1. Weather
Rain at the beginning of September! What an unusual experience. About one in eight Septembers we get no rain at all. While we have had only 27 mm in three days (more than twice the median of 12mm), places on the coast have exceeded 350 mm. Many have set new one day records for this month, 300 - 400mm. The evenings are still cool but the days are beautiful. With the rain and warmth everything should grow madly. My vegetable garden certainly is and so are the weeds.

2. Mammals
We continue to have a great sightings record. Out of the last 26 nights we have only missed seeing a tree-kangaroo on 3 occasions. Some nights recently we have had really close views with the animals out in the open as well. On Monday we saw four! On the 28th of August Jill was sitting on a dead branch sticking out of a Turbina tower. While watching her I noticed that Joan, her young at heel, was just behind her in the foliage. Despite my pointing this out with the lazar pointer, some guests doubted it. Joan then jumped over her mother to sit beside her on the same branch. She turned around like a model showing us all sides of her beautiful body before they both retreated into the leaves. Dorothy's joey has put its head out of the pouch but we have not seen Dale so I do believe that she has been chased off.[Stop press, she is still with her mum] The anomaly of Kate's mum not having a name has been rectified. She is Cally; named for the daughter of one of my guests. Rex has not been using his lookout trees as much this month. A mother and young at heel are being regularly seen along the Petersen Creek walk in town. They are not easy to spot but have moved little in the last two weeks, giving people a better than even chance of finding them if they put in the effort.
The Green Ring-tail Possums have been out in near record numbers. We have averaged over six a night in the same period of 24 nights. Once we briefly observed two fighting males involved in the inverted boxing match behaviour. After the bout one went nonchalantly back to feeding and the other sat and preened for a minute before moving off. I guess that there had been a female around but we did not see it. Last night,6/9, there were three or four males chasing each other in the same area.
Coppery Brushtail Possums are now getting into breeding mode with the odd argument being heard each night. There has been a small outbreak of rump wear disease. This looks a bit like mange on the rear ends of the brushtails but does not seem to bother most animals. I have only ever seen two animals scratch themselves and cause injury because of the condition.

3. Birds

Down in Cairns the mudflats are becoming populated with those birds which enjoy summer all year round. Just back from the northern summer are Sharp-tailed Sandpipers with the young ones out shining their elders which are looking rather worn. Red-necked Stints are back in large numbers and many other species are increasing their populations daily. A Grey Plover with still much black on the breast has been seen. Some of the Sandplovers, Great Knots, and Curlew Sandpipers also have traces of their breeding plumage wearing off.
At the Centenary Lakes I witnessed a Bush Hen patrolling the  edge of the little island in the fresh water lake. I had gone there to check out the White-browed Crake reported from the island. It looks like they are trying to catch the crocodile in the lake. He has been reducing the numbers of birds present. At least it had the sense to illuminate the ferals first. These lakes are a picture at the moment with lots of things in flower and many birds breeding.
A Square-tailed Kite has been patrolling the trees along Petersen Creek and nearby pieces of forest for a fortnight now but cannot be found on demand. Black-faced Monarchs have been heard but not yet seen on the Tablelands. Metallic Starlings have turned up early on the Tablelands. Often they go through a breeding cycle on the coast before heading up this way to undertake a second effort. Perhaps because so many of our frugivores are now feeding down on the coastal forests, these migrants have thought there was too much competition and headed straight up here. There has been a figtree in the village in great fruit and hardly a bird in it. The numbers of fruit eating birds have certainly suffered because of the after affects of the cyclone. Large-tailed Nightjars, Lesser Sooty Owls and Barking Owls have been calling at night. A Rufous Owl has been seen near a fruiting fig, inhabited by Spectacled Flying-foxes. Willie Wagtails built a nest under our veranda on a piece of wire used as a hook. this was fraught with danger as a large Brown Tree-snake lives in our roof. This morning the three eggs are gone! It is a beautiful nest constructed largely from spider webs and fine plant material. It will get use as a display and educational item but it would have been nice to watch the progress of the chicks at such close quarters. The Grey-headed Robin with the infertile eggs at the Curtain Figtree is now sitting on three eggs laid over one and a half months. Her mate still brings her food and takes a turn on the nest.
I have just jumped paragraphs to mention that the Buff-banded Rails are mating on the veranda at the moment (10.35a.m. 04/09).

4. Butterflies and Moths
While in a paperbark swamp near Cairns I had a male of the most aptly named Indigo Flash land on my binoculars. By taking them slowly away from my face I was able to get stunning views of this beautiful butterfly. It twice opened its wings slowly before flying off to land on a plant nearby. What a special experience and no-one to share it with at the time. While the big butterflies are in the air on the coast they are very few and far between up here just yet.
Many smaller species are flying though and it is their smaller dry season forms that are on the wing. Often these are less colourful but not always so. the Little Grass Yellow for instance is more intense and has patterning on the underwing that is not there during the wet. Three species of Jezebel are flying in the garden as I write this. So are numerous Australian Rustics. These are smaller by half than the biggest ones of the wet season.

