| Birding
On My Own - Australia and New Zealand 2002 Emmalee Tarry |
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I don't think a birder could ever be ready to leave the north Queensland area. There are too many birds and too many places to bird. Some birders never leave. They find a way to make their futures here. It is the middle of September and I am signed up for the September 25 Wollongong Pelagic. I have to push south. My last chance to see a Cassowary will be at Mission Beach and I want to give it as much time as it takes to see this bird.
It rained all night in Caines and was still raining the next morning. On the way out of town I drove down the crocodile farm road to search for the Yarrabah sod farm mentioned in Thomas and Thomas. I could find nothing but cane fields along this road. John Crowhurst had mentioned the sod farm so it must still exist and he would be a good guide.
I also left the Bruce Highway at Bramston Beach Road to look for the Eubenangee Swamp National Park following directions in Wieneke. I drove all the way to Bramston Beach finding no signs. There was an unpaved road off of the main road, but in the rain I was reluctant to negotiate it. On the way back to the highway a Baillon's Crake flew in front of the car. I slowed to avoid hitting it and just missed being rear-ended by a pickup truck following too close.
Cassowary
Birds fly, right? Except the flightless birds. Why give up front limbs for wings and then not fly. This is what makes the flightless birds so fascinating. Penguins don't fly but rather use their wings to swim. Then there are the ratites group of flightless birds. The ratites include the African Ostrich a large bird of the plains that runs, the Rheas South America, New Zealand's Kiwis, Australia's Emu and Cassowaries. The Moas of New Zealand were also Ratites but they are no longer with us.
There are three species of cassowary, one of which is found in Australia. The other two are indigenous to New Guinea and some of the adjacent islands. The Australia Cassowary Casuarius casuarius highly endangered hangs on in the wet tropical rainforest of Queensland and some small isolated areas of north-eastern Cape York Peninsula. Perhaps as few as 1,200 cassowaries remain in the wild and seeing one is a rare privilege. Your best chance is at Mission Beach. The same Mission Beach area so coveted by fishermen, beach goers, and banana farmers.
The Cassowary is highly territorial and solitary. Mature individuals are only together during mating. The male incubates the eggs and takes care of the striped chicks after hatching. Male territories may overlap when they are taking care of chicks with one bird using an area in the morning and another coming along later. The Cassowary uses vocalizations to announce their presence and warn off intruders.
The Cassowary feeds on rainforest fruits that fall to the ground from the canopy. They are highly omnivorous and even eat live mammals such as rats and mice. It is active in the daytime.
Mission Beach
Mission Beach was once an area where dense rainforest fringed beautiful, sandy beaches. Too good to leave alone. The rainforest was cut for banana plantations. The beaches developed for housing and tourist recreation. Fortunately some fragments of the rainforest are preserved in state forest.
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Mission Beach is an area of high tourist traffic. Every year
a number of Cassowarys are killed on the road. In some years the number of
birds killed is as high as 12 out of about 50 birds in the area. These signs
warn drivers to slow down. You may see a Cassowary walking along or crossing the road. Tourists should most definitely not stop and try to feed a Cassowary. The birds need to be wary of automobiles. Do drive slowly. Of course the locals do not drive slowly so you will at least be considered a pain. At worst you may be rear ended. |
I went to the South Mission Beach area and found a camp site on the beach across from Dunk Island. This is a very touristy area. The campground was crowded with very small sites. There are also campground and hotels in the Mission Beach area.
I visited the information center in Mission Beach to see a video about the Cassowary and to buy books, and postcards. The workers at the center can tell you where to look for the birds.
How To See A Wild Cassowary
Just because the Cassowary is a large bird doesn't make it easy to see in the dense rainforest. The strategy for finding a Cassowary is to walk along the trails very quietly and slowly. Listen for movement in the understory. After spending an entire afternoon walking the tracks in the Lacey Creek area and having several people tell me that had just see a Cassowary, I realized that seeing a Cassowary in the wild would depend on being in the right place for a long enough time to get lucky. If some people saw a Cassowary a few minutes ago on the trail you can count on the fact it is not there now. The best strategy is to be the first into a productive area in the morning and to keep walking.
| If a Cassowary is in the area you should see piles of
Cassowary pooh like the one to the right. The Cassowary eats fruit which it
must find on the ground since it can't fly. The seeds are expelled whole. The
color of the pooh depends on what fruits the Cassowary has been eating.
I once came upon a very fresh steaming pile. The Cassowary had probably been here and may have been very close. I saw nothing. |
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The first afternoon I searched for the Cassowary on the road from El Arish to Mission Beach. Lacey Creek State Forest is a beautiful 1.1 km circular walking track. As I started the track a couple coming out told me they had seen a Cassowary with a chick just 15 minutes before. In the rain I walked the track in both directions. I had good looks at Little Shrike-thrush and Spectacled Monarch moving through the forest like a mixed species feeding flock in South America. You must stay on the track. The Cassowary will cross a track and even walk a short distance along a track before plunging off into the undergrowth.
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The north end of the Licula Forest Track insects the El Arish
Road. This too is a beautiful track, but I noticed the Cassowary pooh piles did
not look fresh. This group of seeding growing from a pile of pooh shows the importance of the Cassowary in maintaining the rainforest. There is one fruit that only seems to sprout after the seed has passed through the digestive track of the Cassowary. If the Cassowary becomes extinct, this fruiting tree may also disappear. |
My first day was a total failure. I was wet, tired and had seen nothing but Cassowary pooh. That evening when I got to the campground a woman told me she had seen a Cassowary in the rainforest along the back edge of the campground. Of course I went back there but didn't see anything but Orange-footed Scrubfowl. Despite the closeness of the camp sites there were some good birds in the campground including White-breasted Woodswallow on the wires at the front gate.
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