Last seen in February, our cassowary Dad is now back with 3 tiny chicks. They might even be only a few days old!
Dad is doing his best to keep them close to him, but one managed to get separated from the group and only rejoined them a couple of hours later.
They rest often, and Dad nods off every now and then,
but only briefly!The chicks seek shelter and warmth under Dad’s tail feathers. That’s why cassowary male have longer tails than females.
The chicks are very cute, but not if you are a finch! They caught a red-browed finch and, after a few attempts, one of the little chicks wolfed it down.
Our resident pair of Grey Goshawks (Accipiter nocaehollandiae) decided to build a new nest in late July. The chosen site is a tall Rose Gum close to our house.
By late September they were incubating, and at the end of October, they were feeding a single hatchling.
Grey Goshawk chick with mumA small gap in the vegetation allows us a glimpse of the nest from our veranda.Almost 40 days later, in early December, it left the nest and has been hanging around nearby ever since.Although we have a couple of birdfeeders, the Goshawk is mainly eyeing off the pademelons, the bigger the better! It swooped down on a large male several times, but it needs a lot more practice and speed to be a real threat to a fully-grown pademelon. The pademelons are not impressed, and we’ve seen the male make threatening noises towards the bird.
Today it even had a go at a tree-kangaroo:
After an unsuccessful attempt, it often lands on a nearby perch (in this case right on top of the birdfeeder!),
Cassowary chicks often hatch in September (rainforest fruits usually are most bountiful in spring and summer). As there is not much food for them in the wet sclerophyll forest at that time, we normally get to see the family in June/July, when the chicks are much bigger, have lost their stripes and are almost ready for life on their own.
Yesterday, though, 5 year old “Goldfinger” came by very late in the day with two small striped chicks. They are probably about 2 months old and his first offspring. He mated with “Wattle”, the alpha female in the area, in June 2019 (once even just outside our kitchen window!), but didn’t have any chicks that year.
Notice his wet feet: they had a drink from the creek not far down the track.
Tree-kangaroo joeys normally leave the pouch around September, and this season our female Lumholtz’s tree-kangaroo has 2 joeys on foot: last year’s daughter and the new baby.
No sign, yet, of the wet season here. These Green-eyed Tree-frogs are patiently waiting for rain.
I am surprised that the female is tolerating the male. They’ve been hanging out like this on top of the cabin’s window sill for the last few days!
Our creek has almost dried up, so the bird baths are in high demand.
Here are a few of the visitors:
Scaly-breasted Lorikeets.
Many are here now that the Red Mahoganies (Eucalyptus resinifera) are flowering.
Rainbow and Little Lorikeets are part of that flock, too, and in the evenings Little Red Flying Foxes take over the canopy..
White-browed Scrubwren
Fuscous Honeyeater (“Herberton Honeyeater”)
Red-browed Finch, nicely showing the red rump
adult and immature male Scarlet Honeyeaters
male White-throated Treecreeper
Treecreepers always walk into the water backwards!
White-cheeked & White-throated Honeyeaters
White-naped Honeyeater
High above the bird bath, a young male Victoria’s Riflebird is trying to attract attention:
Adult male:
:
If you thought a male Victoria’s Riflebird is a black bird with a few patches of metallic blue, have a closer look at the ‘black’ parts:
Just about all the smaller birds are breeding now, with many hungry mouths waiting to be fed:
Macleay’s Honeyeaters
A young Tooth-billed Bowerbird came to the birdfeeder:
What a wonderful forest, where you can see Tooth-billed Bowerbirds (a rainforest species) together with Little Lorikeets (a species of open woodlands)!
