Hello from the land of three shades of blue,  

Crisp almost cloudless days with low humidity, all this week, has kept the skies over the rainforest blue, setting a  frame for the Bartle blue of the mountains which sit in the blue waters of the Johnstone River ringed by emerald green rainforest and white sandy beaches. It can't get much better than that.

Tonight another 'super moon' rose in a hazy sky over the Coral Sea. As the winds start to freshen tomorrow they may push this week's King Tides a little higher.

When Ky saw Jessie he stopped in his tracks.

Cassowary Jessie occasionally encounters Snout and Ky and this week for the first time I saw her chase Ky.

Cassowary Jessie almost on top of Ky

  . ……I was worried Jessie would harm Ky when suddenly Snout rushed between them and Jessie turned her attention to him and chased Snout into the rainforest. It was all over in a minute. It was just luck that I was there with the camera at the time.

I was only able to take these photos  safely as I have a long distance camera lens and I was standing some distance away protected by the trunk of a tree.

The next day Jessie looked as if butter wouldn't melt in her mouth and I think I saw her smiling.

I have often seen what looked like stones in cassowary scats and when I saw Jessie eating something on the road I discovered it was in fact basalt gravel. Many birds swallow pebbles and sharp stones to help grind food in their gizzard. These rocks are known as gastroliths.

Cassowary Ky is maturing and he observes everything his father does. When the birds move into the trees above, Ky looks to watch for falling seed. His feathers are darkening and the colour is showing through on his neck.

As I drove home early this week I saw cassowary Queenie on the side of the road she was looking down a gully that ran beside the road. Unfortunately a three wire strand barbed wire fence runs across the bottom of the gully.

I watched as she disappeared down the almost vertical bank.










She reached the bottom, saw the fence and came straight back up the bank.

When she reached the road she went back the way she came, into the mangrove swamplands on the Ocean side.

There are a lot of dangers for Cassowaries around rural and urban areas.

The northern brown bandicoots are on the move and I have seen quite a few scurrying around in the early morning. They leave a tell-tale sign in the lawn when they dig holes looking for tasty grubs.
The northern brown bandicoot is solitary but will come together with females for mating. The male will follow the female until she accepts him.

 Yellow sigatoka affecting native banana

Aerial spray operators are busy over the banana plantations around the Cassowary Coast. After three months of wet weather there has been a serious outbreak of Yellow Sigatoka disease in Cavendish banana plantations. Farmers are controlling the fungal disease by aerial spraying fungicides every three to four weeks on each crop. Some of the chemical fungicides sprayed are Dithane, chlorothalonil, propiconazole and mancozeb.

Yellow Sigatoka disease was first identified in Western Australia in 1990. Since then it has spread to infect banana crops across the tropical north of Australia. The economic, environmental and human health impact from Yellow Sigatoka disease on bananas is high. The risk of other horticultural disease entering Australia is also high. All of us need to be alert and report people who illegally carry plant material when returning from overseas holidays.

Drongo and Friarbird are having a territorial dispute.

Drongo screams out a cheeky song and this annoys Friarbird who replies with what sounds like expletives.

Drongo always seems to have the last word and puffs his chest out and looks at Friarbird with disdain.

Juvenile beach stone curlew 

   Some months                                                                ago I took a photo of a juvenile beach stone curlew in the mangroves close to the nursery. He is still there and now fully grown.

Beach stone curlew at sunrise

Beach stone curlew at sunset.

The brown cuckoo-doves are also  still here and enjoying the sunshine.







Male yellow-bellied sunbirds are putting on a noisy display to attract their females. This bird puffed out his chest feathers and bobbed his head up and down in a little dance. Unfortunately I did not see him display his pectoral tufts.

The male yellow-bellied sunbird will erect pectoral tufts during display. They appear like two little fans from the side of the bird's neck. A wonderful sight if you are lucky to see it.








Rufous fantail has been taking a dip                                                  in a pool late every afternoon. One wonders why he leaves it to the cold of the late afternoon to take a dip.

Now that the sugar-cane harvest is underway pheasant  coucals can be seen on road verges. Many of these birds make their nest in the sugar-cane fields and are now homeless.

