As many birders know I reside on the Rex Range at Julatten and I
will summerise some of the effects on a few species in the area.
Locally winds reached on excess of 100 km/hr (my estimate). Being
north of the cyclonic eye our wind regime came from the north west.
Rainforest damage varied widely from up to 30% of emergent larger trees
being broken about half way up and other areas minimal damage. This
seemed dependent on the lay of the land.
Generally on the nearby lowlands around Mossman the sugar fields
remained intact while the local banana farm had losses of about 15%, low
because of geography.
Bird activity has been interesting. Because of the high winds
everywhere fruit and insects were blown to ground. Around our area there
was unseasonal altitudinal movement of Bridled Honeyeaters searching at
all levels in the rainforest. In the garden where we overstayed in the
cyclone Silvereyes, Brown Cuckoo-doves and Lewin's Honeteaters took all
of the tiny red chillis witout hesitation. (Their eyes didn't water either!)
The Australasian Swiftlets did not appear the day before the wind
and only a few in the days afterward. On the following Tuesday at the
barra farm near Kingfisher Park, about seventy were drinking/batheing at
dusk.
Many palms managed to retain fruit and were the target of Woompos
and Topknot Pigeons which haven't been present for some time.
I run a feeding station and the resident honeyeaters have been
hungry, joined by a Yellow Oriole in recent days (unusual). This morning
Metallic Starlings showed up on the feed table for the first time
cleaned up the fruit and left so they are feeling the pinch also.
In Cyclone Larry we had many refugees visit noteably Woompoo
Fruit-doves and I noted 22 feeding in a fruiting tree at Port Douglas. A
local resident related to me yesterday that in the Cyclone Larry
aftermath Woompoos took up resident in his fruiting palms. They didn't
leave in daylight hours however Spectacled Fruit-bats ravaged the palms
at night diminishing the fruit and a number of the fruit-doves perished
on the ground below. This proves the fact that they were weak and from
another area.
Thankfully the human loss was only one person when had the eye come
into Cairns, authorities may have run out of body bags.
Del. Richards, Fine Feather Tours, Mossman, NQ.
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