‘Chainsaw’ is a beautiful Sulphur Crested Cockatoo and she is the beloved pet and constant companion of Paluma resident Jim – best known to his friends as ‘Jungle Jim’ for the fact that he lives on a bush block about 35 km west of the village. Jim and Chainsaw have been together for 28 years.
Jim and Chainsaw
Chainsaw’s story is an interesting one.
Jim found Chainsaw, or more correctly, she found Jim when she flew into his home one day from out of the blue. Jim says that she was already quite tame, fond of attention and she knew a few words. Jim thinks she definitely had a previous owner and perhaps an elderly or sick person because Chainsaw would mimic ‘coughing’ noises. At first, Jim tried to discourage her from staying, hoping that she would return to her former owner.
The rest of this story is history. Chainsaw never left and now Jim and Chainsaw are inseparable. Both have recently enjoyed a holiday to the coast to see Jim’s family. Chainsaw enjoyed the trip immensely, with Jim’s extended family lavishing her with attention. Jim named ‘Chainsaw’ in honour of the renowned and famous bucking bull who was doing the rodeo circuit back at the time she arrived.
This unlikely partnership between bird and bushman is surely a match made in heaven.
Last weekend Paluma Village was host to Jason Taylor and the team from Category 5 Emergency Care based out of Cairns. Jason conducted an Emergency and First Aid Training Course over several days at the Paluma Community Hall with emphasis on survival training and rescue in wilderness and remote locations. The course was well attended with over 20 participants. The Category 5 Emergency Care group specialises in teaching first aid training, event medical coverage, lifeguard courses and sports trainer education.
The training course included both theory and practical sessions with the participants actively engaged in several ‘mock scenarios’ in which they get to practice and hone their newly learned rescue skills.
Theory learning sessions took place at the Paluma Community Hall.
Practical sessions were held at the Village Green and one detailed ‘mock scenario’ on Sunday afternoon took place at the Paluma Weir. The emergency scenario as follows:-
A group of weary bush walkers was returning from several days of hiking in the wilderness. Upon nearing the Paluma settlement there was an unexpected bridge collapse at the Paluma Weir. There were numerous casualties with a range of injuries from potential spinal injuries, to broken and sprained limbs, possible concussion, cuts and abrasions. Medical assistance would be more than one hour in arriving at Paluma. Those who were injured and incapacitated were rendered first aid by those who were not injured and/or who were at the scene, using only the first aid supplies and materials from their hiking backpacks.
Practical training in rescue skills at the Village Green.
The life-like emergency scenario at the Paluma Weir was fascinating to observe. The photographs below show the practical training in action.
You can imagine the complete surprise of a couple of unsuspecting tourists who came upon the grisly scene at the weir on the Andre Griffin Walking Track on Sunday afternoon, with injured and bloodied bodies strewn along and adjacent to the walking track! Much to their relief, they were quickly reassured that emergency and rescue training was in session.
You can watch a slide show of all the photographs of the Paluma Weir training scenario, at the end of the post.
Our unique mountain climate at Paluma has inspired many of us keen gardeners to experiment with growing plants from the more temperate climes. Many local gardeners have had great success with a range of ‘cool climate’ plants.
There’s Len Cook’s superb collection of camellias and magnolias (recently featured in a post on this website). Colwyn grows some spectacular blue hydrangeas, with large flower heads every bit as good as those grown in the south. Lynda has had great success with her potted Asiatic liliums and she currently has colourful pots of blooming pansies and violas. The Bligh’s have a Japanese inspired garden and water feature with some cool-climate conifers. The Cooke’s flowering peach tree is a sight to behold just now in full blossom. Then there’s the Van Rynswoud’s with their array of temperate plants – let’s face it, those two can grow just about anything!
But, in my books the ‘garden gong’ for Winter 2020 has to go to Jennie for her potted jonquils and daffodils. A few months ago, Jennie planted several jonquil and daffodil bulbs in large tubs. The jonquils have prospered producing several heads of creamy and highly fragment blooms. Likewise, her daffodils bulbs have sprouted lush foliage. So far, there is one large perfect flower, hopefully with many more blooms to come.
