Hello from dry and dusty Coquette Point,

While the dry weather continues the first indication of the season's change came this week when the winds turned to the north-east. With only hot gentle breezes the northerly winds have  increased the humidity.

In the mangroves Sonneratia alba is in the last throes of flowering and already the seed pods from the first flowers are maturing.

The helmeted friarbird was so overjoyed with the flower's sweet nectar and the feast of insects that he burst into a morning call  celebrating the bounty.

In the early glow of dawn hundreds of insects were buzzing around the ephemeral, nocturnal blossoms before the warmth of the sun would induce the stamens to fall and cover the mangrove mud in white lace.
The air was filled with the sound of insects hungrily gathering the rich nectar from the flowers.

Another mangrove beauty, the holly-leaved mangrove, Acanthus ilicifolius, is also flaunting its bountiful nectar and  its rich purple flowers are a magnet for insects.













The vibrant orange-red colour of this pandanus fruit are a favourite of the cassowaries and while the fruits are dropping the birds visit the tree four or five times a day.

At last we have photos of one of the sets of new cassowary chicks. The photo below was taken by Nellie Epong ten days ago as the birds crossed the road into the Moresby Range National Park. This is the same area that Jan Shang saw them this week and again they were crossing the road, photo below. Thank you Nellie and Jan for your photos.
















I believe this young Dad cassowary is Queenie's sibling Don. The wattles, casque and neck markings match those in photographs I took of Don last year.

Nellie also managed to get a good photo of the large subadult cassowary which has been seen on a number of occasions. I believe this subadult is a chick of Brown Cone from 2012. This cassowary has not been given a name as yet so I would appreciate some suggestions. Please, You can go to comments at the end of the blog.

Matriarch Cassowary Jessie is moving from the Coquette Point Wetlands to the mangroves at the estuary and then through the nursery orchard and into the mangrove area along the river. I have had a brief glimpse of her on a few occasions this week but each time I saw her she was travelling quickly.








Snout and Ky are still together and they regularly come into the nursery to drink from the ponds before returning to the rainforest.

Below: I saw cassowary Snout waiting in the rainforest for Ky to finish drinking. At first I thought Snout  had left Ky and when I walked down the rainforest track to check, he was there waiting for him.

Ky came running into the rainforest and walked off with Snout.
There are a lot of poison walnut seed, Cryptocarya pleurosperma in the cassowary scats this week.












The Damson Plum Terminalia sericocarpa is in flower. The lime-green new growth flush of this tree can be seen across the face of the Moresby Range. The dry weather should result in a massive fruit set.
Little varied triller was chasing the pollinating insects which were attracted to the small flowers in the canopy of the Damson.




The Beach Almond Terminalia catappa, below, is also in flower and the thick carpet of leaves around its roots are nourishing the tree.

The fruits of the native olive Chionanthus ramiflorus are ripe and starting to fall.

Cassowaries are visiting the tree every day.

Black bean, Castanospermum australe is in flower. 

Some of the strangler figs are fruiting and the fruit is quickly eaten by the yellow-eyed cuckoo shrikes.        
                                                                                   
This year I have only seen a flock of five Pied Imperial pigeons feeding around Coquette Point and they are not roosting here.
Over the past ten years the PIP numbers, roosting and nesting at Coquette Point, have slowly decreased.














It is such a thrill to watch the PIPs feeding and calling in the tree tops.

One of the November PIP counts will be held at Ninney Rise and will be an Open Day for anyone interested in taking part and enjoying an afternoon in the cool breeze on the wide verandas of Ninney Rise. For more information ring Angi 4068 7099.



A very large green sea turtle was delivered by the Girringun Rangers to the Mandubarra Turtle Rehibalation Centre this week. The turtle was very old and it had been found floating in the Hinchinbrook Channel.  The turtle had its eyes closed and when Nellie placed her finger on its head the turtle's eyes half opened. Girringun Ranger Neil showed Henry Epong the damage on the turtle's shell.













Although the turtle received intensive care it did not survive the night.




Our increasing demand on the natural world has caused a dramatic decrease in wildlife populations. The migratory birds which use our beaches to feed and rest are one of the most severely impacted. While every Australia enjoys going down to the beach it is essential, for the continued existence of migratory shorebirds and resident waders, that some beaches have restriction on the activities allowed.

At Coquette Point the beach is only accessible at low tide by foot and the adjoining forests are listed as part of the World Heritage Wet Tropics Region. The dunes and beach are an important nesting and feeding ground for resident waders and migratory shorebirds.

On Wednesday afternoon I was walking on the beach when suddenly I heard a dog bark the next minute the pied oyster catchers were running in alarm followed by the beach stone curlews which ran from the dune area where I believe they are about to nest.
















