Owling

Weds Sep 21
Food shopping took up the latter part of the morning, Josh came with us. Harry had gone to Indoorpilly to meet friends and to go to the cinema.
Josh got two 'good boy' from strangers, one for waiting to hold a door open and the other for fetching veg. bags for me. He was very useful in unpacking the trolley and loading the boot too, knowing to put the lighter bags at the back.
Pam bought a bargain garden spade and a splendid torch ready for to-night - she's forgotten her head-torch.
We picked Nick up at 3 p.m., in Sugars Road. a few minutes drive away. A tall gently spoken and very pleasant man in his thirties. He guides for Tropical Birding! Waw. He leaves  to-morrow for a two month series of birding trips, Australia and New Zealand. And he fitted us in. Splendid.
Nick knew of a shortcut avoiding much of the traffic holdups on the way to The Gap, it didn't take long to reach Mounts Nebo and Glorious. The first stop was a few K beyond Maiala. We walked about half a mile up a rutted dirt road through rain forest, tall trees giving heavy shadow. A lot of wind in the treetops didn't make birding easier.We managed: Brown and Long-billed Gerygones, Grey Fantails doing their mating display, a Brown Cuckoo-Dove called as did a Noisy Pitta, responding to Nick's whistling. It refused to show itself though.
We returned to the Maiala parking spot to while away the time until dark. A splendid male Satin Bowerbird perched in a nearby tree.
We tried a couple more spots for Sooty Owl, no response. An Owlet-Nightjar did call for us, at last, we've always missed out. Nick called in a Marbled Frogmouth what a splendid call it has . We didn't manage to see it perched, it was hidden by leaves, but, we did see it fly away.
Pitch dark by now and really, rather cold, we drove to Manorina where Nick had originally found the Sooty Owl a few weeks ago. He knew it had been seen ten days ago, we had our fingers crossed. Almost as soon as we got there a youngster called. Three other birders were present, Nick's find must have pleased a large number. It's described in Morecambe as 'rarely seen', thank you Nick, we'd never have found it on our own.
A very pleasant journey home, talking birds with Nick, he's given us a couple of ideas for local birding and an open invitation to contact him whilst he's away. Lovely man. He also ID'd our mystery bird... female Golden Whistler. Now that we know, we can see the possibility but the book illustration is not good(excuse?). The singing put us off too, our UK female birds don't sing.
Home soon after 9 after a wonderful experience.