Hi all,

On Tuesday last week two metallic starlings arrived in the nursery. By Thursday there was a flock of a hundred very hungry birds. It’s so good to see them back. As nature arranges, the macaranga are in fruit and the trees vibrate as the birds feed from  inside the dense foliage. Saturday the metallic starlings were showing signs of courtship. Male song imitating canaries and budgerigars, or at least that what it sounded like to me. The female with head bent tweeting.

 by   ANNE WILKINSON.

At this time of the year along the Cassowary Coast, turtles are breeding.

Females are coming to the beaches to make the arduous trek into the dunes to lay their eggs which, in due time, will hatch and a new generation will take to the seas.

It is an awe-inspiring thought to understand this has been happening for much longer than mankind has been on the earth. It is a barely changed pattern which, literally, seems as old as time.

by ANNE WILKINSON

The arrival of spring is greeted with mixed feelings by many people.  Hot,blustery and short on useful rain, this can be a harsh season, so there is all the more reason to care for the creatures that can help humans get through it, then cope with the following rainy season in comfort.  One pest that is beginning to make its presence felt is the mosquito.  No one welcomes mosquitoes, so attracting those insects that can help control them seems like a good idea.  Planting for insect eating birds and attracting lizards and frogs will go a long way to reduce the numbers of these pests that breed so rapidly and are so unwelcome.

Hello from Coquette Point Cassowary Country (3C)! 

Jessie, the matriarch cassowary returned this week.   I photographed her on the 13th of August, as she went off with the male bird.  I have now established it was Dad 4. Dad 4 has not been sighted since that time. On her return Jessie looked very thin and I found her at the Eastern feed station Wednesday morning at 6.30am.  

Very sad that yet another cassowary was killed on Mission Beach roads on 13 Sept.  QPWS records show it was at a location where there has been multiple deaths. 

The cassowary (left) photographed  in January this year fits the description of the dead bird which had been observed recently in the area. 

I am waiting  for QPWS to confirm if this is the bird.

There has been a very high number of recorded cassowary deaths along the South Mission Beach Road which is well sign posted as a cassowary conservation area with a speed limit of 80 kph. 

The ongoing problems facing Port Hinchinbrook marina  started well before Cyclone Yasi.

It shows why the placement  and development of  marinas along  senstive  areas of coastline, in particular where exposed to cyclones, requires a lot more  careful consideration   than  has been given to date.

Read the media release by Alliance to Save Hinchinbrook (ASH).

Hello again from Coquette Point,

The Ospreys have been successful in protesting their nest from the air by day but on Wednesday night the nest came under attack and went crashing to the ground: eggs and all. We think a sand goanna climbed the tree to steal the eggs and in the ensuring battle the nest was destroyed. Dee and John told me that on Thursday the birds cried in alarm all day flying in circles around the nest debris. Since then the female has sat in silent vigil on the tree that once held her nest.

Hello from the very wet Coquette Point,

After a month of sunny days the rain has returned, drizzle morphing into constant light rain for most of today. The trees need the rain and best of all it will stop the fires.  The Cowley fires are well and truly out and the reply to my complaint, via DERM,  was relayed  thus:  “The Defence Department were only burning the melaleuca forest and there were no cassowaries in this forest. However,  there was a lot of debris that needed cleaning up.”  

The large melaleuca forest at Cowley is the main source of food for the spectacled flying fox colony on King Island. After the fire the trees will not flower this year! 

The melaleuca forests at Coquette Point  are home to sugar gliders, striped possums, and a nesting site for nutmeg pigeons sea eagles, osprey and red-necked rails. Whatever wildlife was in the Cowley Beach forest it is not there now as the fire was of very high intensity and burnt for ten days.

 by ANNE WILKINSON.

A little survivor of Cyclone Yasi was the welcome star of the latest well attended meeting of the Mahogany Glider Yasi Recovery group.

He was called Anniken, named by one of the international students who had paid their own way to Australia to help DERM monitor these highly endangered gliders in the wake of the giant cyclone.

As Annikin looked with what appeared to be real interest from the top of the bag held by QPWS Senior Conservation Officer Mark Parsons who is in charge of the on-the-ground work being carried out, it was impossible not to be moved.

Tiny and beautiful with clean, soft fur and huge eyes, the little glider – a wild animal – trustingly accepted the smiles and touches of those surrounding him.