting in many quiet roads and tracks. The area boasts 300 days of sunshine every year, making it a haven for fauna. The fruit trees and cane fields give food and cover to everything from sunbirds to crocodiles. This is a great place to find a wide range of birds, in particular. For instance, both species of Kookaburra sit in the trees and call noisily. 

The area is also frequented by Forest Kingfishers and you can hear them establishing territories and raising young in late spring. The good numbers of kingfishers may well be supported by a plentiful supply of frogs, with the Common Tree Frog being found around many buildings. Unfortunately there are also a high number of Cane Toads, which makes exploring after dark challenging.

The area is also frequented by Forest Kingfishers and you can hear them establishing territories and raising young in late spring. The rather more calm calls of Peaceful and Bar-shouldered Doves are, again, very commonly heard. 

Not a regular visitor but sometimes heard are the gorgeous Red-tailed Black Cockatoo. If you are lucky, like I was one day, they may settle to eat long enough to photograph. 

There are other parrots here with the ubiquitous Sulphur-crested Cockatoo and Rainbow Lorikeet enjoying the crop fields and flowering gums. Red-winged Parrots sometimes fly over but Pale-headed Rosella are often seen in small numbers. Scaly-breasted Lorikeet are regular visitors but often missed amongst the louder, bigger parrots.

Mareeba and the surrounds are full of cuckoo from late winter. You can certainly hear, and often see the following:

Pacific Koel

Channel-billed Cuckoo

Sahul Brush Cuckoo

Little Bronze Cuckoo

Pheasant Coucal

You might not expect to see Sunbirds in this drier area but they are here and do nest. Their delicious squeaks are always lovely to hear.

Sahul Sunbird (Cinnyris frenatus)

Honeyeaters abound here. Several smaller species like the Yellow, White-throated and Brown Honeyeater, Dusky Myzomela are common with Friarbirds heard frequently.