Mt Lewis is a chance to taste real altitudinal birding. The things you see here are quite different to 'downhill'.We headed up with Del Richards of Fine Feather Tours as Mt Lewis is his speciality - staff at Kingisher Park can put you in touch as Del only lives nearby. The turn off to Mt Lewis road is just north of Kingfisher Park, so it's an ideal place from which to visit. The highlights included seeing Chestnut-breasted Cuckoo , as well as the mountain races of Bassian Thrush and Grey Fantail plus altitudinal endemics Atherton Scrubwren and Mountain Thornbill.Shortly after the turn-off we stopped and found Grey Whistler and Yellow-breasted Boatbill . We then started to slow trudge up Mt Lewis, which at any time of the year, can be perilous in heavy rain. Being winter, the range of birds was slightly limited compared to the summer months where, amongst other things, fairly large numbers of Blue-faced Parrotfinches can be seen.On the road up to the summit, Fernwrens were singing loudly from the gullies. We had a quick go at trying to see one but were thwarted a bit by wind and rain. Even knowing this, we pushed on and once we got to the right altitude, both Mountain Thornbill and Atherton Scrubwren appeared. The former is easy to identify - it's the only thornbill here and has a typical musical call. The scrubwren is more often than not at ground-level compared to its lower-altitude cousin Large-billed Scrubwren , which we saw further down the mountain, scaling up the vegetation above head height. Atherton Scrubwrens also have a weird sneeze-like call, like the wheezey penguin off Disney's Toy Story or a pet dogs half-pierced squeaky toy. We also saw the Mountain Fantail , a boldly marked darker version of lowland birds. On the way up the hill, we saw Musky Rat Kangaroo which are quite common marsupials of the undergrowth. We also came across the cuneata subspecies of Bassian Thrush . This is a bird well worth seeing as it's so different from southern races. As with many of the birds here, you wonder why it's not a separate species, especially as Russet-tailed Thrush is so similar to Bassian. Cuneata Bassian Thrushes are weird front-heavy birds laden with a massive bill and with the physique of an athlete swimmer - disproportionately large upper torso and head. Their shape tapers to a small body and relatively short-looking tail. They look as though, at any moment, they would fall over forwards. The rump is clearly not the bright rufous of Russet-tailed Thrush and they lack the strong facial patterning associated with the latter species.The really exciting bird however, was the Chestnut-breasted Cuckoo that Del found for me. This has traditionally been considered an Iron Range bird and many didn't believe it regularly occurred in the Atherton Tablelands. With this being the 129th record by Del in his guiding career on Mt Lewis, he knows them well - and can find them. Not only did we get views of this stunning bird but a beautiful male sat and sang in full view on a branch above our head. View the trip reportContact Del Richards at Fine Feather Tours.Much of the video was taken using a Canon 550D with 50mm f1.8 II lens through a Swarovski ATS80 scope with Universal Camera Adaptor at between 20-40x Less