The Cape York EBA embraces the whole of the large north-east peninsula of Australia in the state of Queensland. The region is mostly low-lying with eucalypt woodlands, open grassy plains, rivers, swamps and mangroves, but there are also substantial tracts of tropical lowland rain forest, particularly along the coast between Temple Bay and Princess Charlotte Bay.

Cape York is separated from New Guinea to the north by the Torres Strait (which is c.100 km wide at its narrowest), and this is a major migration route for landbirds to and from northern Australia, with several species breeding on the Cape York peninsula and moving to New Guinea outside the breeding season (see Trans-Fly, EBA 180).

The EBA's restricted-range species occur in a variety of habitats including rain forest, mangroves, eucalypt woodland, scrub and heathland.

Turnix olivii and Psephotus chrysopterygius are both very local in their distributions. T. olivii was not recorded at all during five years of field observations, 1977-1981, and recent records are only of individuals or pairs, while P. chrysopterygius now only occupies a 120×225 km strip in the centre of its original range.

Australian Swiftlet Collocalia terraereginae, which occurs in this EBA and in the Queensland wet tropics (EBA 182), is treated as a form of the more widespread White-rumped Swiftlet C. spodiopygia (following Christidis and Boles 1994, contra Sibley and Monroe 1993), and is therefore not included here as a restricted-range species.

The two very restricted species endemic to this EBA are considered threatened: Turnix olivii is likely to have declined owing to the deliberate burning of woodland patches, especially if this occurs late in the dry season when birds are nesting; Psephotus chrysopterygius may also be affected by the burning of seeding grasses, as well as by trapping, predation by feral cats, and disturbance of nests by tourists (Garnett 1993).

Two subspecies of widespread Australian birds have been identified as threatened by Garnett (1993): the Cape York Peninsula form of Rufous Owl Ninox rufa meesi, which may be threatened by late dry-season fires, and the white-bellied form of Crimson Finch Neochmia phaeton evangelinae, which has disappeared from parts of its range as a result of damage to waterside vegetation by stock and feral pigs. The widespread Southern Cassowary Casuarius casuarius of Australia and New Guinea, which is classified as Vulnerable, also occurs in rain forest in this EBA, although there is no information on its numbers.

This region has long been recognized as an important wilderness, and has some of the country's largest national parks, including Lakefield (5,370 km^{2), Rokeby (2,910 km2), Jardine River (2,530 km2) and Archer Bend (1,660 km2). A recent regional assessment of the conservation value of the area by the Environmental Resources Information Network (ERIN) has identified over 80% of the Cape York peninsula as having natural conservation significance for at least one natural heritage attribute.}

Recommended citation
BirdLife International (2024) Endemic Bird Area factsheet: Cape York. Downloaded from https://datazone.birdlife.org/eba/factsheet/182 on 22/11/2024.