Category: tropical rainforest

Victoria’s Riflebirds and Cassowaries

October 21, 2014January 29, 2020 Christina

Exciting news about two of our iconic species:

Mr Cassowary (“Dad”) has returned with a new chick (he had two this year, but the other one succumbed to a leg injury).

The little one is already quite adventurous, running across the rocks around our pond, under Dad’s watchful eye:

A large tree was snapped off during the cyclone in April , and we decided to cut off the splintered top of the stump, in the hope that the smoother surface might entice a Victoria’s Riflebird (Ptiloris victoriae) to use it as a dance floor for his courtship display.

Last week a young riflebird (he is still wearing his juvenile plumage, having not yet changed into the splendid black and metallic turquoise adult colours ) rewarded our efforts:

Not a very pleasant voice, but he certainly knows how to move (and then he became annoyed by a piece of bark…):

This Tree Monitor (Varanus scalaris) inspected the tree stump in the afternoon:

Another legacy of the cyclone are a lot of broken branches and tree trunks, which we gathered in a large pile in the forest at our garden’s edge. It now houses a couple of Red-necked Crakes (Rallina tricolor), who emerge regularly to forage for insects and worms.

They like banana, too, as does this Major Skink (Egernia frerei), (this one is about 30cm long):

Many birds are starting to mate and build nests, Pacific Bazas (Aviceda subcristata) and Wompoo Fruit-doves (Ptilinopus magnificus) are especially vocal.

It has been very dry , but as Dad has only one chick to raise this year, finding enough food should not be a problem.

The (almost) invisible python

June 19, 2014January 29, 2020 Christina

Loud scolding by several species of small birds late in the morning brought a 2 meter long Amethystine python (Morelia amethistina) to our attention.
It was making its way up along the frond of a large tree fern, and when it had reached the crown of the fern, it began to coil itself into ever tighter loops until it almost appeared to tie itself into knots! A short while later it had all but disappeared from sight.

( Can you see it? Just to the right of centre):

Soaking up the sunshine in its elevated position, it stayed there all day, but in the early evening started to travel down a fern frond, through a fig tree towards our bird feeder, which also attracts small native rainforest rodents during the night -the python probably detected their smell.

The following photo gives you an idea of the beautiful iridescent coloration of the Amethystine Python:

In this picture, you can see the heat-sensitive pits along the lower lip, which is typical for pythons:

Yesterday a rare visitor arrived: a juvenile Satin Bowerbird (Ptilinorhynchus violaceus). It spent all day opposite our front veranda, nibbling fruit. This is our first sighting of this species in Kuranda; Satin Bowerbirds usually occur above 600 meters in north Queensland.

The fruiting Pandanus and palm trees, of which we have many, are attracting several Spotted Catbirds (Ailuroedus melanotis) and Victoria’s Riflebirds (Ptiloris victoriae). At present we can watch three brown (female or juvenile) and one adult black riflebird in our garden every day.

A few weeks ago the first of probably many (last year we had a flock of over 50) Chestnut-breasted Mannikins (Lonchura castaneothorax) arrived; they were joined yesterday by another pair with very demanding and vocal offspring in tow.

A rather enervating youngster, a juvenile Sulphur-crested Cockatoo (Cacatua galerita) is keeping its parents busy regurgitating food with a constant, demanding wail.

CASSOWARY UPDATE:

Human activities and the survival of cassowaries are almost always mutually exclusive:

Unfortunately, last week the resident female was killed by a vehicle on Black Mountain Road . As Dad has not made an appearance over the last two weeks, our hope is that he is currently sitting on her eggs, at least partly keeping her genes in the pool (they had been mating for the last few weeks). She had only replaced Dad’s partner of many years, “Missy”, last year, and was in the prime of her life. Missy is still in the area and will, hopefully, mate with Dad again.

