by ANNE WILKINSON

A recent edition of The Weekend Australian Magazine featured, at first glance, a most amazing picture.

It was of a child lying smiling on the back of a large saltwater crocodile. The scene was the Daly River and the crocodile looked as if it was also smiling and peaceful. It was not. It was dead.
The crocodile had apparently scared the children, which were swimming, when it hauled itself out of the water on to the bank.
That was when it suddenly died.

The local policeman collected it up, intending to present its skeleton to a school for study purposes. When he opened it he found the cause of its death. There was a fresh cane toad in its stomach.

We are generally seeing fewer cane toads than we used to here in our region, but they are still a menace and have been responsible for the loss of much of our valuable wildlife. Following Cyclone Yasi a fresh influx of immature cane toads was noticeable, especially in gardens and other places where there were nooks and crannies in which they could shelter, so despite the apparent drop in population the war against these introduced and highly toxic pests is still important.
Having in the last couple of weeks found a number of large cane toads in the garden I decided to consult the experts. All the cane toad statistics are huge and give much food for thought.

Last Saturday night captured two pigs in the cage.  Rang my ‘pig man’ Steven Pensini but he was unable to come in the morning to remove the pigs as his baby was being christened.  Unfortunately, by the time Steven arrived in the afternoon, one pig had escaped. Even so Steven was very impressed with the cage.  What happened was one of the pigs would run full speed and hit the end of the cage, this caused the side wire to flex.  At the same time the other pig ran at the side wire, the door jumped slightly the pig stuck her nose in and out like a shot. I was watching at the time.

A scientist studying floristic at Mission Beach has noted that the large number of big trees blown down by cylcone Yasi has resulted in the destruction of the rainforest canopy.

The impact has been quite different from cyclone Larry.  Before Yasi, the rejuvenating rainforest was beginning to provide some shade cover but was still very light and open in many places with lots of pioneer species creating an understorey.  This time with many of the oldest and largest canopy trees gone, the saplings and younger trees are experiencing an enormous growth spurt and are providing enough shade to  sufficiently inhibit the pioneer species and  many of the weeds that proliferated post Larry. They are the species that will in time form part of the next canopy.  We may have a jagged skyline with vine towers for a long time to come. 

  by  ANNE WILKINSON.

While all birds are welcomed in the Wildwatch patch of forest, it was particularly exciting the other day to hear the calls of black-faced cuckoo shrikes. That they were a pair was soon evident as both flew to the same branch where they sat side by side. These were the first black-faced cuckoo shrikes we had seen since the cyclone.

Often called shufflewings, from their habit of flipping their wings into place, as if seeking the most comfortable position, on landing, the black-faced cuckoo shrike was one of the first bird species our family nursed to adulthood.

Eagle, as we called him, from his habit when he was learning to fly of soaring to the top of the tallest piece of furniture in the room and gazing down upon us, confirmed for us the valuable lesson all animal lovers know – that every wild creature, like each human, has its own character, and contact with humans brings this out.

A beach stone-curlew sighting on Post-Yasi birds -

"we watched four of them by Wongaling Creek mouth yesterday. (30.5.11)  Was the first time we'd seen them back there after Yasi so are happy".
Dr Helen K. Larson Wongaling Beach 4852

 

by ANNE WILKINSON

This has been an interesting, and in some ways surprising, week.  Despite the cold nights, butterflies and moths abound.

Working on clearing the weeds which have so energetically sprung up in Wildwatch’s little patch of forest since the cyclone, and planting trees to replace those which fell, has provided excellent opportunities for quiet observation.

For one thing, there are so many tiny native plants growing under the mantle of the weeds that weeding is necessarily a slow process as of course we want to keep as much of the native herbage as possible.

It is delightful to be surrounded by butterflies. There are the easily observed Cairns birdwing and the Ulysses butterfly, the birdwing relatively slow flying in comparison to the dancing, nervous Ulysses. But there is a myriad of smaller butterflies too, some easily identified, others still a mystery.