Cairns esplanade

A very disappointing visit to Cairns esplande, it was nowhere near as good as I expected. We were there three hours before high tide and waited as the tide came in, and saw in total little more than 100 birds. Hardly Morecombe bay or the Wash.  Ok there were three or four new species for me, but I would expect that 12,000 miles from home or whatever.

Perhaps my expectations were too high or perhaps we misjudged the tide in some way, but we saw a far bigger variety of waders at Port Douglas at the southern end of Four Mile Beach. It didn't even look great habitat for waders at Cairns, nothing to make me think that we were just unlucky.

However, we did see several of these impressive Australian terns also known as Australian gull-billed tern Gelochelidon macrotarsa. Until recently this was considered a subspecies gull-billed tern.

Black-fronted dotterel.

Great knot

Royal Spoonbill

Australian pelican

Rainbow bee-eater

Varied honeyeater