“Wattle”, also known as “Harriet”, was easily recognized by her unusual wattles:

Pygmy- possums

March 8, 2014 Christina

We found our first Pygmy-possum while spotlighting last week. There are 5 species of those very small (about 10cm head-body length) possums in Australia. Here in the tropical rainforest of North Queensland we have the Long-tailed Pygmy-possum ( Cercartetus caudatus). They are quite common in their restricted habitat, but not often seen, due to their minute size and arboreal habits.
The superficially similar Tree Mouse (Pogonomys sp.), a rodent, also lives here, but they are very flighty, when discovered, and we have not been able to get a good photo of one, yet.
This Pygmy-possum is probably a juvenile, there is only a hint of its dark eye-patches and it was about 7cm long from head to base of tail. When it saw us, it tried to hide by sticking its head into the fold of a Pandanus leaf, but peered at us with its big eyes after a short while:

Cassowary Surprise

August 27, 2013 Christina

After mating throughout June our male cassowary (“dad”) disappeared, presumably sitting on a new clutch of eggs, while the local female continued to visit our garden infrequently.

She was here a few days ago, and after eating some palm fruits and lilly-pillies, made a deep, booming call. Shortly after that, there were two adult cassowaries drinking from our pond – dad was back!

Apparently he had been off his nest for a few days, abandoning it – maybe driven away by the pigs, which have been around recently.

Something looked strange about the female, and then we realized she was a stranger! She is at least as tall as “Missy”, our resident female, but with a taller casque and dark blotches on her two red wattles, one of which has two tips.

She might be the one who had a fight with Missy near “Cassowary House” recently.

Presently we are seeing dad always in the company of the new female, while Missy has been busy chasing the 10-month-old juvenile, which is, surprisingly, still visiting the area.

There does not seem to be a lot of ripe fruit available in the forest at the moment, but cassowaries also eat fungi and animals like worms, grasshoppers, mice and lizards.

Hopefully, dad will be able to put on enough weight to sustain him through another period of brooding. Male cassowaries sit on eggs for about 2 months without feeding.

dad and new female:

new female:

juvenile cassowary:

The September issue of the “National Geographic” magazine has an article on our ‘Big Birds’, with more photos of Dad, Missy, and last season’s chicks.

Butterflies May 2013

May 20, 2013January 29, 2020 Christina

North Queensland is particularly rich in butterflies, with more than 270 of Australia’s 420 described species occurring here. The Wet Tropics rainforests are the best places to find butterflies, and many species complete several generations per year, so most can be found throughout the year, but many adults are most abundant at the end of the wet season.

The largest species is the Cairns Birdwing (Ornithoptera euphorion), with the females reaching a wingspan of 125mm.

They are laying their eggs on a very small number of Aristolochia and Parastolochia species, of which we have many specimen in our garden and forest. Often, a male can be seen following a female:

The caterpillars incorporate the plant toxins in their bodies, and the adult butterfly is distasteful to predators, too, which allows them to sail leisurely through the air, whereas the Ulysses butterfly (Papilio ulysses) has a fast, erratic flight and always closes its wings when resting, exposing only the cryptically patterned underside.

I was very lucky to observe this one, which must have just emerged from its pupa: it sat for several minutes with outstretched wings, and when it flew off, it fluttered rather clumsily low to the ground.

A short time later, she was discovered by a male!

Blue Triangle (Graphium sarpedon) and Green-spotted Triangle (G.agamemnon) rarely stop to settle, flying powerfully and erratically.

Another common, larger butterfly is the Cruiser (Vindula arsinoe). Males establish a territory by perching high on a leaf in bright sunlight,

the same behaviour is shown by the male Varied Eggfly (Hypolimnas bolina):

The Large Green-banded Blue (Danis danis), a smaller species, prefers the darker, shady areas of the forest.

The aptly named Orchid Flash (Hypolycaena danis) can often be seen around our Dendrobium and Cattleya orchids. The caterpillars are short and chubby and have exactly the bright green colour of the leaves, so are very hard to spot. Usually, I only discover them when the damage to the plant becomes obvious.

This pretty flutterer is not a butterfly at all, but a day-flying moth, Milionia queenslandica

Since we do not want to harm all those beautiful butterflies by catching them with a net, identification is a slow process, but we will not run out of new species to add to our list for a long time.

For more details on the biology of the Birdwing butterfly, see the Wet Tropics Management Authority’s factsheet:

www.wettropics.gov.au/site/user-assets/docs/birdwingbutterflies.pdf

Victoria’s Riflebirds and Cassowaries

The (almost) invisible python

Pygmy- possums

Cassowary Surprise

Butterflies May 2013

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