Tag: Atherton Tablelands wildlife

New Pademelon Joey

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.

female pademelon with big pouch

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!

baby pademelon in pouch

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!

baby pademelon almost in pouch

Grey Goshawks

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.

Grey Goshawk chick with mum
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!),

looking all around

and waiting for another opportunity.

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!

The wet season has arrived! March 2012

Christina

The wet season has finally arrived in Kuranda! We had more than 400mm of rain since Friday, our little creek is 1 metre higher than normally and the nearby Barron Falls are at their best since January 2007.
It will be some time before the cassowaries come visiting us again, their preferred creek crossing is 2 metres under water.
The red-necked crakes (Rallina tricolor) are enjoying the wet, being more active all over the forest and garden during daylight hours, so they are much easier to observe. Their 3 chicks, little black fluff-balls on long, skinny legs only 3 weeks ago, are now almost as big as the parents.
This yellow-spotted honeyeater (Meliphaga notata) found a dry spot for the night:

Common tree snake hatchling (Dendrelaphis punctulatus) in the rain:

Barron Falls on Monday, 19/03/2012:[

Visiting Cassowary, March 2012

Christina

February 2012

The resident cassowary with his 2 three months old chicks is visiting almost daily to feed on the many native fruits which are available at the moment. They particularly like the fruits of the native Black Palm (Normanby normanbia) , native Ginger (Alpinia coerulea) and the exotic Queen Palm (Syagrum romanzoffia).

This season’s chicks seem feistier than usual, they are already chasing the red-legged pademelons and our male brush-turkey, who has his mound just behind our pond.

The brush-turkey always acts very nervously when the cassowaries are here, torn between fight and flight.

I do not think that the cassowaries pose a threat to the brush-turkey’s brood, but the turkey has every reason to discourage the lace monitors (Varanus varius) from coming too close – they would dig out and eat the eggs.

He vehemently defends the area around his mound, chasing the goannas across the garden into the forest, throwing dirt and mulch at them and  the lizards mostly end up clinging to a tree out of the turkey’s reach.

This one lost the tip of its tail in an earlier incident:

cassowary chick chasing brush turkey: