The Cassowary nest had 8 startling lime-green eggs on June 25, but I fear it is not being incubated as the pair are still around here most mornings. The clutch has gone from 4 on May 31 to 7 on June 11 and now 8 on June 25. We will monitor very discreetly from a distance.
Reference to HANZAB Vol 1 Part A (!990) is interesting as there is a lot more information now available, and I really need to get another paper written up to document whet we have learned over the years ( I published one in an obscure behavioural journal some years back). The clutch size given in HANZAB is between 3-5, not well known, and incubation at 30 days seems way too short. Life expectancy is given as 13-14 years , but the male here is at least 25.
I have never heard them calling at night, I wonder if that was confused with something else? I have a small collection of calls and missed a new one the other day, when the female squatted right down, extended her neck horizontally and gave a a single long low infra-sonic type call, longer lasting than the usual departure call given by the male, repeated 2-3 times. It is hard to get these as the calling is very intermittent. This single call is we believe a mating invitation and can bring the male quickly in from some distance, though in this case no mating resulted.
HANZAB also states they blush or change colour, and again we have never seen any evidence of this in our 14 years of almost daily contacts with this species and thousands of sightings. I do think they colour up more when breeding is under way and fade off slightly as the mating intensity declines, but I have yet to see one blush.
Phil & Sue Gregory www cassowary-house.com.au ===============================
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