Out on the sandbar I had just photographed the pelicans resting in the sun. As soon as they heard the dog they jumped to their feet and huddled together. The resting terns immediately took to the sky.

All the birds displayed fright and flight as a reaction to the dog's barking. I had not noticed this extreme reaction when it was just humans walking quietly along the beach.

I approached the dog owner and the dog ran at me growling. The man steadied the dog with his hand. The dog was on a strong lead and was wearing a muzzle. I thanked the man for having the dog on a lead and he said, "If I didn't there would be no getting him back". I asked if he had seen the birds in a panic running from the dog's barking and told him that Coquette Point was a place where migratory birds came all the way from the Arctic to rest and in some cases breed. He was not aware, he said, in spite of the signs at the entrance to the walking track. I explained that many of the waders had not bred over the last few years due to disturbance while breeding. If they do not have chicks this year or next we are looking at the last generation of waders on this beach.









What I saw clearly showed that the bird's reactions to a barking dog was extreme and both the pied oyster catchers and the beach stone curlews left the dunes and flew out onto a sandbar. The pelicans took to the water and the terns flew to another area. The other smaller shorebirds all left the area. There are only a few beach areas along the Cassowary Coast where people are asked not to walk dogs, ride vehicles or horses. If this request is ignored then we really are looking at the last generation of waders on these beaches. They have already gone from all the other beaches.

When the people with the dog left I watched the shore birds resume feeding.

Bar-tailed godwit was digging deeply for a meal, then he ran along the beach chasing a wave.

Grey-tailed tattler fished in a pool in the mangroves.
































Common sandpiper ran along the mudflats looking for a worm.

Lesser sand plover looked for a crab at the water's edge.

Pacific golden plovers searched the mud flats for a mollusc or two.

















Everywhere the terns were circling overhead or lined up on the sandbanks.

On the water's edge the resident waders hunted for dinner. Little egret and white faced heron fished in the same pond.                                            A brown phase striated heron fished in a corner pool.

On a fallen melaleuca a grey phased striated heron played hide and seek, for a while before running down to the water's edge to catch dinner.

I walked to the end of the beach and was delighted to see the mountain spring still running strongly. The water was cold and sweet. I sat and looked out to sea as a small sailing boat passed in the distance.

It was growing dark as I returned and I noticed the red-necked stints and sand plovers were all moving up onto the sand dunes for the night.

The whimbrels had returned from fishing along the Johnstone River and were settling down  for the night with the gull billed terns.

The beach stone curlews had returned to the sand dunes as the sun set over the Johnstone River.




Until next week,
Cheers,

Yvonne.

This week the sun set on Gough Whitlam, a man who always believed he was destined to lead Australia and for the three short years when he did, Australian threw off its colonial shackles and for the first time stood on the world stage as a nation. Gough Whitlam gave us a sense of nationhood.

I first encountered Gough Whitlam in 1961 while working my way around Australia, I had taken a job as waitress at the Fanny Bay Hotel in Darwin.  That morning there was a great flurry in the kitchen as the celebrated jockey George Moore was staying at the hotel, all the girls wanted to wait on him. So when Arthur Calwell and Gough Whitlam came down to breakfast I was told to wait on their table as they were only Labor politicians. I grew up in a political household, twice my father contested the seat of Burdekin for State Labor and I knew who these men were. I was struck by the composure and energy of the mountain of a man who was Arthur Calwell's deputy, Gough Whitlam.

I watched the interaction between Calwell and Whitlam it was obvious there was friction between them. They were in the Northern Territory campaigning and I was told taking evidence for the Commonwealth Parliamentary Committee that was set up to investigate and report on Indigenous voting rights. Calwell was old White Australia Labor but I knew Whitlam had a different vision for Australia.

It was not until 1965 that Indigenous people around Australia gained the same voting rights as other Australians. Finally in 1967 Australians voted overwhelmingly in favour of counting Indigenous people in census figures. In Government Gought Whitlam drafted the Aboriginal Land Rights Act which Malcolm Fraser's Government later passed. It was Whitlam's ideas which reshaped the Labor Party and subsequently reshaped Australia. Vale Gough Whitlam.
                             

 The orange footed scrub fowls are busy raking leaves and are chuckling noisily at the moment. All the leaves which have been falling over the last couple of months have formed a thick carpet under the rainforest canopy and under this carpet the soil is moist and alive with thousands of small insects and worms. The scrub fowls know this and they seem to work in unison, one raking while the other catches what is uncovered with their powerful feet.

  

The standoff between Snout and Jessie continues and when I saw Jessie sitting examining her feet this week I was concerned she had an injury. I went close to her to see if I could photograph her foot and perhaps identify any injury from the photo.

