Wallaby Mum

We wandered out of the kitchen a few minutes ago and this cute sight was awaiting us!   Peter ducked back for the camera but there was no hurry as Mum and her joey calmly carried on feeding on the grass and, as you can see in her paws, Mum was into one of the dropped Star Apples.

It looks like the family is happy to stay around the house for a while - see Dad in my post the other day.  In fact yesterday when I was nursing a stunned Buff-breasted Paradise Kingfisher (see my Facebook Page post - www.facebook.com/daintreevalleyhaven) after it had flown into a window I looked up to see him watching the proceedings which, happily, did end happily!

(I'm trying not to duplicate too many posts on Blog and Facebook!)

What a difference a few days make

Such beautiful weather again after a few very unusually-wet October days (17 inches of rain)  following a VERY dry couple of months the dam is now full to the brim and the spillway running over.  Lovely!  Early in the year we had so much rain a huge section of the dam wall was washed away and we lost most of the water - took a huge excavator 7 hours to repair.  We thought we'd have to wait till the official wet season at the beginning of next year before it refilled and now look at it!  This is the view from Sunbird Sanctuary and all three bungalows now have lovely water-views again.

We took a run up to Cape Tribulation this morning and it was so nice to see the rainforest looking so vibrant against the clear blue sky!  But hardly any visitors around and we almost had the road and the ferry to ourselves.  Sadly the media has done it again and scared everyone away with doom and gloom stories of 'all the water and floods in north Queensland' ... !!!

Sunbird babies!

For the first time this morning we're watching Mum feeding her babies (or perhaps baby as we're not sure if she laid another egg) which must have hatched overnight - yesterday she was still sitting in the nest.

It's now day 29 since she started building.  I'll keep you posted on progress!  (There are far too many Butcherbirds around for our liking so we're forever chasing them away.)

The face at the window

Looked out of the bedroom window the other day and found I was being observed by a little Northern Swamp Wallaby!

Got the camera and went outside and he (I, er, could see it was a 'he'!) calmly watched me for a while and then went back to munching on some leaves.

Guests often spot one or two of them on our walking track although sometimes they hide in the long grass until they get close and then suddenly take off through the bush ... a few folks have had the fright of their lives 'cos they can't see what they've disturbed!

We don't have many fruits in season at the moment - only some white Star Apples - but later on when we'll hopefully have bumper crops of lychees, mangoes and carambolas (star fruit) the wallabies will have a ball eating the dropped fruits.

FALSE ALARM!

Yesterday we were so upset to think we had lost our little Sunbird - and today she's back again and happily sitting in her nest!  Sometimes they disappear for a few days before they are ready to lay their eggs but it had worried us that there was one egg and no sign of Mum!

Sad news

It appears our worst fears may have happened.  Our little Sunbird has been missing for the past few days and on checking her nest this morning we found a single, cold, little egg.  And there has been a Black Butcherbird hanging around which we have tried to chase away whenever we could.  However ...

As I said earlier, there really only is so much you can do to give Nature a hand ...

Giving nature a hand - day 9

At last, completion day.  For a while we thought she'd really lost the plot as the nest was getting bigger but there was no actual nesting hole!

A couple of days ago I caught sight of her flying in with a HUGE white feather, about twice as long as her, and it was fascinating to watch her break it down and stuff it inside as a nice soft lining for her nest.

Now we just wait until she lays her eggs - usually 1 or 2.