Hello from Coquette Point,
Tonight, wild fires rage throughout New South Wales, the fires have already burnt out over two hundred homes. So far only one person has died and that from a heart attack defending his home. However, fire fighters from all over Australia have rallied to help and these men and  women put their lives on the line when they tackle the fire-front from the ground. They are super-humans.

Meanwhile the drought throughout central and western Queensland only deepens while south-east Queensland on Friday was  battered with severe storms and hail. Winds of over 120km per hour were  recorded.

The northern hemisphere's monsoon continues to be extremely active and tonight Super Typhoon 'Francisco' category 4 is heading for Kyoto Japan. There are 10 nuclear facilities in the typhoon's danger zone.

Is our beautiful blue  planet trying to tell us something?

Media release - 16th October 2013
To the residents of the Cassowary Coast Region,  tourists and all those who value Queensland's biodiversity: join us in opposing the Newman Government's predation of National Parks and the rush to convert priceless wildlife reserves into lifeless cash.

Queensland has a miniscule percentage (4.8%) of land historically protected   as national park, less than any other state. Nevertheless, the State government intends to sacrifice even this last tiny bastion of nature protection, our state's last public good, on the altar of profit-taking.

Hello from Coquette Point,

Cassowary Jessie and Snout are into their second week of
courtship and are daily moving around in a one square kilometre range of  rainforest, melaleuca and mangrove swamps.
 Jan Shang reported she saw the two cassowaries eating fallen Quandong fruits close to her house when for some unknown reason matriarch Jessie got cranky and chased
the male Snout. Whatever the disagreement between the two, later that day they were seen walking together again.

On Wednesday afternoon I saw them enter the Melaleuca swamp walking quickly through the trees.

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Hello from very busy Coquette Point,

Lots of visitors turned up this week. First to arrive was Sam Mitchell on his self built, solar-powered bicycle. Sam is 18 years old and he is bicycling around Australia to promote sustainable transport. Sam left East Gippsland in Victoria on March 11 and arrived in Innisfail on Monday June 3. After a little R&R Sam will be leaving Coquette Point to continue his trip bound: Cairns, Normanton, Mt Isa, Darwin, Perth and then across the Nullarbor and back home to East Gippsland.  Sam has a Facebook page and his blog is http://solarshiftaus.blogspot.com

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Hello from Wet and Windy Coquette Point

The monsoon is making one last attempt to deliver good rain to north  Queensland.  At the moment  it is sitting across the top of Cape York  and is expected to drop  further down over the Cape next week. Yesterday  and today we have experience  heavy rain and thunderstorms, 125mm of rain fell
last night and today strong  winds are bringing rain squalls onto the coast

Meanwhile, something has triggered cassowary 'Snout's' hormones and much to  'Jessie's' annoyance he has started to stalk her. He follows  her, 10 steps  behind, until his behaviour annoys her and she turns and  gives him the 'evil  eye'.

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Hello from hot and sticky Coquette Point,

Like an unwelcome visitor the monsoon surged and dropped down on January 17. Two lows formed on the trough, one in the white-hot waters of the Gulf of Carpentaria and was destined to become tropical cyclone Oswald on the January 21- but only for 12 hours. The weather system soon reverted to a tropical low and danced in the Gulf for a week before beginning its move south. The BOM computer models gave conflicting forecasts on Oswald's movement and at one stage had it sitting over the southern Atherton Tablelands for a couple of days.

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Hello from Coquette Point,

The monsoon trough has dropped down and as I speak there are two active lows, one circulation over the Wet Tropic Coast and the other in the Gulf of Carpentaria. We now are in a waiting game to see what will happen.

While most frogs are in their element, with rain falling and are noisily singing love songs I found this white lipped looking very unhappy. She was sitting on a leaf and even when I poked a camera in her face she did not move. I noticed there is a small ulcer on her skin between the right eye and nostril. The skin generally looks unhealthy and the eyes remained half closed in spite of cool rain falling all around her. Her unusual behaviour is typical of chytrid fungus, a dreadful disease afflicting frogs. This is the first time I have seen it at Coquette Point and one wonders if it is linked to the stress these frogs would have endured during the long drought.

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Hello from Coquette Point,
While the bulk of Australia is experiencing heat-wave conditions and dreadful fires the coastal Wet Tropics has been under the influence of a weak ridge that is bringing cool sea-breezes with frequent light rain showers: we are having perfect tropical, summer weather.

The monsoon trough is sitting over the bottom end of PNG and resisting all attempts by cyclones, like the cat 5 Narelle now off Western Australia, to bring it down over the Wet Tropics.

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Hello from hot and humid Coquette Point,

Summer has well and truly arrived and the few mils of rain have not been enough to crack the dusty soil surface. The creeks are running low and the rainforest is thirsty.

On Wednesday 5th frog ecologist Deborah Pergolotti www.fdrproject.org.au and Russell Constable http://ellabayforever.blogspot.com  and I got together to see what frogs were active at this dry time of the year. We planned to do a frog survey at Ella Bay.  Ella Bay is on the northern side of the Johnstone River, north of Flying Fish Point and only two kilometres, as the crow flies, from Coquette Point.
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Saturday, 24 November 2012

Hello from the beach at Coquette Point,

Sunrise is the best time of the day. Not only is it cooler, a welcome relief at this time of the year, it is the time when shore-birds are most active.

As the sun's light slowly lifts the shadows from the beach the shore-birds appear. They arrive as if from nowhere, some flying low in over the water, others descending from the sky and yet others arrive in a run from the sand dunes behind the beach.
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