Category: tall sclerophyll forest

New Cassowary Chicks

May 2, 2024 Christina

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,

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.

Hey, you’ve got something on your face!

New Pademelon Joey

March 13, 2022March 13, 2022 Christina

One of our female Red-legged Pademelon’s pouch has been getting as big as they can recently, giving the impression that she is sitting on a gym ball.

For a brief moment, the joey actually tumbled out, only to quickly make its way back into the safety of the pouch:

It is not so easy to fold those long legs back in!

A few days later, the little one was much more confident, but still staying close to mum.

baby pademelon with mum and male — Around the time when the joey vacates the pouch, the males check out the female to find out whether she is ready to mate again.

When a joey first leaves the pouch, it often runs back and forth at full speed, jumping high and is full of energy and, as we think, joie de vivre.

About the size of a large guinea pig, pademelon babies are very cute!

Grey Goshawks

January 9, 2022January 9, 2022 Christina

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.

A 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!),

and waiting for another opportunity.

Cassowaries and Tree-kangaroos

December 22, 2020 Christina

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.