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.
I noticed the food in the feed stations was disappearing very quickly and I saw Jessie again on Thursday at the western feed station and she was visibly in much better condition.
Later Thursday morning I saw her looking at the food in the pig cage.
I have had the cage set for the last week as I am after six suckling pigs that are on the roam around the nursery. The design of my pig cage is such that the cassowaries cannot enter. There was a horrible incidence of a cassowary ripping off its casque in a pig cage at Garners Beach.
The cage had a trip action door.
‘Big Sis’ has returned after an absence of six weeks and is now showing a developing casque.
Her first scat on return showed a good assortment of rainforest seed and pandanus fruit.
‘Big Sis’ dominates ‘Little Runt’ and Dad 4’s chicks but ‘Jessie’ soon put her in place and showed who was the boss.
On Wednesday Dad’s chicks separated and they have been walking alone and a little lost all week. The older cassowaries chase them but they are still managing to get some feed from the stations almost every day.
A ‘pod’ of multihulls sailed into the Johnstone River on the high-tide Tuesday morning. I was delighted to catch up with Rod Watts and his wife Alilah on his new 17m cat ‘Majic’ It has been 20 years since I last saw Rod. Joining them in anchoring off the beach were Jeff and Carol on the ‘Nardu’. We all enjoyed a couple of days of storytelling. Rod and Alilah have no plans they are just going where the wind directs. However, Jeff and Carol will be returning south within the month.
Both skippers reported large algae blooms starting north of the Whitsundays. The blooms are about five kilometres out from the coast they are around a kilometres wide, four kilometres long and ½ metre deep. They sailed through four of these algae blooms. Rod who sailed these waters over 20 years ago said he has never seen algae so thick.
We all went for a walk around to the front beach looking for ‘Little Terns’ and ‘Soldier Crabs’ but the terns have not arrived as yet and the soldier crabs have not emerged. However Rod mentioned that in the Whitsundays and at Townsville the soldier crabs had emerged.
We were delighted at the antics of a group of sanderling as they fed in the sand on the ocean front.
Lots of ‘spring frolics’ happening at Coquette Point. Two black cockatoos have been displaying their regard for each other with noisy acrobatics in the terminalia tree. The nutmeg pigeons are cooeeing and looking as if they are ready to build a nest and the buff-banded rail has laid eggs in the reeds around the nursery sediment pond.
However, the week wasn’t all bird watching as my next door neighbour’s cows got out on Wednesday. Dee and John had gone to Cairns and somehow the cattle gate was opened!
Thanks to Mathew and his father who are building the new house at the top of the range, we got the cows back in safely behind the fence. Luckily for me Mathew and his Dad were old cow-handlers and when the animals bolted they got them back in line quick smart. Many BIG thanks Mathew. Hungry cows in the nursery a little worse than pigs I think.
Cheers for now Yvonne C.
Cheers for now Yvonne C.
Click on image to enlarge this wonderful photo of a rainbow lorikeet (Trichoglossus haematodus) on a bottle brush tree sent in by Bill Farnsworth.
Thanks Bill and Yvonne for these wonderful updates.
Liz
Thanks Bill and Yvonne for these wonderful updates.
Liz