These birds will run out and cross the road at the spur of a moment.

They are very well camouflaged for brown grass and when they enter these areas they are hard to see.











The masked lapwing plover is nesting on the rookery at Coquette Point. Plovers are notorious for the way they defend their nesting site.

These birds are common in urban areas and will make their nests in paddocks and parks. They will tolerate people except when nesting.

Ruth L commented this week that she thought the population of masked lapwing plovers at Coquette Point had increased as she has observed several groups of these birds around  the top of the Moresby Range at Coquette Point.





I love their tenacity, it is not unusual to see a lapwing chase off a much larger bird and even a dog. They are certainly good alarm sentries, as they will sound alarm at every intruder.

My daughter Justine and her husband Thierry with my granddaughter are visiting at the moment. We are celebrating  'Christmas in July' and there is no better time of the year to have visitors in FNQ.

Justine lives in California and they have been experiencing severe drought for the last four years.

At this time of the year the citrus fruits in FNQ are loaded on every backyard tree. I had a bowl of limes and lemons in the kitchen and Justine picked up a lime and said at the moment in California limes were more expensive than alcohol. The price of limes has had a flow-on effect in the tourist trade where one of the favourite tourist drinks, margarita, which is based on lime juice, has almost doubled in price.

It has been a momentous week for the Aboriginal community of the Cassowary Coast. NAIDOC week this year honoured the Aboriginal men and women who served Australia in all conflicts.

During the morning tea celebrations for NAIDOC week at the Innisfail Shire Hall on Tuesday we launched 'Jigurru'. 'Jijurru' is a rainforest story developed with Mandubarra elder Nellie Epong, Anne Wilkinson, Liz Gallie and me. To look at the book go to:- www.yvonnecunninghambooks.com

Gathered together after the launch of the book, photo from left; Henry Epong, Nellie Epong, Yvonne Cunningham, Liz Gallie, James Mcgillivray and Mervin O'Donnell.

On Wednesday NAIDOC week was celebrated with dancing and speeches in Canecutter Court, followed by a march down the main street of Innisfail to ANZAC park.

NAIDOC week celebrations in Innisfail were organised by the wonderful Karen Yaroseray who  not only organised the event but acted as master of ceremonies. Well done Karen you made the Aboriginal community of the Cassowary Coast proud.

Yesterday, 11 July 2014, marked the United Nations World Population Day. As of January 1, 2014, the world's population was estimated to be 7,137,661,030 and is increasing by 2.3 people every second.

Climate change threatens food security in many countries. This is particularly evident with the frequent extreme weather events that have been occurring on Earth over the last decade.

To stop global overconsumption, depletion of resources, unprecedented loss of species and to reduce dire human poverty the world population needs to be between one and three billion people. That is the population range to be truly sustainable, long term, on the planet. To learn more go to:- http://www.worldpopulationbalance.org/content/one-planet-onechild

Cheers for this week,
Yvonne

Hello from Coquette Point,

The sugarcane harvest is well underway and the silvery flower heads covering the paddocks are falling to the harvester, exposing the rich red volcanic soils of the Johnstone River Valley.

The Johnstone River is busy with fisherman enjoying the warm winter sunlight and the clear blue water of the Johnstone River estuary.

As the morning-sun lit up the Johnstone River I watched two fisherman turn their boat and throw their cast-net to capture a school of bait fish playing on the river's surface.

From an old dead tree young kookaburra started a morning wake up call.

Not to be outdone, yellow oriole moved out of the forest canopy and in the warm morning sun, called out in bubbly excitement, it is time to start the day's business.

The cassowaries are on the move and in the early morning they leave the rainforest and walk down into the mangroves. To do this they must cross the road.

I was driving home from a quick early morning trip to town when I saw cassowary Hagar standing in the middle of the road, at the top of the hill. A screech to stop and I jumped out of the car with my camera.  I saw that Rainbow was with his dad Hagar, he had been hidden by the rise of the road. Hagar was plucking angrily at his feathers while Rainbow was walking toward the fence.

