 | Hello from Coquette Point, What a difference a week makes! Tonight the sun set in a rosy sky spreading shafts of light over a shimmering Johnstone River. |
The large fig in the left of the photo above is in fruit again and the cassowaries visit it in shifts to eat their fill.
 |  ’Rosie’ with a mouth full of fig fruit. |
Above, in the wide branches of the fig tree, metallic starlings and juvenile pallid cuckoos knock fruit down in their rush to eat the figs. These fallen fruits are quickly eaten by the cassowaries.
 Metallic starling eats figs |  pallid cuckoo |
Cassowary Dot took a short-cut through the nursery this week and stopped short when he saw the fiberglass statue of a cassowary I have in the nursery. Dot walked around the statue for about an half-hour before she went shopping for chillies and rosella fruits on the bench, much to the surprise of a customer.
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I took a video of Dot and the statue and other videos this week and Russell came over to give me some lessons on how to edit videos and put them up on You-Tube, when I get them finished will send the link.
After the video lessons Russell and I went for a walk around to the front beach looking for the beach-stone curlews. Unfortunately a local was walking a dog without a leach. However, we still managed to see lots of shore-birds.
 Eastern curlews feed on the incoming tide |  Pied-oyster catchers and beach stone curlews |
Eastern curlews were busy fishing on a sandbank and we soon found the beach-stone curlews one pair at the far end of the beach and the others feeding with a pair of pied-oyster catches.
 Bar-tailed godwits |  Red-capped dotterel |  Sea eagle |
Tiny red-capped dotterels were scurrying along the water’s edge only stopping to plunge their beaks into the sand to feed. No bigger than the dotterels, a dozen sanderlings were also busy running the line of waves to find fishy food .
Bar-tailed godwits fed further out on a sandbar while overhead a sea eagle closely monitored our activity.
On the outermost sandbanks about one hundred crested terns rested. A bird I could not identify was with the terns. If you know what it is please let me know.
On the outermost sandbanks about one hundred crested terns rested. A bird I could not identify was with the terns. If you know what it is please let me know.
The sand-bar that had been building over the last few months has gone and erosion is now eating away at the inner dunes behind Coquette Point.
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Now the rain has gone the mosquitoes are active. To keep them in check hundreds of dragon-flies of every colour are hatching and searching out these troublesome biting creatures.
 dragonfly nymph |  |  |
 | Found another jumping spider in the nursery this week, totally amazing creatures. If you have time on Thursday, 26th April, please join me at the Innisfail Shire Hall, 5pm for the launching of ‘Gardening in the Tropics’. We should have lots of tasty nibbles prepared by local students and made from the vegetables and fruit that grow in the Wet Tropics. Bye for now, Yvonne C. |
Russell Constable was quick to identify the bird in Yvonnes update
.......Just a quick response Yvonne
The mystery bird in your photo Is a juvenile crested tern!
.......Just a quick response Yvonne
The mystery bird in your photo Is a juvenile crested tern!
Thanks Yvonne as this is the first time I have noticed one in our area ….here is a snip from arkive showing what the juveniles look like
| | And here is a video Russell put together of the Beach Stone Curlews in Yvonne's updates feasting on soldier crabs |
