Southern Cassowary Photos

Casuarius casuarius

A definite highlight of the trip, seeing FOUR different wild Southern Cassowary! The first was the biggest...a huge adult bird in Daintree National Park on June 5th, 2019. We rounded a corner and saw it standing on the forest edge, looking every bit like a dinosaur from another time. We watched it for perhaps 15 minutes before it delighted us by stepping out of the forest and walking across the road  in front of us.  Later on that same day, we were treated to close views of a juvenile bird, foraging on it's own.

Later in the trip, we stayed at the Rainforest Canopy Treehouses near Tarzali. The owner states that since 1991, the same male bird has raised many young on his land. The big male was gone when we were there, but his two "chicks" from the previous year were certainly present and highly visible! I say "chicks", but even at 2/3rds their eventual size, they were massive birds, and had the full plumage/color pattern of the adults. We soon learned that their preferred drinking location was a muddy puddle at the base of our "treehouse". Some of the photos below show what these giant birds have to do to drink, basically sitting down as low as possible to be able to position themselves to both access the water, and tilt their heads back to swallow it. An amazing creature...we were thrilled to get a chance to see this massive creature in the wild.

Click here to return to home page for Australia trip photos

Click on photos below for a higher-resolution view

June 5th, 2019 Daintree National Park, Australia	June 5th, 2019 Daintree National Park, Australia	June 5th, 2019 Daintree National Park, Australia
June 5th, 2019 Daintree National Park, Australia	June 5th, 2019 Daintree National Park, Australia	June 5th, 2019 Daintree National Park, Australia
June 9th, 2019 Near Tarzali, Australia	June 9th, 2019 Near Tarzali, Australia	June 9th, 2019 Near Tarzali, Australia
June 9th, 2019 Near Tarzali, Australia	June 9th, 2019 Near Tarzali, Australia	June 9th, 2019 Near Tarzali, Australia
June 9th, 2019 Near Tarzali, Australia	June 9th, 2019 Near Tarzali, Australia

All photos copyrighted!  Click for information on commerical usage, or usage for other personal purposes.

Custom Search

SOUTH DAKOTA BIRDS AND BIRDING - LOCATIONS OF WEBSITE VISITORS

Please mail any comments/suggestions/additional links for this page to: Terry L. Sohl