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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