Exciting times up here in Kuranda, where the male abandoned his 2 chicks aged 7 months in mid-May, I just hope they meet a happier fate than the two from last year which were killed by a dog in the suburbs down along Black Mountain Road, explaining their sudden disappearance last July. We hear the guilty dog was hastily relocated, it just goes to show the problems that can arise in Cassowary neighbourhoods, and this is one where the awareness levels about the birds are generally pretty high.
The female got a cut foot the day we left for Fiji on June 12, but happily one of our neighbours was able to spray her injury with Betadine and this seems to work well, she looks good today. I don’t know why we have had two leg injuries this year, i just hope someone has not put up a wire fence, but it might be broken glass or sharp metal lying about I suppose.
The two chicks from this season are still about, but when they come around get chased off by the male, we saw them both yesterday and today and both times he went hammering off after them, this morning just after mating with the female in the flowerbed right by the house! The interesting thing here is that a nest with 4 lime green eggs was found by a visiting photographer on May 31, he thought they were melons laying on the ground initially. The clutch had gone up to 7 and the male was clearly on the nest when we were in Fiji last week, but sadly I fear the attempt may have failed as we’ve seem him with the female over the past couple of days. Normally once nesting starts we don’t see him at all for around 6 weeks.
Phil Gregory www. cassowary-house.com,au ===============================
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message: unsubscribe (in the body of the message, with no Subject line) to: birding-aus-request@vicnet.net.au
http://birding-aus.org ===============================
