News from Coquette Point

Hello from Dunk Island,

I am over here for big son Martin’s 40 birthday party:  Martin has leased the old resort for the party. It is rather sad to look around and see the old resort all but deserted. It is a beautiful sunny day and sitting here looking out at Brammo Bay you could almost think that nothing had changed.  The infrastructure of the resort appears sound and the charm of the plantation style design is fitting within the green surrounds. 

Cyclone damage is obvious everywhere but nothing that can’t be fixed. However, with Australians not holidaying within Australia, the high dollar pricing us out of the market and Europeans and Americans tending to either not holiday or holiday at home there is little likely-hood that resorts like Dunk could be viable.

Cassowary Snout has disappeared and Jessie has turned up by herself. Bill F. reported that he saw Snout with Jessie still following walking along the road towards the top of Coquette Point and then going down into the Moresby Range National Park, hopefully the start of his nesting.  Little Dad has not returned so we have not seen any chicks so far this year.

Dot at water bowl

Cassowary Dot turned up on Wednesday, I have not seen him for two months, he went straight to the giant Red Fig, Ficus drupacea, on the front lawn. The fig fruits are starting to fall and the cassowaries are right on the ball gobbling them up.  After a feed of figs Dot walked into the nursery and drank deeply from the water bowl, he knew where to find it and then walked out and back into the mangroves.

Ficus drupacea

That afternoon I saw Dot on the road and Jessie close by. Dot was drumming and Jessie stood and looked at him. I watched them both for a while  then Dot disappeared into the mangroves. 

I walked up the hill to check on the fruit left on the Quandong and heard a movement in the forest. Cassowaries are so difficult to see in the rainforest, their colour does not appear, at first sight to be a camouflage but it is and at anything more than three metres distance they disappear.

I stood quietly and soon Rosi appeared. Her strong long beak making her easy to recognise. It is a special experience to meet a cassowary in the rainforest, they are so at home in their environment while you feel clumsy and vulnerable.  

The female shining flycatcher has joined the male in the pool, while kookaburra laughs at their little squawks. One young kookaburra has become quite curious and will watch me as I busy around the garden. 

When the sun at last broke through the rain clouds this week Darter spent an hour soaking it up while sitting on the old derrick on the beach. Darters inhabit swamps and river estuaries and are long lived, up to 15 years. The do not have water repellent feathers and this appears to improve their ability to dive quickly into the water to spear and capture fish.  However, they must dry their feathers and this week the Coquette Point Darter was doing this when I happened to come along with my camera.

Darter all dry and ready to fly.

Darters are also called snake birds as they will sometimes emerge with their heads held high above the water with their snake-like neck twisted, they take a breath and dive again, only to emerge at some distance with a fish clasped in their strong, long beak. 

The damp floor of the forest is ideal for the growth of fungi and in the melaleuca swamp cup fungi have emerged. I lay down to take a photo and felt something watching me Rosie the cassowary was in the swamp looking at me and I am sure wondering what I was doing lying down on the carpet of melaleuca leaves.  I looked up at the sky through the melaleuca leaves.

When you get down on the ground you never know what you may find.   A spiny leaf insect on a small licuala palm frond! 

Butterflies have been very active in the warm winter days and four o’clock moths, egg-flies and Cairns birdwings colour the canopy of the rainforest as they gather nectar. 

Crested Hawk and the young butcher bird have been actively searching for frogs and not a day goes by without hearing the squawk of some poor frog taken for the birds dinner. 

Insect egg foam

Leea indica

Insects are laying eggs on shrubs and in the morning egg-foam covers many tree branches. Cassowary food is plentiful and the bandicoot berry, leea indica; red bell, mischocarpus exangulatus; native gardenia, randia fitxalanii and the native nutmeg, myristica insipida are all in fruit..                                                                                                                                                                                           

Myristica insipida

mischocarpus exangulatus

With all the fruit falling on the forest floor pig numbers are increasing and pigs are again active in the nursery. I took this photo with a camera set up at the pig cage this week. He won’t be free for long.

The party at Dunk is about to get underway so cheers for now and happy birthday to Martin.

Yvonne.


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