On very public display at Cooper Creek Wilderness in the Daintree …
Cassowaries mating on Neil Hewett’s back lawn on Wednesday August 1, 2012.
If you would like to visit the oldest surviving rainforest on earth and/or learn more about Cooper Creek Wilderness, click here: http://www.ccwild.com
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
I wish I were a Cassowary
On the plains of Timbuctoo
I should eat a missionary
Cassock, bands and hymn book too.
Kindest Regards
This young cassowary you see
Were plumbing his girl ‘neath a tree.
His girl said, “Stop plumbin’,
I hear someone comin'”.
He said, “You’ve good ears lass,
THAT’S ME!”
On the other hand looking down from my hotel room in Coolangatta last night I observed a Bush Turkey calmly walking down the main street.
Awesome photo! And the poetry that it inspired wasn’t bad either.
I have noticed over the years that if you see timid wild animals before they see you and you stand stock still and talk to them gently, you get the impression they get a desire to communicate in response.
Yesterday I did that with a Swamp Wallaby [Wallabia bicolour] and it carried on grazing while I spoke to it. After a while it hopped over to a tree, turned and looked back at me as if to say, “Seen this?” and pulled down a casuarina branch and started eating the leaves, watching me all the while and seeming quite relaxed. I had never seen a wallaby eat casuarina before.
This morning I sneaked up on a Speckled Ground Thrush and started talking to it and it also continued turning over litter and feeding. Sometimes you can actually walk past them on the track without disturbing them whereas if they see you first and you are still advancing on them, you only see a blur as they disappear.
Its the parterre starting position in Greco-Roman wrestling – life imitating art?
OK – that’s the sex, where’s the violence to accompany it?
BTW I’ve applied for a new domain name for this blog – jennifermarohasy.xxx
sd – I’d be careful about being overheard talking to wild animals if I were you. OTOH Tim Flannery seemingly has frequent conversations with Mother Gaia, so you’d be in good company.
Suggestion for a new post title “Cassowaries concluding that position 350 wasn’t so safe after all”. Bill McKibben take note.
That’s great friends. Now lets ask Yaiyai what she thinks.
I’m with you SD. Keep talking to them. I do.
Tonight I was confronting this Male Magpie, 1 foot away – we talk every night.
Tony and John,
It’s not the talking that’s the problem, it’s the understanding when they reply. But magpies are wonderfully explicit.
Birds see with eyes at the back of their head.
A Kooka will look at you side ways using one eye, the other eye is checking the back of his head.
If something deserves attention he’ll swing into two eye mode.
We are just humans, the most successful species on the planet so far.
but we can’t do that.
A friend of mine went walking one morning in the forest near Mission beach and suddenly found herself very close to a cassowary.
They just looked at one another for a short time and then it slowly moved off. She’d been told they could sometimes be aggressive, is that true?
Bolt’s got a good story here about Robert Manne lamenting how the skeptics have won the day.
If we were all as silly as Manne it’s little wonder. Bolt gives some good reference material to help maintain that scepticism.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/how_we_won/#commentsmore
Imagine if wild turkeys had tree branch sized legs, capped off with tiger claws, and an intense desire that you, being human, not set foot in your own back yard. That’s a cassowary.
That is one prehistoric looking creature.
You didn’t cook it up in a lab, ala Jurassic Park dna injected in an emu egg for giggles, did you?
And if you happen to have a cassowary taking over your backyard, menacing your dingo and such, who do you call? The exterminator? Animal control?
Excuse the presumption of an American telling you about your own freaky creatures. I’m directing that last comment at the great most of us who never heard of a cassowary.
Humility almost kept me from commenting at all.
It just occurred to me that we haven’t given names to our newest feathered neighbors. How about Ron and Nina?
To James Mayeau “never heard of a cassowary. ”
Like a scorpion, the sting is in the tail, James. Be wary of a casso….
LARRY: “How about Ron and Nina?” How about Australia and Julia?
Great photo!
They’re striking creatures.
Tony,
I saw Tim Flannery involved in calling southern bell frogs in his latest 2 men series.
Heeeeeere FROG!.
And right there on national TV those frogs answered.
I kid you not.
We were then informed on national TV that there were only 50 of those frogs left.
We fell off the couch laughing.
There are only 50 southern bell fogs left who answer when they’re called.
James Mayeau August 5th, 2012 at 1:07 pm wrote:
“Imagine if wild turkeys had tree branch sized legs, capped off with tiger claws, and an intense desire that you, being human, not set foot in your own back yard. That’s a cassowary.
That is one prehistoric looking creature.
You didn’t cook it up in a lab, ala Jurassic Park dna injected in an emu egg for giggles, did you?”
Interesting that you should mention Jurassic Park. After reading the novel and seeing the first movie, I was very impressed with Chrichton’s attention to detail. Then an online friend, who is a dinosaur buff, pointed out that Velociraptors were only turkey-sized beasties.
If a reconstituted Velociraptor were to go the distance with a modern Cassowary, the V would be toast.
Tim Flannery was “calling” the Southern Corroboree Frog, which is not the southern bell frog. The Southern Corroboree Frog is IUCN listed as Critically Endangered. The Southern Bell Frog is IUCN listed as Endangered.
http://youtu.be/zFOwFaUUHBU
Facts, accuracy, the truth. All absent on this LOL blog (except for Neil’s wonderful additions).
Well gee whiz,
Sory Libby….I only caught it one night by accident on TV.
He was still calling them whichever the southern variety of frog.
It was still extremely funny when it was juxtaposed with the comment that there are only 50 left.
That part is correct. 🙂 🙂
There therefore seems to be only 50 southern CORROBOREE frogs left who answer when they’re called.
THAT female (recipient) is over 200 lb (95 kg)!
The male very seriously considered the safest escape route before separating … but the female was immediately onto him for some serious payback.
Jennifer,
I haven’t been following your blog as closely as I should. Am I safe in assuming that one of your unfinished projects is the dystopian novel?
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