5. Feral Ants
Tramp Ants, so called because of their capacity to jump ship or other form of transport, are spreading around the world. It was of great concern that Electric Ants, have been found in the north of Cairns near the Barron River National Park. These ants have spread from north America to New Caledonia where they dominate large stretches of rainforest, eliminating most other invertebrates. They build no nests but form super colonies with multiple queens. Other ants are the first to go under their attack.
I believe it was Maria who discovered the Crazy Ants on Christmas Island. We reported the activities of ants which seemed very like these to National Parks in August 1996 when we were disturbed by the number of sick and dying crabs under ant attack but the official date of their discovery is February 1997. Yellow crazy ants, Anoplolepis gracilipes, have overrun Christmas Island. Supercolonies now dominate
much of the rainforest, changing its structure by removing the crabs which control the undergrowth. Once this forest was very easy to walk through as the crabs ate nearly everything that hit the ground, including seeds. Those seeds which did germinate were browsed heavily by the crabs and only those with plenty of light managed to become established. The ants have killed 15-20 million of the island’s unique red land crabs.
Four ants that seriously threaten biodiversity are on the move in Australia. All of them appear on the World Conservation Union’s list of the World’s 100 Worst Alien Species:
- Red Imported Fire Ant, Solenopsis invicta
- Yellow Crazy Ant, Anoplolepis gracilipes
- African Big-headed Ant (Pheidole megacephala)
- Little Fire Ant or Electric Ant (Wasmannia auropunctata)
These ants profoundly alter ecosystems. The Queensland Government claims to know where red imported fire ants are and where they are not, but it has no such knowledge about crazy ant and electric ant infestations. The need to act against these ants could not be more urgent, because ants have a great potential to multiply beyond control.

The Invasive Species Council is fighting this and other issues. I recommend them to you.
Invasive Species Council Inc. www.invasives.org.au   PO Box 166, Fairfield, Vic 3078
email:  isc@invasives.org.au

6. Plants
The winter deciduous trees are putting on their new growth. Red Cedars are flushing with red new leaves. The spring deciduous trees are in their 'autumn' colours or have lost their leaves already. Cassia brewsteri in the front of our yard has no leaves and the Damson Plum next to it is a mass of red and gold. Soon the red and green flowers on the cassia will bloom. Some of the deciduous figs have lost their foliage in the last week and are already putting out new growth. The shower of falling stipules from around the new leaves gives the impression of a pink shower falling from the most vigorous growers.
Silver Ash, Flindersia bourjotiana, and Northern Tamarind are both in great flower now. The fruits of the tamarind will be welcome food for the fruit eaters which are still doing it tough after the cyclone.
Brown Laurel, cryptocaria triplinervis, is in heavy bud as is the Rusty Pittosporum, P. venulosum. Native Frangipani, Hymenosporum flavum, is in great flower around Yungaburra and Atherton. this is a rainforest tree with flowers perfumed rather like frangipanni. They start almost white, age through cream and yellow to a rich golden colour before falling.

7. Personal Bits and Pieces
Maria has continued to Work part time in Cairns as well as in Atherton. She now knows the range road really well.
Alan is taking up a part time education resource officer's position with the regional natural resource management group. This is an autonomous government body set up to fund projects in resource management, to facilitate best practise in industry and develop community awareness and capacity. The job will be to provide ideas, resources and contacts for school teachers in the teaching of biodiversity issues. It may involve inservicing teachers as well.
This means that our planned northern hemisphere holiday for 2007 is now off. Thanks to those who invited us to stay but it will now be at least another year before we head north.

8. This month's Quiz is about famous naturalists.
Who was know as the Modern Adam and why?
"On the Formation of Mould through the Action of Worms," was written by whom?
Which prolific shooter of wildlife, particularly birds, has an American conservation organisation named after him?
Name the Roman general turned naturalist who perished in Pompeii's eruption. 
He was an English cleric who wrote enthusiastically about nature and beautiful women. First to write on the territorial significance of bird song.

The answers to the Vicissitudinous Venal Quiz on Verbosity

volant                             flying
viviparous                     bearing live young
volva                             ring on a mushroom stalk
vitreous humour         gelatinous filling of the eyeball
viscera                          interior organs
vitelline                         egg yolk
vespertine                    crepuscular
vermivorous                 eating worms
vitric                                glassy
vesicular                        having spherical cavities