Hello from Coquette Point,

Cassowary Jessie and Snout are into their second week of courtship and are daily moving around in a one square kilometre range of rainforest, melaleuca and mangrove swamps.
 Jan Shang reported she saw the two cassowaries eating fallen Quandong fruits close to her house when for some unknown reason matriarch Jessie got cranky and chased the male Snout. Whatever the disagreement between the two, later that day they were seen walking together again.

On Wednesday afternoon I saw them enter the Melaleuca swamp walking quickly through the trees.

Jessie followed Snout as he walked briskly through the swamp.

Suddenly Snout stopped and looked back at Jessie. I heard no sound from the cassowaries and I believe they were not aware of my presence.

Snout approached Jessie and she bent her head in submission.

He reached towards her and the sun's rays played shadow puppets on the melaleuca bark as their casques and necks entwined and they started 'necking'.

Then as quickly as it began Snout turned and walked away, Jessie followed obediently

 
 
 
They were still walking together today, Jessie watching Snout's every move as she followed him.

Feral pigs cause a great deal of damage in the rainforest and on farms of the Wet Tropics region. For some time now I have had good success in controlling pig numbers on my property with a cage designed not to catch cassowaries. The cage has a long vertical push -door opening. However, one particular pig has eluded me for almost three months. This week with great patience and stealth I caught him. Once he was comfortable coming into the cage I slowly reduced the opening of the door over the week until I finally closed the cage, by that time he was used to pushing the door open to enter and escape. Until I fully closed the door on Monday night and he was caught.

By coincidence I was  speaking to a senior National Park Ranger last week about pigs and the problems of disposing of their carcass once they were caught, the ranger told me QNPWS would be interested in taking the carcass to use in crocodile traps. Apparently the new Crocodile Management Plan means the rangers must remove all crocodiles over two metres from within the urban footprint. That means a lot of bait is needed for crocodile traps and feral pig carcasses are regarded as good crocodile bait. So I rang Innisfail QNPWS on Tuesday morning and sure enough two rangers came out and chopped up the pig. 

My wonderfully talented friend Liz www.lizgalliejewellery.com  asked me to save the pig's tusks for jewellery and so we kept the head. Then to give my French visitors, Nicolas and Quentin, some real OZ bush experience I had them collect wood and build a fire and we cooked the pig's head all day and all night, by that time the tusks just fell out. The pig soup was not served although we made the boys believe it was all part of the experience. You can see by the look on Nicolas he was not looking forward to this 'Aussie cordon bleu delicacy'.

 

 

 
 
By another coincidence Thea Pobjoy, DAFF Queensland's Farm Management Systems Officer, turned up for a visit. Thea was interested in our pig and the damage and disease pigs cause to horticulture which we discussed at length over a cup of tea.

The rainforest canopy is covered in blossom as the 'Irish lace' like flowers of Darlingia darlingiana, the brown silky oak open in the winter sunshine.

While the saucer size blossoms of Deplanchea tetraphylla, the golden bouquet tree open bright yellow above the large leaves of this beautiful rainforest tree. Tiny insects hum a symphony of thanks as they enjoy the nectar flowing from the flowers in the warm winter sun and birds dart busily amongst the flowers enjoying both  nectar and insects. The rainforest canopy is a kaleidoscope of sound and colour.

The abundant fruits of Homalanthus novoguineensis, the bleeding heart tree, are turning purple as they ripen and fall, much to the delight of the rainforest pigeons.

 
A giant of the rainforest Endiandra Montana, the brown walnut is dropping its fruits to the forest floor. Like mysterious yellow eggs they lie at the base of the forest giants.

All over the forest floor cassowary scats are full of the walnut's seed.

I did two transits through the rainforest each of 100 metres. In one area I counted ten cassowary scats and in the other five.
Whilst in the rainforest I was surprised to hear loud voices coming from the next ridge and just happened to walk out of the forest at the same time as four men. The men were from DAFF and were looking for weeds in National Parks, their particular concern was Miconia calvescens. It is worth understanding that in Hawaii M calvescens has invaded 65% of the rainforest and is considered one of the greatest threats to Hawaii's rainforest. It is reassuring that the Newman Government is on top of this potentially devastating weed. A great big bouquet for DAAF and Nr Newman please keep funding this department directly to carry out weed control management.

 
 
I was mistaken the other week about the hatching of osprey chicks. What I saw moving in the nest was a lining of fresh green leaves blowing about in the wind. The birds have been busy again this week and are continuing to bring new leaves to line the nest. Below the female instructs the male on how to place the leaves in the nest.