I was standing very still when the next minute one of the scrub fowls walked up the stairs to his favourite leaf raking place. He didn't hesitate when he saw Jessie nor did he seem to notice me as Jessie continued to pick at her feet. The scrub fowl moved towards Jessie and I waited to see what would happen then the sound of my camera spooked the scrub fowl and he flew off into the trees.

Later I saw Jessie walking around she was not limping and I could not see anything wrong with her foot. I have notice her pecking at her feet before, perhaps to remove parasites.





















Cassowary Snout continues to play the attentive father and he is still  ignoring Jessie. Ripe black sapote fruits are falling from high on the tree where I cannot reach. The cassowaries pounce on the ripe fruits and Snout is still breaking up the fruits for Ky to eat and always sees that Ky has first choice.

Nellie and Henry Epong saw cassowary Queenie again this week and this time crossing the bridge over Nind's Creek. Nellie and Henry were able to get some great photos of Queenie and it appears she is traveling backwards and forwards over the bridge to East Innisfail, perhaps she has a boyfriend on the other side!









Henry Epong took this photo of Queenie as she paused to pass a scat of pandanus fruits.

Queenie approached the bridge, then she changed her mind, swerved and took the pedestarian footway. Queenie is one cleaver cassowary.

Thank you Nellie and Henry for these excellent photos of Queenie.

John O'Brien was thrilled on Wednesday to see a young male cassowary with two of the smallest chicks he had ever seen. John was coming home from town when he saw Dee Wilson stopped near the Moresby Range National Park sign. Dee was stopping traffic as she had seen a young male cassowary cross the road and his two chicks were still on the other side. Thanks to Dee the chicks crossed the road safely and as Dee and John watched the cassowaries headed towards the steep embankment on the northern side of the road, the young male saw it was unsafe for the chicks and he took them alongside the road verge until he could easily cross into the rainforest. No photos unfortunately, but Dee told me the camera will be staying in the car from now on. The male was described as young with a small smooth casque and small wattles, the chicks looked less than a week old.

The description of this male and his two chicks is different from that of the male which has been seen crossing the road on the corner near the Ninds Creek Bridge. That male is an older bird and the chicks were described as bigger. It is a good start to the Moresby Range National Park's cassowary breeding season with six new chicks now reported, two at Etty Bay and four at Coquette Point.

Bandicoot, Long John, (named after the one-eyed pirate Long John Silver), is still up late in the morning munching leaves. I have heard comments lately of bandicoots being host to the paralysis tick and bringing the ticks into backyards. Bandicoots are no more hosts to ticks than any animal which wanders through the undergrowth. Bandicoots do have large claws on their feet which they can and do use to dislodge ticks.

However, dogs and cats are also hosts to ticks and that is why there is a thriving industry in the production of tick preventive medications. There is a good population of bandicoots in the rainforest around my house and I have not seen any ticks on my lawns or patio, however, I do not have cats or dogs on my lawn or patio.

By the way I know Long John is a male as I managed to get a photo of his rear end one evening while he was on the lawn digging for insects.

 If you go out with a camera in the evening you see a totally different world of rainforest animals. My friend Ian Laidlaw, from the Palmerston, is a keen nocturnal photographer and Ian writes 'At this time of the year some snake species seek shelter in man made structures, this week we have relocated at least one brown tree snake per night, and four on one night, and put them back in the rainforest on the property away from the house and sheds. We have also relocated numbers of small-eyed snakes. The green frogs which own the roof rafters downpipes and gutters say a big thank you as do the many small fledging honeyeaters'. Ian Laidlaw from Tupeki on the Palmerston writes.'Just as the brown tree snakes are escaping the bare branches of their trees to avoid owls by night and hawks by day so the mainly ground dwelling small-eyed snakes appear around farm buildings in numbers, and these fellas are not to be messed with. Its fascinating to watch this annual to and fro from forest to man-made shelter.'
 While Ian Laidlaw has seen the normal numbers of snakes on the Palmerston it is the opposite here at Coquette Point. So far this season I have seen a number of skins but only a fleeting glimpse of a green tree snake, when normally at this time of the year the snakes of all species abound.

Ian has also seen a lot of spectacled flying fox activity and shared these photos of flying foxes out shopping in his star-apple fruit tree, unfortunately they were trying more than they were buying, Ian said.  Here at Coquette Point the huge flight of spectacled flying foxes that we once saw in October are absent, it is now rare to see a spectacled flying fox.  Thank you for sharing your nocturnal observations and photographs with us Ian.

Meanwhile at the mouth of the Johnstone River the pelicans are establishing their pecking order.

