Hello and Happy New Year from Coquette Point,
This week I closed my Garden Centre in Innisfail and am now operating solely from the nursery at Coquette Point. I followed the old adage ‘If you are not enjoying what you are doing then stop’.
It is interesting times for the Coquette Point cassowaries. On Tuesday it was a thrill to see ‘Dad 4’ again, first time since August 8. Unfortunately he did not have chicks with him.
This week I closed my Garden Centre in Innisfail and am now operating solely from the nursery at Coquette Point. I followed the old adage ‘If you are not enjoying what you are doing then stop’.
It is interesting times for the Coquette Point cassowaries. On Tuesday it was a thrill to see ‘Dad 4’ again, first time since August 8. Unfortunately he did not have chicks with him.
I found him, late in the afternoon on Wednesday stretching up and looking up at my ripening paw paws. I snapped a photo and then said in perhaps a rather stern voice, ” They are my paw paws go and find your own food”. Much to my surprise he frothed his feathers and took off at great speed. Animals are so sensitive to voice tone and I was only joking, I really didn’t think he would notice. Anyway it gave a good view of his fatty bottom. Wherever he has been for the last four months he has been eating well.
My neighbour at the top of the Moresby Range close to the Moresby Range National Park has sent me a series of photos of Cassowaries’ scats taken over the last week. A good mixture of rainforest and exotic seed. There is no supplementary food in the scats and it clearly shows that the Moresby Range National Park is now producing sufficient food for its animal occupants. I think the palm seeds in the third picture are Fox-tail seed. This tree does not naturally occur in this area.
Bill also sent a photo of one of ‘Dad 2’s’ chicks that spent the day in his backyard crying. He may have accidently become separated from Dad or it could be the start of separation-conditioning.
‘Dad 1’ has been using my top road as a short-cut to the beach and I see him walking with his chick ‘Rosie’ most afternoons. On Tuesday the matriarch ‘Jessie’ turned up at the feed station, early in the morning, she had not been seen for over a month. She looked in prime condition.
The noxious weed tree, Pond Apple, is in fruit at Coquette Point, it is a favourite of pigs and cassowaries, and although I have not seen it in cassowary scats as yet it no doubt will soon form part of their diet.
‘Dad 1’ has been using my top road as a short-cut to the beach and I see him walking with his chick ‘Rosie’ most afternoons. On Tuesday the matriarch ‘Jessie’ turned up at the feed station, early in the morning, she had not been seen for over a month. She looked in prime condition.
The noxious weed tree, Pond Apple, is in fruit at Coquette Point, it is a favourite of pigs and cassowaries, and although I have not seen it in cassowary scats as yet it no doubt will soon form part of their diet.
Terminalia sericocarpa, the Damson plum, is in fruit and the metallic starlings are bringing their newly fledged young to feast on the fruit. The starlings knock off or drops half of the harvest and it falls to the ground, a ready feast for the cassowary, although there is a poor fruit set on the damson plum this year.
The little sunbirds are busy building new nests, and whether it is because it is the start of the wet season or perhaps they sense big rain coming, they have constructed extremely large sills over their nest hole.
The amazing trees of the Wet Tropics Rainforests this week are blooming in reds and pinks. Melicope elleryana, the host tree for the Ulysses butterfly, is covered in pink flowers and Stenocarpus sinuatus the Wheel of Fire tree is a nectar-feast for visiting honeyeaters.
Kookaburra and Black Butcher bird are trying to establish dominance. They will sit on a branch singing abuse at each other, or so it seems, then one will fly and chase the other around the trees. A few hours later the chasing is reversed and it goes on for hours day after day without any apparent outcome.
The male Shining flycatcher has been performing for my visitors today. His courtship song has been echoing over the nursery and he became so excited his whole body started vibrating. A crest of feathers erected over his head made him look quite magnificent. There did not appear to be any females in view of the performance which was repeated many times during the afternoon.
The pair of Burdekin Ducks which arrived here several months ago seem to have settled in. Most mornings, about 6am, I hear or glimpse them as they fly over the nursery from a reed-bed in my next-door neighbour’s property, the Wilsons. They fly into the lagoon system in the Coquette Point mangroves. In the late afternoon they return to their reed bed. I managed to snap one of the birds this week.
The pair of Burdekin Ducks which arrived here several months ago seem to have settled in. Most mornings, about 6am, I hear or glimpse them as they fly over the nursery from a reed-bed in my next-door neighbour’s property, the Wilsons. They fly into the lagoon system in the Coquette Point mangroves. In the late afternoon they return to their reed bed. I managed to snap one of the birds this week.
My son,Martin has completed refit on his boat ‘Sig’ and has returned to sea. Hopefully, we will receive some turtle and reef updates soon.
Cheers for now,
Yvonne C.
Cheers for now,
Yvonne C.
