Estuaries and Tidal Flats
Among the birds restricted to the estuarine and tidal areas of the park are the chestnut rail, the collared, or mangrove, kingfisher, the broad-billed flycatcher, the black butcherbird, the mangrove gerygone, or warbler, and the red-headed honeyeater. During the wet season egrets, ibises, herons and cormorants nest in large colonies in the mangrove tree tops.
Mangroves are also used by the black and little red flying foxes which congregate in colonies or camps sometimes containing thousands of individuals. Mangrove monitors and estuarine crocodiles often wait below the camps to eat fallen flying foxes.
On the sandy beaches of West Alligator Head and Field Island, flat-back turtles haul themselves out of the water to lay their eggs in darkness. Other animals of interest in the coastal area are the white-bellied mangrove snake and other marine snakes such as Darwin's and Hardwick's sea snakes. The dugong, or sea cow, is a large marine mammal that feeds on seagrass beds.
The shady coastal monsoon pockets offer plenty of vegetation that orange-footed scrubfowl can rake up into large mounds. The birds lay their eggs in the mounds, using the heat from the rotting vegetation to incubate the eggs. The mounds are used by succeeding generations: some mounds in the park are well over 100 years old.
Also living on the forest floor are the colourful rainbow pittas, which can sometimes be heard scratching through the leaf litter for insects. They are also often seen on the walking track to Maguk.
Fruit from the fig trees that grow in the forest provides food for the rarely seen rose-crowned fruit dove. The figbird, oriole and migratory Torres Strait pigeon also eat these figs.