Jennie’s Jonquils!
Several of us (myself included) have planted daffodils bulbs each year to have them produce lush foliage, but no blooms. Jennie’s theory is that this year the weather has been cold enough to encourage the bulbs to flower. She is currently the envy of many a gardener around the village. Jonquils and daffodils in the wet tropics – what an achievement!
The single, perfect golden daffodil bloom.
In conducting ‘research’ for this article (several cups of tea and a good gossip), I was informed that the late Kelly Davis planted jonquil bulbs every year. Marilyn said he was diligent in planting, raising, storing and then re-planting the bulbs each year in a small, dedicated garden bed at his Paluma residence. Together, Kelly and Marilyn planted their jonquil bulbs earlier this year. The jonquils have been blooming with an abundance of flowers for the past fortnight. While Kelly missed their flowering this year, bunches of the fragrant blooms have been shared amongst his Paluma friends and family. They are a warm reminder of his everlasting presence in the village and his legacy as one of our great gardeners.
When Len Cook’s beautiful Magnolia was featured recently in ‘What’s Blooming in Paluma’, I felt that this plant deserves more than just a brief mention. So, having read a little about the Magnolia family, I would like to share with you, a little of what I have learnt.
The Magnolia is one of about 210 flowering plant species in the sub-family Magnolioidaceae of the family Magnoliaceae. It was named after the French botanist, Pierre Magnol.
The Magnolia is an ancient genus, one of the most primitive plants in evolutionary history. Fossil records suggest that the genus has existed from the Cretaceous Period (145-66 million years ago). The Magnolia was the first flowering plant, appearing around 95 million years ago. Before this were only ferns, horsetails, cycads and conifers. The connection with conifers can be seen in the protruding female organs which develop into a cone-like mass of seeds. The flower bud is enclosed in a bract rather than in sepals. The perianth parts are undifferentiated (similar in size and shape) and called tepals rather than distinct sepals and petals. The cone-like receptacle in the centre is composed of numerous spirally arranged carpels and numerous spirally arranged stamens.
The Magnolia evolved before bees and pollination is by beetles and beetle-type insects. To improve its means of successful pollination the inner tepals of the flower remain tightly closed, allowing visiting beetles to feed safely and become covered in pollen. Magnolias are monoecious, that is, bearing both male and female organs on the same specimen. To counteract the risk of self-pollination, individual plants will not mature their male and female organs at the same time. This enables pollen from one specimen’s male flower to reach the female organ of another.
Before the last Ice Age, distribution was across most of the Northern Hemisphere: mainland Europe, North America and Asia. Since the Ice Age, it has been restricted to southern USA, Central America and South-East Asia, however Magnolias have naturalised in many countries.
Apart from the large Magnolia genus, the family contains the fragrant Michelias and the tulip tree.
Although the flower colour may be only white, pink or purple, the flower shape has taken on a great variety with blooms being described as lily, goblet, cup or star shaped. One species, the rare giant Himalayan Magnolia (M. campbelli), may grow to 15 metres and has huge flowers, 25 centimetres across.
Many beautiful and varied plants have been hybridised. For example, from hybridising M. heptapeta and M.quinquipeta comes a host of M.soulangiana varieties from which in turn other cultivars have been developed.
Magnolias are fairly hardy but should be planted in a sheltered position, out of direct wind and rain. Ideally, they should be with other plants where they will get light, shade and shelter, but not too dense as they need sunlight to encourage flower formation. They are often difficult to transplant, especially when large. Layering is probably the best way of propagating or taking cuttings from a heel of older wood.
What a magnificent and venerable tree this is. And what a survivor!
Len Cook planted this magnificent Magnolia more than thirty years ago. Every winter since then, he has enjoyed the classical beauty and subtle, sweet perfume of the glorious, goblet-shaped flowers.
The Magnolia is a large genus of about 210 flowering plant species in the sub-family Magnolioidaceae of the family Magnoliaceae. It was named after the French botanist, Pierre Magnol. It is an ancient genus, appearing before bees did and it is believed the plants evolved to encourage pollination by beetles.