The young pelican on the left is often by himself. I was watching him as he nibbled at some bait which fisherman had left. It wasn't to his liking and he swam out onto the river to be met by the pair of dominant pelicans, one of the birds swam off to the side while there was a fair bit of vocalising between the other two, young pelican dipped his head subserviently and the older bird nibbled and pecked him. There was more vocalising then they swam away in different directions.

The orchard swallowtail butterflies are laying eggs on citrus trees. While at the same time her caterpillars from last season have hatched and are growing quickly. Orchard swallowtail caterpillars will eat the leaves on citrus trees but there are plenty of leaves to go around so admire if you have these caterpillars leave them alone they will do no long term harm to the citrus tree. In fact with this dry weather it may very will benefit the tree to lose a few leaves.



The north Queensland day moths this week are enjoying the nectar on the flowers of the Daintree Penda. I watched a mating pair when, what I supposed was the male, approached the female as she was feeding and he started a tumbling display behind her. She was too busy feeding to take any notice.

In past years the mid-winter migration of the north Queensland day moth from the Seymour Range across the Johnstone River to the Moresby Range was a marvellous sight, unfortunately the migration has not taken place for over four years.  I cannot think of any reason for this other than the two cyclones may have destroyed habitat.  Russell Constable posted a video of these moths leaving a nest tree at Ella Bay at the start of their migration. It is always amazing to see the proliferation of wild life in natural systems. http://ellabayforever.blogspot.com

The numbers of gull billed and other terns feeding on the estuary at Coquette Point has dramatically increased. The terns move up and down the river and visit wetland areas in the hinterland but with the increasing dry conditions more of them are congregating and feeding at Coquette point.
I estimated there were over a thousand terns roosting at Coquette point on Friday afternoon when I took these photos.

One solitary Caspian tern stood head and shoulders above the rest. It is strange I have seen this single bird at Coquette Point for several years now and I have never seen it with a mate.














Many of the gull-billed terns were resting on the sandbars with four pelicans and they shifted higher up the beach as the tide came in. Some of the terns appeared to be feeding fledged chicks.

As the sun set the whimbrels flew down the river to roost with the terns at Coquette Point.



Pied Oyster catcher patrolled the beach with loud 'peeps' objecting strongly to my presence on the beach. I did my best to circle around and away from him.








For some time now turtles along the Queensland coastline have been in strife. Seagrass beds have been destroyed by silt. While the nesting sites on the dunes are being destroyed by beach vehicles. Local identity and second generation banana farmer Mark Contempree sent me these photos of a green turtle he caught on a fishing line. Mark managed to extract the hook and released the turtle without too much harm.
 I asked Henry Epong about this incident and Henry said the turtles are hungry and are eating squid and prawns as much of the  seagrass beds, which the turtles fed on along the coast and in the rivers, have died. Mark Contempree told me how once he saw turtles regularly feeding on the seagrass beds in the Johnstone River but now the beds are all under mud. I told him there was a link between the start up of the banana industry in the Johnstone Valley and the loss of seagrass. Mark said he intended to dive and look at the state of the seagrass along the Cassowary Coastline. I look forward to hearing Mark's report. Thank you Mark for the photos and your concern for the turtles.

This week the Mandubarra Turtle Rehabilitation Centre, Henry and Nellie Epong were delighted to play host to John Busst's nephew David Vickers and his wife Michelle who were visiting from Canberra.  John related tales of his childhood memories when he visited Bingil Bay and of his Aunt Alisson who stayed with his family when John Busst died. John related many memories from these times and he has promised to record them for Friends of Ninney Rise.

It was open day at Ninney Rise today and the theme was, 'If walls could talk'. We were delighted to have a number of special guests who spoke about their connections to Ninney Rise.

Peter Gill, Billie Gill's son spoke about his Mum and gave us a small glimpse of how this amazing women accomplished so much. Billie was a founding member and first secretary of the Innisfail Wildlife Preservation Society, John Busst was President. It was through Billie's diligent work and that of Alison Busst which enabled John Busst to accomplish so much. This small group stopped mining on the Great Barrier Reef and eventually had the whole reef declared a National Park and later listed as a World Heritage site. We owe them so much.

Billie Gill recently sent us some notes with her memories of the Great Barrier Reef Campaign and Liz Gallie did a poster display of the notes and photos Peter had made available. They included photos of Dr Len Webb, Geoff Tracey, Dr Jiro Kikkawa, Ian Strahan and many others involved with the reef campaign.

We were delighted to welcome Margaret Thorsborne to Ninney Rise today and Margaret and Peter Gill shared tales of Billie's exploits when Billie was counting and documenting the birds of the Wet Tropics. Margaret an old friend of Billies was delighted to see a recent photo of her that Peter kindly shared with the group.

Thank you Billie and Peter for assisting us in recording this important part of our conservation history. Billie you are our hero.

That's the lot for this week,

Yvonne