Little cutie ...

... or Bond villain?

Marsupial stand off

Despite its diminutive dimensions, the little possum has a big attitude. This afternoon, caught out in the open by a curious pademelon and an inquisitive brush turkey, the possum stood its ground and saw them both off.

Possum magic!

I was worried when I saw a young possum out by day. Had the poor little thing been orphaned? Was he so hungry that he had to forage in the afternoon? Since then, I've seen him in the company of his mum. And I'm beginning to get an entirely different picture of this little marsupial. I think his mum has had enough of him.

If his mum or a pademelon approaches him while he's eating, he screams and hisses like a possum possessed. If mum has food, he will try to steal it from her. She tolerates this behaviour for as long as she can, but always ends up relinquishing the nosh. I'm not surprised that she often makes herself scarce.

He has now taken to climbing up to the kitchen window to check out what's cookin'. I took this picture at nine this morning, an odd time for a possum to be out and about. He had been staring at the fruit bowl on the counter — so close, but still unreachable — until a pademelon distracted him.

He also likes to sit on the broom that's leaning next to the back door and has knocked over pretty much everything in the carport. It won't be long before he works out how to pick the locks ...

Timber!

On Friday evening, the blue quandong tree (Elaeocarpus grandis) shed a branch. Just before dusk, about 8m of lichen-frosted, orchid-festooned timber plummetted from the crown, felling a native nutmeg and tearing down masses of lawyer vine and mistletoe. This happens all the time in the rainforest. I usually leave timber where it falls, but this branch dropped on the drive way, blocking me in. And I was running out of biscuits.

I don't have a chainsaw, but I managed to clear the drive in two and a half hours with a pruning saw, secateurs, lianas in place of rope, a lever made from a small tree, a basic knowledge of geometry and an increasing desperation for chocolate biscuits.

The pademelons were no help at all.

Winter wildlife

I'm not sure if it's down to the cold weather, but the wildlife has been acting very strangely lately. Yesterday, a spotted catbird flew into the house and started inspecting the kitchen. That's the sort of behaviour I expect from Macleay's honeyeaters, but catbirds — big and bolshie as they are around other birds — do not usually get too close to people.

That incident was followed closely by a female Victoria's riflebird mugging a little shrike-thrush for the frog the latter had just uncovered. The riflebird flew away with the still struggling frog in its beak. The shrike-thrush looked as pissed off as an animal with no eyebrows or lips can look.

Later, I almost trod on an adult coppery brushtail possum that had decided not only to forage by day, but also to do it around my door step.

And last night, every possum in the rainforest was running across the roof and up and down the ladder and then doing bunyip impersonations under my bedroom window at three in the morning. Fortunately, I can sleep through a putative bunyip attack, so it wasn't too much of a problem.

Anyway, today was quieter. But the possums continued behaving oddly. This young fellow was wandering around at lunchtime.

He may have regretted his daring when he realised that he was on Candid Camera.

Possum paws are equipped with very sharp claws that are useful for climbing. (A few months ago, one of the adult possums managed to get a purchase on an aluminium frame and almost scrambled into the living room.)

Their hind paws exhibit syndactyly (fused toes), like those of kangaroos and many other marsupials. One of the adults (probably the fellow in the first pic) likes to climb up the yard broom that's leaning by the back door, hold on tight by his hind paws and reach across to the door handle. Because it's a sliding door, he can't quite get it open. But every night, he gives ir a go. (And I let him. This will end badly, I'm sure.)

So I left the young possum to doze among the azaleas. He didn't last very long because the bridled honeyeaters took exception to his presence and did their own bunyip impersonation on a branch above him.

The last I saw of him, he was toddling off into the forest to find a quieter spot.

Picture this in orange

About ten minutes ago ...

It's already close to freezing, so it is unlikely that I'll be getting up in the small hours to take a photo of the lunar eclipse. So I'll just have to print this out and colour it in.

Ambrax swallowtail

The Ambrax Swallowtail (Papilio ambrax) is a large and handsome butterfly that occurs in rainforest of the Wet Tropics and the Mackay district of mid-east Queensland. Although it is not common on this patch, this species turns up regularly in the late wet to early dry.

This female is about the size of a small bird. She fluttered around for a long time, keeping between one and three metres off the ground, pausing briefly to check out the plants for suitable ovipositing sites. Nothing seemed to take her fancy.

I mistook her at first for the more widespread Orchard Swallowtail (P. aegeus), beautiful bane of citrus growers along the east coast. But female P. aegeus have blue spots on both the upper and low surfaces of the hind wings. These are absent in P. ambrax. The Ambrax Swallowtail is also tied strongly to rainforest, whereas the Orchard Swallowtail is more catholic in its habitat. It has almost certainly extended its range thanks to the (inadvertent) kindness of gardeners.

I'm not procrastinating ....

... I'm observing the wildlife.