The Magnolia has such an interesting history that it deserves a more detailed article devoted to it. I shall endeavour to do this soon.
Jan and I are leaving in two weeks to head back to Northern Territory for a few months and have been expecting that this would mean we would miss the mating rituals of the Victoria’s Rifle Bird (Ptiloris victoriae)…..yet again.
But we got lucky on Friday when we came back from shopping in Ingham and barely had time to sit down before a different call from a male VRB made us check out the feed tray and tree fern post out on the verandah.
And there he was, getting right into it … a very early bird by the entries in bird books which list the VRB breeding season as September to January, obviously with male competition for female partners pretty much done and dusted before our usual return to Paluma in late October.
We got lucky, but Mr Riflebird wasn’t so lucky, despite a very intense performance on top of the tree fern.
He started calling with wings upswept while facing the bushes off the verandah where VRBs, Honeyeaters, Catbirds and Satin Bowerbirds queue for the fruit buffet.
Still photos unfortunately don’t show the movements that go with each pose … with wings up, he kept in constant up and down motion by bending his legs while at the same time opening and closing his beak to get the bright yellow gape into the display.
Things were looking good when a female landed on the tree fern just below him and looked up, at which point he dropped his left wing and played some peek-a-boo by hiding his head behind the right wing.
Then the day’s ration of watermelon caught her attention and she dropped to the food tray. While he kept on with his performance she looked up, looked right but eventually swiped left, preferring watermelon to his advances.
He was so intensely focused and hormonal that he paid no attention to me moving around on the verandah to get better camera angles. Light was fading and I had to crank up the ISO to 3000 to get a workable shutter speed.
This morning I went looking for more information about VRB courting and couldn’t find much…except what would seem to be the seminal document on this subject written by Harry Frith and William Cooper and published in Emu, the journal of Birds Australia, now published by CSIRO.
Great abstract online at:- https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1071/MU9960102, but if you want to read the whole article online it’ll cost you 50 bucks American… if you want to download that whole issue of Emu that’ll cost you $230 AUD. Universities usually have deals that get their people open access to academic publications but my university contacts couldn’t get free access via JCU or Monash. The hegemony of the ‘big boys’ in academic publishing is a very vexed issue, even for those working in the academy. For the rest of us, bad luck.
But back to the joyful experience of watching this display of unbridled avian lust. In wings-up display, we get to see mauve feathers at the base of the wings and a mauve streak running back from the eye alongside the blue spangled cap. Wow, I said!
What we didn’t get to hear was what Frith and Cooper describe as “a vigorous alternate wing clap display that all but embraces the female with rapidly alternating wing extensions and synchronous jerking of the stiffly rigid head and neck between them at a progressively rapid tempo until copulation.”
Clearly once she swiped left that wasn’t going to happen!
Here’s hoping we get to see a few more displays before we disappear towards the north west for a few months.
Talking with other villagers today the question was asked about the apparently unseasonal courting behaviour … is this just a precocious individual bird or is this another sign of the “new normal” as we see more unseasonal animal behaviour and plant flowering and fruiting?
Love to hear what unusual biological phenomena others are seeing??
Text & Photos by Peter Cooke, with Jan Cooke
Footnote: For those unfamiliar with the phrase “swiping left” Dictionary.com offers this definition: (On the online dating app Tinder) indicates that one finds someone attractive (or unattractive) by moving one’s finger to the right (or left) across an image of them on a touch screen. “I swiped right, but sadly for me, she swiped left”.
Further Information:-
Courtship Display and Mating of Victoria’s Riflebird (Ptiloris victoriae) with Notes on the Courtship Displays of Congeneric Species
“The courtship display and mating of Victoria’s Riflebird (Ptiloris victoriae) are described from numerous hours of direct observations and 117 minutes of videotape. Courtship display is typically performed on the apex of a vertical dead tree trunk stump and consists of three discrete components: Calling with the associated exposure of a bright mouth, a circular wings and gape display and a vigorous alternate wing clap display that all but embraces the female with rapidly alternating wing extensions and synchronous jerking of the stiffly rigid head and neck between them at a progressively rapid tempo until copulation. Subjective observations indicate that in immature, female- and sub-adult male-plumaged males the advertisement call is inferior in power and the courtship displays lacking in synchronisation and coordination of postures and movements. Victoria’s Riflebird courtship is compared with that of congeneric riflebirds and with other sexually dimorphic polygynous birds of paradise and similarities discussed. Contrary to previous views, the courtship display of Victoria’s Riflebird involves a progressive series of specific postures and movements increasing in tempo and leading to copulation. Some of its courtship behaviour is similar to that of other genera in the Paradisaeinae”.
