Australia Part 28: Riflebird display at Crater Lakes RFC & Golden Bowerbird at Mt Hypipamee, Oct 6-7

Описание: This video covers our second visit to Mount Hypipamee NP which went a bit better than our last. We found two of our Target Birds: Golden Bowerbird (a young male, and we had some help!) and Mountain Thornbill (this one we found on our own). On our way "home" to Crater Lakes Rainforest Cottages we made a short stop at the viewpoint over Bromfield Swamp, just bcs the view was so lovely. Not many birds visible, though. The long distance didn't help. Only thing that stood out was a lonely tiny bull calf, mooing forlornly while he slowly wandered along the slope of the huge pasture, devoid of other bovines. Not sure how that happened or how it turned out in the end...
At our lodging we spent the afternoon porch-birding, enjoying all the birds coming to get fruit, mealworms or a bath.
When darkness fell a Giant White-tailed Rat climbed up to the fruit-bowl and licked it clean, I guess. I tried to take video while using my flashlight, it ended somewhat OK. When it was done and had scampered off and we had returned inside, we heard a loud long screeching sound. I went out again and directed the camera in the direction of the sound and took a long (black) video to get the sound secured. As far as we can tell it was a Lesser Sooty Owl (now lumped with the Sooty Owl), our first and only owl of the trip. Too bad it sat a bit away and in a direction we couldn't walk. So, no visual.
The next day we took an early drive to Lake Barrine, hoping for Chowchilla, to no avail. We went back to Crater Lakes via Cathedral Fig Tree, bcs we wanted to see it and Chowchilla had been reported from there as well. No joy with that. We did get a nice look at a Golden Whistler, had a flock of Scale-bellied Lorikeet fly in and land WAY up in the Fig Tree, so no photos. Also, what might've been a breeding pair of Bush Stone-curlews, just by the road.
We had to get back and get ready for the early (10 AM) check-out, plus a steady brunch. While packing our stuff and fixing the brunch we also emptied our mealworm box plus the last bananas at the appointed places and enjoyed our last feeding frenzy on the porch. Then, when less than an hour remained to checkout an adult male Victoria's Riflebird landed on a stump very close to the porch and started to display! We were taken 100% by surprise since nothing like that had been hinted at during our stay. It was horrible background, hopeless light and also too close almost for 100 mm. We didn't care, ofc, we took photos and video as well as we could and didn't dare to move to a better position, afraid we would disturb him and he would stop. We suspected the show wouldn't last long, and it didn't. He left us all too soon, we were totally wowed, but had to continue with our eating and packing. We checked out maybe a minute or two late...
(The rest of Oct 7, the Cairns part, will be covered after the next video, which will just be porch-birding feeder mania... It was just too much fun to let it slide and not make a video of it. All new clips.)