Then I saw cassowary Queenie with the cows, she was calmly looking at Rainbow, without any aggression. Rainbow moved toward Queenie.

Quickly Hagar went to Rainbow uttering what sounded  like air escaping from a balloon. Hagar appeared to be communicating with Rainbow.

Hagar seemed concerned that Queenie would harm Rainbow.





Rainbow got the message and together with Hagar they walked away from Queenie and down the hill towards the mangroves. Rainbow gave one look back.

Meanwhile, Queenie was standing silently looking at them, unable to follow because of the fence.

Matriarch cassowary Jessie has also been using the road as a connecting corridor. Again this week I saw her chasing Snout.
Snout went one way and little Ky the other. Jessie showed no aggression toward Ky and did not chase him, but she certainly frightened Snout.

















Ky and Snout both ended up on the road Ky pulling out his chest feathers in frustration.

Jessie did not follow and disappeared into the mangroves.






Ky is growing fast and while he was having a bath this week I noticed his neck feathers were starting to thin out. Underneath the mattered wet, brown feathers I could clearly see where his skin was starting to turn blue.

Snout and Ky still walk through the nursery they appear to favour drinking the water out of the old bath under Plastic Cas. You can see the wet mud on Snout and Ky's feet as they had just come out from the mangroves.

Rainforest fruits are patchy at the moment. There has not been a big fruit set on the Quandong, Elaeocarpus grandis
however, I am seeing quite a bit of Cassowary plum, Cerbera floribunda, in the scats and this is strange as they normally fruit in summer. Pandanus fruits are just starting to ripen and they are a cassowary favourite.




























I was photographing a stink-horn fungus this week when Cassowary Queenie walked up behind me and ate it. It happened all so quickly and I got such a shock I missed the shot. I was lucky to get one photo of the fungi before it disappeared. These fungi are a delicacy in some parts of Asia. It is documented that cassowaries eat a wide range of fungi.










Deb Pergolottie from the Cairns Frog Hospital came down this week. A white-lipped tree frog which had  been sent to the frog hospital in Cairns from Coral Coast Vets Innisfail was ready to be released. Deb asked if she could release the frog in my veggie garden. Of course I said yes.

In Cairns there is a dedicated frog rescue and rehab facility which has been running as a 'frog hospital' for 16 years. It is a small group with a big workload and responsibility and they welcome support in many forms. Their website is www.frogsafe.org.au  You can call them on 07 40450373.



This frog has lost the sight in one eye but otherwise is now healthy. Deb offered him a tasty native Australian cockroach and then released him.

The frog quickly hopped away to take up his new job as insect controller in my veggie garden.
Well done Deb, another frog saved by the Cairns Frog Hospital.

In the warm winter sun Jumping spiders have been on the hunt with Cosmophasis species being the most active.


































However, I also found this very dark form of a female Mopsus mormon.














Nature likes to keep everything in balance and there has been a large hatching of praying mantids. Jumping spiders and praying mantid are pretty evenly matched hunters so it will be interesting to see, in the next few weeks, which one I see more of, the jumping spiders or the praying mantids.

The Rainforest and Reef Conference at Ninney is over and it was an amazing success.  Before the Conference started I caught up with rainforest hero Dr Aila Keto AO. We shared many tales about the long campaign to have the rain forests of north Queensland listed as a World Heritage site.


The Conference Was opened by Suzie Smith of Wildlife Tully.

  Aboriginal traditional owner and Djiru elder, Leonard Andy performed a Welcome to Country before joining Whitney Rassip and Dr Michael Davis of University of Sydney for the first panel discussion on Djiru Traditional Hunting and connection to sea and conservation of significant animals.

 For the full details on the Rainforest and Reef Conference at Ninney Rise go to:-
www.ninneyrise.com 




On Tuesday at 9.30am the book 'Jigurru' will be launched at the Shire Hall Innisfail. 'Jigurru' is a pictorial story of the rainforest created by Liz Gallie, Anne Wilkinson, and myself with advise and guidance from Mandubarra elder Nellie Epong. I would love to see you there.

Cheers,

Yvonne.