Birdwatchers at Paluma continue to be delighted by the hive of activity amongst the local birdlife during these fine, sunny winter days. Here’s a further selection of birds seen and out and about in the village over recent days by Peter and Jan Cooke.
Golden whistler at Smith Crescent this morning.
Female Satin Bowerbird. When the light’s right the Satin Bowerbirds’ plumage shows such subtle variation. Male Satin Bowerbird.Male Satin Bowerbird.Female Riflebird or young male?Tooth-billed Bowerbird also spotted at Smith’s Crescent today.
Honeyeaters are probably the most seen and most numerous birds in the Paluma village. Lewin’s Honeyeater, Macleay’s Honeyeater and the White-Cheeked Honeyeater are commonly seen. The Yellow Spotted Honeyeater is here also, but it is difficult to distinguish from the look-alike Lewin’s, other than by call. Paluma is also said to be at the southern edge of the range for the Bridled Honeyeater (Bolemoreus frenatus).
Wikipedia says the Bridled Honeyeater is a North Queensland endemic with a range that extends from the Bloomfield-Mt Amos area, south to Mt Spec. Its favoured habitat is subtropical or tropical moist upland forests and subtropical or tropical rainforests, usually above 300 metres. But in winter, it descends to lower forests including mangroves, and can sometimes be seen in more open habitats. It’s said to be mostly solitary and elusive, but when trees are fruiting or flowering they may gather in large, quarrelsome flocks.
Over the past four years of bird watching, Jan and I have seen the Bridled Honeyeater only twice, and not in down-town Paluma. Our observations have been recorded at Paluma Dam and out on Don Battersby’s little rainforest patch on his Hussey Road acreage block. The photographs below were taken at Don’s place in February 2017.
So, although Bridled Honeyeaters are unlikely to be here in winter, it’s surprising we haven’t seen them over four successive wet seasons in and around the village.
We’re wondering what observations others can share about this interesting bird with its bi-coloured beak, bright blue eyes and distinctive white eye markings. Have you seen the Bridled Honeyeater at Paluma?
Whilst it might be winter and a little chilly at Paluma, it hasn’t deterred the local birdlife from getting out and about amongst the village gardens and adjacent rainforest. Paluma is always a great place to do a spot of bird watching. These fine, sunny winter days are ideal for a stroll in the village and the opportunities abound to catch a glimpse of some locally common species. Peter and Jan Cooke have done just that, recently sighting the following birds in their own garden and throughout the village.
Crimson Rosella tucking into the nectar-laden grevillea flower spikes at No. 56 Mt Spec Road. This stunning flower is Grevillea Moonlight, a hybrid of G. banksii and G. whiteana.Another feasting Crimson Rosella, this time enjoying the powder-puff flowers of a red Calliandra. This Eastern Spinebill was up at dawn to enjoy the flowers of Grevillea Firesprite.Recently a pair of Grey Fantails have been cruising up and down Mt Spec Road….perching momentarily and then demonstrating great aerial acrobatics to take insects in flight.
Photos by Peter Cooke. Text by Peter Cooke and Michele Bird.
Vireya or Tropical Rhododendrons are currently blooming amongst Paluma gardens, providing a blaze of brilliant winter colour. Vireya’s are evergreen shrubs producing clusters of trumpet-shaped blooms several times a year. There are many cultivars and they come in a superb range of bright tropical colours. Some varieties have sweetly fragrant flowers. They are native to southeastern Asia and range from Thailand to Australia. They thrive in the cool mountain climate at Paluma and they are relatively easy to grow provided they have good drainage. Some of the varieties in beautiful bloom during June are shown below.
