1.This morning, Tuesday 10th August, as we drove north along the Motorway
between the Maroochy River and the Peregian Beach turn-off, in excess of sixty
Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos flew SSE across the highway at about 200 feet .
They were in groups of three to six birds, but all groups within calling range
and sight of each other. To the best of my recollection, it was the largest
number of this species that I have seen in single flight movement for many
years.
2. Shortly before, at the junction of the Bruce Highway and Anzac Avenue my
daughter spotted a Koala (later confirmed as a female) in a medium sized gum,
one of a handfull, on the small island island between the Highway, the ramp
road off to the west and Anzac Avenue - all very busy roads. Stopping to check
the sighting and location, to inform the local Koala networks, we were obliged
to do a U turn on Brays Road, which joins Anzac Avenue just west of the
highway. At the junction of Brays Road and Anzac Avenue, above a pipe
tunnelling operation, in a large gum about 300 hundred meters from the first
Koala's gum tree, another mature Koala (later confirmed as a male) sat high in
the tree.
Another sighting calling for celebration? Well only superficially. The extent
of destruction of native trees in the surrounding
area for housing development is forcing Koalas to find food in the most
dangerous and noisy of places. Both sites involve great hazard to nocturnal
movement of the Koalas because of very dense and busy roads system. In addition
to road kill, many diseased Koalas are picked up by the local Koala Ambulance
Service, their condition being attributed, at least in part, to habitat stress.
Angus Innes.
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