A very big thank you to  'Friend of Coquette Point', Billy Gill.  Billy is now living in Canberra but in 1970 she published a paper on the 'Birds of Innisfail and Hinterland'. The paper details Billie's observations from 1954 to 1968 in a roughly triangular area of north Queensland, from Bramston Beach to South Mission Beach to Ravenshoe. This week Billy found some old field notes of her observations at Coquette Point and kindly forwarded them on to me.                                             When I see the same number of birds in relatively the same time- line it is very reassuring. On the other hand it is of great concern when birds which were once regularly seen are no longer found here. Billie's observations are an important benchmark for our area. Thank you Billy and we hope you have a warm fire to cheer you through winter and I know you enjoy looking at this blog and remembering when you walked Coquette Point's rainforest and beach.

 

I am off to Townsville in the morning so the blog is a day early.

cheers and best wishes,

Yvonne C.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hello from Cassowary Country,

Jessie and Snout are courting again. This is their second courtship this year. Snout disappeared mid May after walking out with Jessie for over a month we presumed he was sitting on eggs.   He reappeared two weeks ago rather agitated and without chicks. So it is a great joy to see them again walking out together. Hopefully, this courtship will result in chicks.

With plenty of food falling from the onionwood and quandong trees the cassowaries are looking in very good condition.

What a privilege to watch these normally solitary birds come together with such tenderness and awareness of each other.

To my knowledge Snout has only successfully raised one chick to maturity and that chick is Rosie also called Stumpy and she was born late 2010.
 There are many challenges for cassowary parents not least of all cyclones. Carpet snakes and goannas are their natural enemies. However, more recently pigs, people with pig dogs, wild dogs and cats also threaten the success of the clutch.

Breeding ages are around four years and at that age the young adult has lost all the brown feathers of the subadult stage.
It was thrilling to see young Don again this week. He is around three years old now and has only a few brown feather left on his rump. Since last seeing him in early June he has received some damage to his left wattle however, his casque has no distinguishing features-as yet.

Don and Q are the chicks of Little Dad and I first saw them a few days after cyclone Yasi.  Cyclone Yasi, a category 5 system struck the Cassowary Coastline on the 3 February 2011. It destroyed the rainforest canopy and subsequently the cassowary's main food source. Queensland National Parks and Wildlife Service implemented a supplementary feeding programme for Cassowaries and other animals like the mahogany gliders. Cassowary Don is only alive today due to the tireless work of the many volunteers and the devoted National Park Rangers.

Above, Little Dad with chicks Don and Q just after cyclone 'Yasi'.

To cap the week off I saw Brown Cone and his chick on Thursday. They had just crossed the road on the straight before Ninds Creek Bridge. They walked into the pandanus swamp and hung around for a few moments enabling me to get a photo. Brown Cone is so named after the brown patch on the left hand side of his casque. Unfortunately, he would not turn his head for the camera but I was easily able to identify him from the crimp in the top of his casque and his wattles. I managed to get some good photos of the chicks wattles so will be able to identify him when he eventually gains independence.

No luck with photos of the osprey's chicks. As soon as I approached she left the nest and loudly called alarm signals looking down into the nest and then glared fiercely at me. I left her to care for her chicks and will try for a photo  another day.

 

 

 
 

 

I found these two similar moths sheltering under a leaf in very strong wind.

With the unusually warm winter weather many insects have remained active. Bill Farmsworth
sent me this photo of a moth he found one night. There are truly wonderful and weird creatures in our rainforest.




Blue-winged kookaburra has a mate and this beautiful girl turned up this week so they may decide to stay and breed here. Breeding with these birds normally occurs in spring so we will wait and see. I have not been able to get a photo of the two of them together as yet.                      Meanwhile the laughing kookaburra's are living up to their name and noisily announce their presence at every opportunity.

Nicolas Chaumont and Quentin Andres volunteered to help the Cassowary Coast Alliance Guerrilla Gardeners again and this week they decided to clean up the Coquette Point beach. Nicolas and Quentin collected over 12 bags of tins and plastic as well as a number of unusual items. They were all deposited in the Council's rubbish bin. One wonders at people who come to walk on such a beautiful beach and then leave it strewn with rubbish. A big thank you to Nicolas and Quentin from Strasbourg.

Quentin found a lot of rubbish around the rookery. The Little Terns and the other migratory shore birds arrive in early summer and hopefully we will be able to keep the rookery area clean of rubbish for the birds.

Red capped plovers and white face heron kept an eye on us as we collected the rubbish.































     The strong winds of the last few months dropped yesterday to 10 knots and even less today. With the mackerel on the run lots of small boats went out to the reef, while those with smaller boats tried their luck in the river estuary.






Drizzly rain again this morning started the frogs calling and Litoria fallax and Litoria bicolor today seemed to be competing for the euro song festival.

It is most unusual to hear their 'wreeek' calls at this time of the year. It's supposed to be the winter dry season and the frogs are confused and I rather think they are not alone.