Red has a couple of favourite spots in the garden. On chilly mornings he warms up in a sunny patch on the rainforest edge. In the afternoons, he lies up in the dappled shade of azalea and bottlebrush outside the living room. I can see him from my desk.

Like many other marsupials, pademelons have syndactylous hind feet. The second and third toes are almost completely fused, only the nails remaining separate. These form a comb for grooming. After a good scratch, a paddie cleans up by nibbling on its nails. Because the animals are crawling with fleas, ticks, louse-flies and leeches (I can confirm the presence of all those ectoparasites), they probably get a good protein hit that way. They are certainly very enthusiastic scratchers and nibblers.

Sometimes the paddies have a disagreement. Their clumps of fur are prized by the grey fantails, who use them to line their nests. Fantail chicks must have the cosiest homes. No wonder they never want to leave.

Whose poo?

You can probably work out the answer to this one*. Our cassowary has been feasting on whatever fruit is available. Right now, that's lemon aspen (Acronychia acidula), which is not an aspen but does taste citrusy. The fruit is also popular with topknot pigeons and tree kangaroos. The tree is common here and so productive that there is plenty to go around in season.

Pre-splat

Splat!

The cassowary has also been consuming Davidson's plums (Davidsonia pruriens), hefty fruit that it swallows whole.

All the other forest frugivores peck or nibble. (Like lemon aspen, this fruit also makes a delicious jam, but I've yet to see the pademelons master that skill.)

The fruit-eaters have carefully eaten around the seed. (A better picture of the seed here.) I'll chuck it into the forest, where there's a good chance it will germinate. There's no shortage of Davidson's plums on this block. And no shortage of Davidson plum-eaters.

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* Avoids joke about constipated mathematician.

Cassowary!

No one has seen cassowaries in this block of rainforest for decades. There are tree kangaroos and green possums and all sorts of other charismatic megafauna, but no giant, fruit-eating birds.

Until now ...

I took these photos this afternoon at a neighbour's place, less than 300m from my block. Judging by the contents of the poo, this bird has been dining on lemon aspen (Acronychia) and Davidson's plum (Davidsonia), swallowed whole.

What a fantastic addition to the faunal list.

I'll let the photos speak for themselves.

A brief glimpse

Getting bolder

On parade

And the reason why you should never upset a cassowary ... sharp claws and a hell of a kick.

The business end

More info soon, but I'm just too excited to concentrate right now!

Green-spotted triangles

Despite the abundance and diversity of butterflies on the rainforest edge, I haven’t had much success in photographing them. While the nymphalids sometimes rest long enough for a quick pic, the others are far too flighty. That's if they come down from the canopy at all. (And why would they? It’s where the sunlight and flowers are.)

Birdwings of the genus Graphium are fast and erratic fliers. The green-spotted triangle (Graphium agamemnonusually hangs around the tree tops, rarely bothering to visit the ground floor. And when they do, there’s no time to grab the camera. I’ve glimpsed plenty of green-spotted triangles, but haven’t had much of a chance to study them.

But these two were occupied...

The species has a wide distribution, occurring from India, throughout SE Asia to Queensland. Their caterpillars feed on a range of rainforest plants, but, given my well-known inability to identify anything botanical, I'm not sure where to look! If I do locate any, at least they won't be moving too fast to photograph.

Rocky

Red used to be the top dog among the pademelons, until Rocky turned up.

Rocky is a bit of a Lothario.

He's also training to be a tree kangaroo.

Because you can't have too much cute

Here are some old shots of Crinkle Cut and her joey Podge. I haven't seen Podge for a long while, so I suspect he's had a close encounter of the carpet snake kind. Either that or one of my reckless neighbours has flattened him while driving too fast on this narrow rainforest road.

Podge liked to stay close to his mum, although he would make occasional forays onto the patio if he could smell something cooking. Unlike Crinkle Cut, he wasn't adventurous enough to wander into the house and raid the kitchen bin. This was probably a Good Thing.

Mum and joey would greet each other with mutual grooming of head and neck. Crinkle Cut always paid particular attention to her son's ears. (No pics, unfortunately.)

Podge would try to reciprocate, but couldn't quite reach ...

Nice plumage, shame about the voice

If you've never heard the call of a male Victoria's riflebird, imagine a cross between a sulphur-crested cockatoo and ... well ... another sulphur-crested cockatoo, but shorter and louder.

Two male riflebirds frequent my garden. I can't tell the difference between them, so have given them the generic name of 'You Noisy Bastard'. It's not elegant, but it serves its purpose.

Either one — or both — of the birds takes great delight in landing on the gutter or on a tree just above my head and letting loose with that appalling call when I'm least expecting it. Or generally when I'm least expecting it. For once, I was a step ahead. I don't expect it will happen again.

Passport photos for honeyeaters

It's good to know that I'm not the only one who manages to be blinking, looking the wrong way or on the cusp of transforming into a monster when the shutter clicks. This Macleay's honeyeater was having an off day too*.

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*The difference between it and me is the number of off days**.
** Note that this is not an exhaustive list of differences.