I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed right now with the sheer volume of photos I took while in Australia, finding time to process them all, and then deciding what outlets (social media, blog, website) to publish them all. I’m still…weeks…from having all the photos themselves processed, but before I get too much further along I wanted to take the time to provide a review and summary of the place I thought was the highlight of our trip, hands down…the “Canopy Rainforest Treehouses” (or just Canopy Treehouses) near Tarzali, Australia.
In planning our trip, we knew we wanted to spend time in multiple locations, to experience some of the variety Australia has to offer. The Cairns/Port Douglas area in the northeastern part of the country was one area we targeted, given the unique opportunity for access to both tropical rainforest habitat, and the Great Barrier Reef. While researching that area, I also read about the adjacent Atherton Tablelands and some of the birding opportunities it offered. That’s when I stumbled across the website for the Canopy Treehouses, and we made the booking.
We stayed in four different locations during our 3-week vacation, but the Canopy Treehouses just stood out in terms of uniqueness, and for me, opportunities to view and photograph birds and wildlife. And this is despite the weather being rather miserable while we were there. We stayed three nights in the Treehouses, and the weather for that entire time was marked by cloudy, cool conditions (for them), with a steady drizzle and somewhat foggy conditions. Not great weather for getting out and hiking the trails in the area (including on the property of the Treehouses), but we quickly found we didn’t HAVE to leave the Treehouse itself to have some wonderful experiences.
Rather than bore you with a verbose description of our adventures at the Canopy Treehouses, here’s a summary of the accommodations and wildlife we encountered, told through photos of the area. Click for larger views for some of the photos below.
A panoramic of the interior of the main floor of the treehouse. Obviously distorted with the pano-shot from my iPhone, but it gives a good impression of the primary space. This isn’t just a simple treehouse! It’s VERY well appointed and comfortable, with gorgeous construction, hardwood floors, and all the amenities you could want. The main floor view here shows the living space and kitchen and view out onto the deck. What it doesn’t show is the main floor bedroom, and bathroom with a wonderful shower and sauna. You may tell your friends you stayed in a treehouse, and give them the impression you were “roughing it”, but this is more comfortable and lush than the vast majority of accommodations you come across.Another (distorted) iPhone panoramic, this time of that wonderful, incredible covered deck. We were there three days. I would have been VERY happy to simply sit on this deck for those entire three days. Most of the experiences you can have on the grounds of the Canopy Treehouses can be had right from this wonderful space! It’s completely covered, and despite the constant rain when we were there, it stayed mostly dry and comfortable, with the only wet part of the deck along the very outer edge. The deck serves as entry to the Treehouse, with the entire structure built on very large pilings, and stairs leading up to the deck and house entry. It has a table and chairs for you to use to enjoy the views of the surrounding rainforest (and river, just out of view here), as well as a gas grill for your use. There’s a full-sized washer and dryer below the main house in the parking area, very handy for travelers like us who had been on the road for 3 weeks. And despite being in the northeast “tropical” zone of Australia…this is at somewhat higher elevation on the Tablelands, and gets quite cool! A wood-burning fireplace and ample wood are provided…very nice for not only keeping warm at night, but for taking away that damp edge to the air and accommodations that simply unavoidable when you’re staying in the rainforest! There’s one more thing you might note from this photo if you zoom up…the deck has a number of birds on it. Which leads to my favorite part of the Treehouses…the wildlife.Ah, the wildlife…where to begin!?!?! Let’s start with your most colorful visitors…the Australian King-parrots that will VERY quickly discover whether 1) the treehouse is occupied, and 2) if the occupants are offering fruit and seeds! The host is a wildlife lover (an understatement!) and does his best to enhance your experience. This includes providing fruit (bananas) and bird seed to attract birds to your treehouse. Birds started showing up immediately after we filled the tray feeder with seeds and banana slices, and that included flocks of big, bold, colorful, and absolutely delightful Australian King-parrots (Alisterus scapularis). This is a male perched in the foliage just off the deck. After my trip, I’ve been posting many photos on social media, and many folks told me they have a hard time getting close to this species. Not here! Not only will they come to the deck, they will SIT ON YOUR SHOULDER…your arms, your head…wherever they can, and gently accept seeds and other foods right from your hand. In the rain and somewhat dark conditions when we were there, these guys were just an incredible contrast of color and vibrancy.Have your camera ready when you head on the deck, because you’ll get some of the closest wildlife encounters that you’ll ever have! Just be sure to have your camera in hand, as ANYTHING on the deck may be fair game as a perch for the Australian King-parrots and other critters. Here’s a quick iPhone shot…necessary when a parrot decides to use your main camera as a perch!!Sorry, I can’t resist…one more Australian King-parrot. Extreme close up! Easy to do when the