Cheers for this week,

Yvonne





 

Hello from Coquette Point,

The weather is not worth talking about. Three sunny days this week then back into strong winds and rain. Where is the dry season?

I saw cassowary chick 'Cheeky' this week and it is wonderful to see how he has grown. Dad was in a great hurry and I just managed to capture cheeky before they both disappeared into the rainforest.

I thought you might like to see some family shots of 'Cheeky' and I found the following on file.













Mum 'Jessie' and 'Little Dad's' courtship photo  April 10 2012.

Cheeky with his late sibling on the right September 5 2012. We do not know what happened to the other chick, one day he was missing; its a risky life for Cassowary chicks!
A photo of 'Little Dad' fighting his reflection in the car mirror with the chicks wondering what was happening.
It is such a privilege to watch these amazing birds grow and reach independence and set up their own territorial range.

As I was coming back from town on Friday afternoon I saw a young cassowary which I could not identify. The bird was approximately four years old and by its tail feathers and the size of its casque and wattles it is properly a female. ( Female cassowaries are larger than the male and their tail feathers do not drop.)  The bird was walking across the road from the sewerage plant and into the littoral rainforest along Ninds Creek. This area has been approved for a Metricon marina development to be called 'Seahaven'.

I managed to take two good identifying photos of the cassowary before it disappeared into the littoral forest on the eastern side of the road. As she crossed the road she dropped a scat 100% quandong seed.

If anyone knows this bird and has given it a name please contact me otherwise how about some suggestions for a name on 'comments'.





















Cassowary 'Snout' visits the Quandong grandis tree and the Onionwood Syzygium alliiligneum tree several times a day. It appears either his eggs were unsuccessful or the chicks died, certainly he is no longer sitting on eggs and the time has elapsed from when they were due to hatch.

The colours of rainforest fruits are strong and bright and stand out against the brown of the forest floor. Have you noticed how the red of the onionwood fruit and the blue of the quandong fruit match the colours of the cassowary?





The onionwood tree is restricted in its distribution and occurs only in the coastal Wet Tropics region between Cape Tribulation and Tully. Old rainforest trees will reach a height of 15 to 20 metres however, street planted onionwood trees seldom reach 10 metres.

Onionwood is suitable as a tree for a large backyard, the fruit makes excellent jam and they are good to eat fresh, they taste somewhat like a tart apple but a little spongy.

Onionwoods fruit over a long period from May to October and these fruits were a major rainforest Aboriginal food.

Osprey's babies have hatched however, between the rain and the wind also worried about my camera in the rain and not wanting to disturb the birds I took only a long distance photo, if you blow it up you can just see Mum feeding a chick while Dad kept lookout.

 As the chick hatched on that 'auspicious day' perhaps we could call it George! Hopefully I will be able to get close to the nest next week to take a photo without disturbing Mum. I will also get a better look and see if there is more than one chick.










Extremely low tides all this week .12m on Monday and floodin up to 3.33 meters gave the coastal rivers another good flush. Strong winds pushing the water back in have left strange patterns in the sand which are revealed when the tide recedes.

A tiny red-capped dotterel feeds alone in a mosaic of zig-zag tide pools.







On the outer sand-bar the patterns left by the action of the strong winds and fast flowing tidal change were different. Long striated tide pools created the perfect fish traps for shorebirds, much to the delight of lesser sand-plovers and white faced heron.

On the outer sand bank I counted 170 crested terns as they fed and rested. The juvenile birds are still being fed by the parents and when the adults return with the fishy meal the excitement spreads through the colony.

Mangrove dieback continues, devastating the forest at Coquette Point and many large trees have succumbed to the strong winds and big tides over the last month.                                                                        

The blind-your-eye mangrove Exoecaria agallocha, a low salinity mangrove tree, is now in the high saline zone and would not be expected to survive very long. At this time of the year these deciduous mangrove trees are flowering with male and female flowers on separate trees.
The common name of the tree is a cautionary warning about the caustic nature of the sap.

In spite of the health of the mangrove forest in the shallow waters many tiny mollusc can be found and it is for this reason that the sandbanks at Coquette Point are such an important shorebird habitat.

It was National School Tree Day on Friday and the Cassowary Coast Alliance Guerrilla Gardeners were at it again this time at Radiant Life College Innisfail. The CCAGG with the help of the students planted the first plot of a bush tucker garden. Radiant Life College headmaster Mark Todorovic intends to continue the plantings each year with the plan to involve the students in selecting Aboriginal food trees and learning about the nutritional properties of the fruits, the CCAGG will be there to help Mr T and his students.

Cheers for this week and remember tomorrow is National Tree Day so go out and plant a tree and tell everyone about it.

Cheers,
Yvonne