We are still busy, moving to our new property south of Atherton, but here is a first impression of our birdlife there. Erica and Mike, keen birders from the US, stayed with us in December, and took this footage:
It was very dry then, but since the beginning of the year, we’ve had more than 600mm of long-awaited rain. It brought out many frogs, including these Orange-thighed Treefrogs (Litoria xanthomera):
one male calling:
and it didn’t take long at all:
success!
We do enjoy watching the Musky Rat-kangaroos (Hypsiprimnodon moschatus) in our garden, and sometimes we tease them with a very tempting morsel:
Musky Rat-kangaroos are mainly fruit-eaters (although they were quite keen on a dead White-tailed Rat, and one musky actually managed to drag the cadaver off into the forest), and they absolutely love avocado.
The seed is big and slippery, of course, so they cannot grab it with their teeth. No matter, from which side it tries to grab the seed, it just cannot get a hold of it:
Cassowary update:
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:
This close-up (doesn’t she have great “eye-brows”!), shows what looks like a new tip of her beak:
From a greater distance (she’s on the left), her beak looks perfectly normal:
From 2017, we shall have a new cabin near Atherton: “ATHERTON TABLELANDS BIRDWATCHER’S CABIN”.
The cabin has already been completed and has been approved by the local “building inspector” (a young female cassowary made an unexpected appearance):
It is situated on our 35 acres (14 hectares) of forest, close to Mount Hypipamee National Park (“The Crater”), bordering onto Herberton Range National Park (in the Wet tropics World Heritage area), 25 minutes south of Atherton.
Our property shares a 250m boundary with the national park, and is the perfect place to enjoy peace and tranquillity.
The 1000m elevation makes it cooler and less humid than Kuranda.
The vegetation consists of tall open forest (‘Wet Sclerophyll Forest’) with the dominant trees being 30-40m high Rose Gums (Eucalyptus grandis), Red Mahogany (E. resinifera) and Turpentine (Syncarpia glomulifera). The diverse understorey contains many rainforest species, which also grow along the creeks.
The transition zone (ecotone) between rainforest and tall eucalyptus forest supports an equally rich fauna:
There are more possum and glider species here than anywhere else in the world (10 identified on our property, including the northern subspecies of the Yellow-bellied Glider(YBG)), Lumholtz’s Tree-kangaroos, a number of ground-dwelling marsupials and more than 10 species of frogs. Leaf-tailed Geckos, Water Dragons and Boyd’s Forest Dragons are numerous.
The Rose Gums readily form hollows (perfect homes for all those tree-dwellers), Red Mahoganies are the favourite food trees for the YBG, which make incisions into the bark with their teeth to then feed on the exuding sap –and they are often joined by Sugar Gliders and Feathertail Gliders.
The gullies and creeks are corridors for rainforest plants and animals.
Birds of the rainforest, like Victoria’s Riflebird and Superb Fruit-doves, can be seen as well as those at home in the drier forests, like Crimson Rosellas, Crested Shrike-tits, lorikeets, many flycatchers and honeyeaters.
The cabin’s veranda, orientated towards our small creek, is an ideal spot for watching wildlife. You may even be so lucky as to see a tree-kangaroo!
A bird list of the about 100 species, which occur on our property, will be on the “birds and birding” page of our soon to be established website.