Black Mountain Road, Kuranda
The male Cassowary still has his 3 chicks, now some 9 months old and due to be
evicted any day as the female is coming around quite a bit and this is the
usual prelude to mating. The chicks are squabbling amongst themselves and
wandering off quite a bit on their own, but the hard times begin once the male
chases them away from the core territory and they then have to forage in
sub-optimal habitat along busy roads, with sub-divisons, dogs etc as hazards.
All the optimal areas along this section of forest are already occupied.
It is pleasing that the chicks have got to this stage anyway, surviving cyclone
Yasi and a very wet season, but there seems to be a fair bit of fruit about and
the droppings are healthy and contain many seeds. We had a very tall rotten
tree come down by the veranda yesterday, and the chicks have been feeding on
the abundant fungi on the trunk, and also digging into the rotten wood, not
sure quite what they are after as yet but they have left sizeable holes in the
fallen trunk.
2009 was a successful breeding failure as the 3 chicks disappeared one after
the other and all had gone by October, and 2008 was a total failure with a
failed nesting attempt (probably due to wet cold weather), so 2007 was the last
previous success. This male bred every year from 1998 to 2007, with usually 3
chicks raised to independence. He has been here since at least 1985 so it's a
pretty significant contribution to the breeding stock.
A project us under way to sample the DNA from droppings so as to tell the
parentage, and to find whether much inbreeding is occurring. We hope to get a
few samples from known individuals, and as they have a habit of depositing
their offerings on the newly washed slates of the patio hopefully this won't be
too hard.
Red-necked Crakes are about, usually seen late afternoon, and not vocal at this
time. Barred Cuckooshrike are also around, and we have twice had Red-tailed
Black Cockatoos flying over this month; Pacific Baza is occasionally vocal, I
heard a Pied Currawong a couple of days ago which is very unusual here, and
White-eared Monarch has been vocal too after an unusually prolonged absence
with no records from Jan-mid-April.
Phil Gregory
www.cassowary-house.com.au
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