Hi from the rain soaked Johnstone River,

The rain fell on Friday and overnight the Johnstone River turned from blue to brown. However, it was a welcome relief from the oppressive heat we have experienced over the last couple of weeks: in the nursery the temperature fell from 36 to 25 degrees. The wet season has well and truly started with the monsoon trough dotted in on the weather chart across the Torres Strait: it is expected to drop down over the gulf this coming week.

The fresh, sweet grass shoots brought the wallabies out of their day-time seclusion to browse in the open.

The mosquitoes are out in force and to walk anywhere you need to ‘ slip and slop’.  Coquette Point is mosquito heaven. I find light coloured clothes are less likely to attract mosquitoes. Certainly red, black and blue are attractant colours. Light cotton clothes breathe rather than synthetic fabric which induces sweating  and of course wearing a hat at all times is necessary to protect the eyes and the face from the glare of the sun.

Hi all,

A north-westerly flow has brought hot, humid winds onto the coast and the temperature in the nursery has been around 34 all week. On Monday a low on a trough formed off the coast and for a few hours we were on a severe weather warning. However, the low moved south and we were left in the doldrums. I think the monsoon will be here before Christmas with lots of cool rain.

Went for a walk around to the front beach at Coquette Point last Sunday with my son Martin and grandchildren Liam and Pearl.  A log at the mouth of Crocodile Creek became a boat for captain Liam to look out for hazards-crocodiles and things. We saw a flash of red against the green of the forest and Brahminy Kite was hunting for anything that moved in the forest. He followed us as we walked along the beach.

Ho Ho Ho from the rainforest at Coquette Point,

The forest in a spurt of exuberance, no doubt brought on by the deluge it has received this week, has put out the Christmas decorations. The Leichhardt tree, Nauclea orientalis, was the first and it hung gold and white Christmas bubbles, then Brachychiton acerifolius, the flame tree dotted the Moresby Range with red.  The brash young Alphitoni petriei, the sarsaparilla tree, not to be outdone, has covered its foliage in snow-white flowers.

Yo yall,

Cassowaries are really on the move, up here at the Moresby Range National Park (with DERM exempt chicken coop) end of Coquette Point. A coquette is a type of colourful bird I read once, (click on photo for website source) and the word has other meanings of course.

I recently bought myself a cheap motion detector camera, commonly used for game spotting. The photo quality is only fair to poor but it works OK in the detection and image capturing area. There is some lag between sensing movement and activating the shutter, so some fast moving animals can be missed.  Cassowaries often canter through our property.

Hi all,

The humidity ramped up to 96% this week and although the temp is still in the low 30’s it feels much hotter. Good rain in the hinterland has sent a flush down all the rivers and the Tully had a flood warning on Tuesday.

The first of this season’s king-tides occurred on Friday. The tides went from .15m at 2am Friday to a 3.16 at 9am. A good  ‘enema’ for the rivers.

My Brisbane- twitcher- friend Louis arrived on Thursday so we took advantage of the .89 tide on Thursday afternoon and walked to the long beach.  We heard a trail bike on the beach and were apprehensive as to the outcome.

We saw bike tracks across cassowary footprints but no cassowary. Then we saw the rider, he was bogged just before the sand spit-rookery. Louis and I were debating how best to approach the lad and ask him not to ride on the spit- in as polite a way as we could. He got out of the bog and took off in the opposite direction only to get bogged again. With that he gave up and left. One of us said “ I hope he got salt in his bike and it rusts”.  The outcome could have been tragic for the birds nesting on the spit.

Hi all,

The precarious situation of the cassowary populations in the Wet Tropics was made startling real this week. Following the incidence with the pig-hunters and their dogs last week the cassowaries did not show up for two days. On Monday morning the sub adults ‘Don’ & ‘Q’ were at the Western feed station at 6am. ‘Jessie’ arrived at the Eastern station about 7am.  At 7.30am I was photographing a pair of Nutmeg pigeons in the big fig tree on the front lawn. The male was stroking the neck of the female with his beak, she however was not interested. (Male is on the left).   

Hi all,

Oh how a beautiful day can suddenly turn sour. Yesterday afternoon I was busy picking papaws when I heard the sound of dogs, baying loudly and running, in the melaleuca and mangrove forest meters away from me. Only moments before cassowary chick ‘Don’ was checking out the pawpaw trees and vegetable garden behind me, I looked for him in a panic but could not see him.

Hi All,

Last night the heavy dew turned to drizzle and continued all day until a welcome storm with lots of thunder cleared the sticky air this afternoon. The frogs are in their element and every drainpipe and toilet bowl is resounding with a chorus of frog-croaks.
 
This morning all the ponds were covered in white frothy frog eggs. You can feel the pulse of the wet- season starting.

I was silly enough to leave a fluorescent light on in the kitchen on Thursday night and had an invasion of insects from the forest. In the morning I swept up two litres of insects. Perhaps that was why the frogs were so happy.

Hi all,

The rainforest of the Wet Tropics are mysterious and wonderful and full of rare plants. The unusual climbing supplejack forms green towers as it climbs up its host tree in search of the light above the canopy. The flower is fragrant and is followed by grape like bunches of reddish fruit.  “ Aboriginal people used the plant to make strong rope for climbing and the stems were woven into fish and eel traps or used to sew together bark canoes”.  This information is from John Beasley’s book Plants of Tropical North Queensland If you live near rainforest please look carefully and you may see more of these plants in flower.