Hello from the mangrove forest of Coquette Point
                            
After a long battle of wits I caught the pig that was destroying my pandanus. Pigs are out of control at Coquette Point and are causing a great deal of damage to the rainforest of the Moresby Range National Park. Unfortunately it is not easy catching them at times. It has taken me one month to lure this fellow into the cage. I let him feed in the cage for a week before I set it. The bait I am using is coconut palm heart, the white salad meat of the palm, its blood good to eat and the pigs can’t resist it. The most important thing is that the cassowaries don’t eat it and so they are not tempted to come near the cage. Although it is a bit of an effort to cut palm heart, I have a good source and its free. A win-win situation.

On Friday I  got a call from my neigbour Bronwyn telling me the cassowary chick Bernie, that had been hit by a car, was near her house.  I went straight away.  He was still there and I managed to get some photos .  We observed him for a while.  He is limping badly, his foot is very swollen and it appears it may be broken but I am not a vet.  Two claws from his left foot are missing.   He has survived for over three weeks and looks to be in fairly good condition so is obviously finding enough food and water.

We hope QPWS will assess the situation and perhaps set up a food station for Bernie with a surveillance camera to monitor his progress.

Hi All,

Wonderful, wonderful weather all week : days in the high twenties and nights around 13. The sun setting every night as a fiery ball in a wall of orange. Mt Bartle Frere framed cobalt blue against the glowing sky.

The paperbarks dressed in new shiny bark, regrown since TC Yasi, glow orange then red in the sun’s last light.

Hi All,
Sometimes you don’t know how good you’ve got it till it’s gone. This week we lost our newspaper delivery service and I haven’t seen a paper all week.  I mostly miss the Tully Times and Anne and Laurie’s wonderful wildlife articles. Other than that perhaps there will be some benefit in not reading the news. 

It’s two weeks now since Dad 4 left his chicks. Thursday morning the chicks were separated.  One showed up when I filled the Western food station at 6am.  He was whistling loudly and I could hear the other chick out to the east in the mangrove forest whistling a reply.  At 10 am the whistling stopped and I saw them reunited.  This morning as I opened the gate in the drizzling rain the chicks ran out of the rainforest and up behind me.