North Queensland wildlife and the environment
I visited Broadwater camping ground in 2015 and when I returned recently I found that it hadn’t changed much except that more of the damage from cyclone Yasi (2011) had healed in the meantime.
There are wide open grassy areas with scattered tall eucalypts, picnic shelters and amenities, and camping sites for vans and tents. With almost no mobile phone service (there’s just a very poor, intermittent, signal from one part of the picnic ground) it’s a good choice for a digital detox.
One of the reasons for the long gap in activity on Green Path was that we were moving house. We are still in Mundingburra, and still between Ross River and Ross River Road, but our new garden is quite different so it will attract different birds and insects.
The new garden is dominated by palms instead of huge mango, poplar gum and paperbark trees. Continue reading “Birds in my new Townsville garden”
We’re well into the Dry season now and the birds come to water whenever they can. These White-gaped Honeyeaters (Lichenostomus unicolor) came to bathe under the sprinkler this morning.
Rain? What’s that? We had a few drops (almost few enough to count individually) a couple of days ago, but before then?
I had to look at the BoM’s records. They show we have had nothing over 0.2mm on any one day all the way back to early July when we had 12.4mm one day and a sprinkling on the days either side of it. June’s total was … wait for it … 2.2mm and in May the total was only 1.8mm. We had 10 mm in April but, really, it stopped raining at the end of March.
We have had less than 30 mm in a bit over five months. Continue reading “The Dry Season continues”
What do you think of when you think of an extended family? Cousin Julie, Uncle John, Nanna and the rest? Or a group of related birds or mammals which is broader than a species but narrow enough to be a natural grouping?
Christmas is fresh in my mind as I write, as it may be in yours, but here I’m concerned with the taxonomic extended family, not the rellies. In particular, I have been thinking about honeyeaters and their next-nearest kin, Continue reading “Extended Honeyeater family”
We have been enjoying the company of at least three young Blue-faced Honeyeaters, Entomyzon cyanotis, since returning from a trip to Canberra and Melbourne before Christmas. They are probably siblings and quite likely the offspring of our resident adults.
The cheek patches give away their age. As I’ve noted before, they change from a yellow-brown to a pleasant camouflage-green and then to vivid blue as the birds mature.
But these three also behave like youngsters – active, curious, sociable and rowdy. Continue reading “Young Blue-faced Honeyeaters at play”