Category: cassowary

A Tale of Two Cassowaries

Christina
Southern Cassowary

Last March a new juvenile cassowary appeared in our forest. Judging by the size of his casque and wattles and the fact that there were still some brown feathers visible on the back, we tentatively assumed it was a 3 year old male. He had unusually long, light-coloured “fingernails”: the quills sticking out from the rudimentary wings.

Distinguishing features of cassowaries are mainly the casque, which might be straight, leaning to one side or the other, big or small (although in a young bird it would most likely keep growing for a few years), and the wattles, which can be short, long, one longer than the other, or oddly shaped.

Southern Cassowary
Southern Cassowary

He came past our house and the cabin quite regularly, and when we noticed, that he didn’t have his long, golden quills anymore, but shorter, black ones, we assumed that he lost them while moulting.

 

Southern Cassowary
Mr March

To our surprise, he recently showed up with his quills as long and golden as before! Shortly thereafter, they were black and short again! TWO birds! Same size, very similar casques and wattles, but very different quills!

Southern Cassowary
Goldfinger
Southern Cassowary
Mr March
Southern Cassowary
Goldfinger
Southern Cassowary
Mr March

So, when trying to identify individual cassowaries, have a close look at their fingernail as well!

Cassowaries mating, July 2016

Christina

Today Dad spent half an hour feeding, preening and relaxing in our garden.

When he started to make himself really tall and strutted towards the cabin, I knew that Socks, his new mate for the last three weeks, must be within sight.

As you can see, he is not afraid of her anymore! Indeed, the first of their matings happened the day after I wrote the last blog.

She sat on the ground afterwards for a while, looking slightly dishevelled:

IMG_3692_1

This close-up (doesn’t she have great “eye-brows”!), shows what looks like a new tip of her beak:

sock's beak_1

From a greater distance (she’s on the left), her beak looks perfectly normal:

IMG_3701_1

Cassowary Relationships

Christina

Recently a new female cassowary moved in, and she seems to have filled the vacancy left by “Missy”.

Socks May2016

Her wattles have a distinctive shape, and we decided to call her “Socks”.

Socks
She still has a few brown tail feathers, but is already bigger than the resident male, “Dad”. Our guess is, that she is about 3-4 years old, and this might well be her first mating season.
He is definitely interested in her: initially, he frequently made soft contact calls (similar to a chimpanzee’s or gorilla’s grunting), while standing several meters away from her. She pretended not to be interested, having her back turned to him. As soon as she started to slowly approach him, he got scared and took off like a chased Brush Turkey, protesting loudly.

You can identify the male by his longer tail feathers. ‘Dad’s’ casque tilts to the right, whereas ‘Sock’s’ is straight and unblemished. You can also make out a dash of brown on her backside.

In this short movie, the female is strutting towards the male, who can be seen in the background:

(Unfortunately, my camera does not pick up his vocalizations well,the frequency is very low, just audible to humans.)

Nevertheless, he can’t stay away from her, and the whole scenario kept happening again and again. For a while, you had to be careful in the garden, as Dad might come crashing through the forest or across the lawn at high speed!
Now, after several weeks of travelling together (but at a safe distance from each other), she readily follows him, but he still gets spooked when she gets too close.

Here, she is feeding, and Dad is making his way past her , before they walk away together:

Probably hormone levels have to rise for mating behaviour to start.
Hopefully, we’ll have a new generation of cassowaries visiting later in the year!

New Cassowary Chicks, December 2012

Christina

“Our” cassowary made an appearance, with his 3 two-month-old chicks, one week ago.
The chicks are inquisitive, yet still keep very close to dad.
They all look very healthy and well fed. Quite a few trees are fruiting; several species of figs and laurels, Black Palms (Normanbya normanbyi) and Kuranda Quandongs (Elaeocarpus bancroftii)- the latter two might still be a bit too  large for the chicks to swallow.
Unfortunately,”our” cassowary’s core territory , he had his nest there,  is under threat:
the 28 ha rainforest property between us and Kuranda National Park has been advertised for sale.
Without interest and support from governments we are trying to raise funds to purchase and conserve said property in perpetuity.cassowaries December 2012cassowaries December 2012.2cassowaries December 2012.3

new cassowary chicks

Mating Cassowaries, May 2012

Christina

This morning we had the privilege to observe cassowaries mating.

First the female sits down, then the male behind her, shuffling closer and closer.

It looks rather clumsy and it is impossible to tell whether he was successful, too many long feathers obscuring the view…

Male cassowaries, as the other ratites, have a pseudo-penis, which may make mating easier.

The adult birds were very relaxed, they did not even mind one of the chicks stepping over the female’s neck while she was sitting down for mating!

We watched the same pair mating in almost the same spot two years ago; maybe the female prefers the soft grass to a prickly forest floor and enjoys the ” privacy” of a Heliconia leaf over her head.

We didn’t expect the cassowaries to be in mating mood as yet, he usually looks after the chicks a bit longer.

What triggers the mating behaviour?

It has been a very good season with plenty of food and he only had to share it with 2 chicks, having lost the other 3 very early after hatching. He also recovered very well from a deep wound to his left heel. He does not look as exhausted and appears to be in better condition than in previous years.

I am writing this blog on our front veranda, while cassowary dad and the 2 chicks are strolling past, what a fantastic place to be!