birds come right up to you, and in many cases, use you as a perch! For bird photograph you typically need a long lens in order to have a bird “fill the frame” of the photo. Not here! As a birder, even a birder from South Dakota in the United States, I was well aware of the famed courting displays of Riflebirds. I never thought I’d get such incredible close looks at one! Victoria’s Riflebirds were one of the most common visitors to our Treehouse, as they absolutely LOVED eating bits of banana that we offered. They were a touch more shy than the parrots…but JUST a touch. They wouldn’t use you as a perch, for example, but they WOULD let you get within a few feet, and on a few occasions, would take banana slices directly from my hand. Here’s a GORGEOUS male, showing some of those gorgeous colors. There were a couple of occasions when I witnessed some half-hearted courtship type displays, but I didn’t get any great captures of that behavior.Besides the parrots and riflebirds, honeyeaters were the most common visitors to the deck, with multiple species visiting. The most fun were Macleay’s Honeyeaters. They weren’t quite as bold as the parrots, but they weren’t shy! They too loved bits of banana, and would happily take offerings directly from your hand. It’s impossible for me to show all the birds we encountered here, but I can’t go any further without showing the highlight (next photos)THIS IS A WILD SOUTHERN CASSOWARY!! Taken from the stairs of our treehouse!! If there were ONE bird species I wanted to see while in Australia, it was a Cassowary. We were fortunate in that we had two great encounters with Cassowary while visiting Daintree National Park prior to our stay at the Canopy Treehouses, but that can’t compare with the intimate views you can have here. Male Cassowaries raise the chicks, and the same male has brought back many broods over the years to this area to raise. When we were there, two “chicks” from the previous years were onsite, while the big male was out presumably nesting again (likely to return soon with the next batch). The two “chicks” though had the full adult plumage and were MASSIVE birds, although I think we were told they still were only 2/3rds of the size they’ll eventually be. Each of our three days, the cassowary pair visited the area around our Treehouse. What were they doing there? See the following photo:How does a Cassowary drink? VERY CAREFULLY! This seemed to be why they liked to visit our treehouse area. They didn’t seem to be foraging for food, but every day they DID come to this small puddle at the base of one of the treehouse pilings, and use it to drink. The routine was the same each day. They’d have to sit their massive bodies down, extend their necks into the puddle, load up with as much water as possible, and then raise their heads and tilt it back to drink. SO much fun watching, and we could (safely!) observe this behavior from incredibly close range, on the stairs of our deck. Where else are you going to get such an intimate view of a living dinosaur? What a thrill, and a highlight of our entire trip. It wasn’t all about feathered critters though. What was that we heard going bump in the night??? Next photo…From the descriptions of the Canopy Treehouses, we knew we were likely to have Coppery Brushtail Possums visit our deck each night. We weren’t disappointed! They’ve become accustomed to being fed!! And they absolutely LOOOOOOVE bananas (as well as cleaning up our bird feeder each night for the seeds). We had between 2 and 5 visit us each night…for the most part putting up with each other, but occasionally getting into a short tussle. They were as tame as the King Parrots, and if you let them, they would GLADLY sit on your lap while you fed them bananas. I admit we didn’t quite feel comfortable doing that, but I DID offer them bananas which they happily accepted directly from my hand. It was actually pretty sweet the way one small one would take each paw and hold onto my fingers while it gently consumed the banana slice. Wild critters, so always beware, but having these guys feed from my hand is something I will always remember. So many critters, so little time to post! One critter the hosts were clearly fond of were the Red-legged Pademelons, little Kangaroo/wallaby like creatures. I love the Wikipedia description of the species, saying they are “found in the rainforest but are rarely seen”. Well phooey to that…you WILL see them here! They were a bit shy, but you could often see them along the edges of the clearing below our deck, and at night in particular, there would always be one or two hanging around. Here’s one hanging out with another VERY common visitor to the Treehouses…an Australian Brush-Turkey. We were told the Brushturkeys would eat you out of house and home if you let them, consuming all your bird seed and food you put out in short order. They definitely weren’t shy, and would walk up the stairs onto the deck and eat everything in sight, if you let them! I’ll leave this review where I started…with a photo of Australian King-parrots, lined up on the deck rail after I distributed a bit of seed so they weren’t all fighting over the same bird feeder. In case you can’t tell, I was just a wee bit fond of our stay at the Canopy Treehouses. If you’re a wildlife lover and are visiting the area…STAY HERE! It’s an unforgettable experience.
Well, I said I’d not blog for a few weeks…the reason? We had a 3-week family vacation in Australia! It wasn’t a dedicated birding trip (my wife and son would rebel if it were!), but I certainly did fit in some birding while there. There’s always something magical about birding somewhere new, whether it’s just in another state or halfway around the world. Birds that may be common are strange and exotic to a new visitor, and your life list increases with almost every bird you see.
