The Tree Blog

Archive for the ‘Wildlife’ Category

Some interesting recent articles about animals just falling dead from trees.

A bizarre mix of trees and wildlife incidents have happened in the last few weeks …

The Herald Sun in Melbourne published a story about a massive possum die off in the suburb of Casey, around 70% of the total population, for which a recent heatwave has been blamed.  Also in Victoria, the Herald Sun reported that a large number of koalas had been either killed or badly burned in this week’s bushfires.  Meanwhile in Bundamba near Ipswich in South East Queensland, up to 60 native parrots were falling dead from trees in an unexplained fashion according to the Brisbane Times.

While on the other side of the planet, southern Florida in the United States, the chilly weather has seen a spate of warm blooded iguana simply falling from the trees.

Three frogmouths up the tree

Last week I was on this block doing a land clear when I took this great picture of three Tawny Frogmouth (owls) on Alphitonia excelsa (red ash) in Riverhills, Brisbane.   We left this tree standing until the end of the day.  We used a pole saw to tilt the branch that they were on and they were happy to fly away.

If you come across these guys on a removal, it is important to leave it until as late in the day as possible.  This is because they have night eyes and don’t see very well and the local minor birds give them a really hard time.   According to the neighbour they had been residing in his grey gum which remains.  The grey gum had recently shed its annual bark and meant that they weren’t as camouflaged as they normally would be, it was only a temporary roost, as normally they would select a tree which provided better daytime refuge.

I got a great chance to see these fantastic birds close up whilst I was working on an adjacent tree.