I had done some research before leaving, and while any Australian bird was a welcome sighting, there were two things I really wanted to see. First was the incredible variety of birds in the parrot family, something we just don’t have a correlate for in the US. Secondly? I REALLY wanted to see a Southern Cassowary. More than any other bird, a Cassowary is the walking manifestation of “strange and exotic” for a US birder, a living relic that looks as if it’s straight out of the days of the dinosaur. Southern Cassowary are hard to miss if you come across one, given they are the second heaviest bird on earth (up to 190 pounds) and can be over 6-feet tall! However, with loss of their rainforest habitat in Australia, Indonesia, and New Guinea, the total wild population is only 10,000 to 20,000, with only 1,500 to 2,000 in Australia (where it is considered endangered). Still I was hoping against hope that we would be able to catch of glimpse of the massive birds.
Over the three weeks, we visited three general locations: 1) Sydney and the surrounding area, including Blue Mountains National Park, 2) Bellingen area, including Coffs Harbour and Dorrigo National Park, and 3) Port Douglas/Cairns, in the tropical northeastern corner of Australia. The visit to the tropics was the last part of our trip, and it was there where we’d potentially have a chance to see a Southern Cassowary. For our first day in the Port Douglas area, we drove northward into the famed Daintree National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage sight. A description of Daintree from Wikipedia:
Daintree National Park is valued because of its exceptional biodiversity. It contains significant habitat for rare species and prolific birdlife. The name is derived from the Daintree River, which was named by George Elphinstone Dalrymple, an early explorer of the area, after his friend Richard Daintree. Much of the national park is covered by tropical rainforest.[ The Greater Daintree Rainforest has existed continuously for more than 110 million years, making it possibly the oldest existing rainforest .
We wanted to make a day of driving as far north into the park as you (reasonably) can, to Cape Tribulation. We left early that morning, arriving at the Daintree River and taking the only mode of transportation possible to get into the northern section of the Park…the Daintree River ferry. Once across the river, the road remains paved up to Cape Tribulation, but it’s a very narrow road winding through the rainforest, with little traffic for most of that stretch. It’s a hell of a drive through some of the densest, most ancient rainforest on the planet. We took our time driving up to Cape Tribulation, stopping at any point of interest or short hike that we could find.
That morning at about 11:00 we pulled into an area that provided a small parking area and a short hike into the rainforest. Unfortunately part of the trail was being worked on, and we were only able to walk half a mile or less before returning to the parking area. Up until that point, I admit I was a little disappointed in the birdlife. In one of the most revered rainforest habitats on the planet, I’d seen little birdlife on our short hikes and stops, and this stop was no different. We got back into the car, and started to leave the parking area to continue the drive to Cape Tribulation. However, as we rounded a corner heading back to the main road, we saw it…Cassowary! There in front of us at the edge of a clearing near the road was the massive bird, a mere 20 yards away! A Cassowary is considered to be just about the most dangerous bird on the planet, with the size and disposition to quickly spoil the day (and life!) of a careless birder. However, I admit upon sighting that bird that caution was the last thing on my mind. I pulled over, grabbed the camera, and got out to try and grab some photos.
We watched the bird for perhaps 20 minutes. For most of that time, it was slowly moving through the rainforest just off the road, obscured by thick vegetation. I followed on foot, staying on the road and trying to maintain a healthy distance, hoping at some point to get a better look. Finally we were rewarded when the Cassowary started to move towards the road…it was going to cross right in front of us! It casually stepped out of the forest in front of us and slowly walked across the road before disappearing into the vegetation on the other side. That was the last we saw of the bird.
I was so excited and into the moment that I didn’t really think much about what was happening…until after the bird disappeared. CASSOWARY! We’d just seen a living dinosaur at incredibly close range! Then came the goosebumps and appreciation for what we’d just witnessed. Even if the trip had ended at that moment I would have come home a very happy birder. Below are some photos of the encounter. It turns out the Cassowary’s of Australia weren’t done with us on this trip (more in a later blog post).
The best look we had of the Cassowary while it was foraging in the forest. For most of the first 15 minutes of the encounter, the bird was moving through rather thick vegetation, with few unobstructed views. I was thrilled when it briefly moved across this small clearing, offering a relatively clean view. However, just a few moments later it was clear that it was about to cross the road right in front of us. The Cassowary first poked its head out of the forest, looking out across the open space and giving us a glance. Was it going to come out, or head back into the vegetation?The Cassowary emerged from the forest, paused and pecked at a few things along the side of the road, and then slowly walked across the road, disappearing into the forest on the other side. A perfectly clear, unobstructed view of a Southern Cassowary! Given how much my hands were shaking during the encounter I wasn’t sure if any of the photos would turn out. Was thrilled to see I did manage to capture some sharp photos to help document the encounter.
