Chinnup – winter – season of cockatoos
Late May to end of July
Chinnup is depicted by cockatoos, fungi as well as clothes and totems.
Return of Aquila constellation (Bunjil).
The lifestyle for the Gariwerd communities during chinnup:
Bands moved to rock shelters in the hills for refuge.
Long cloaks were made from possum skins.
Old people and pregnant women rubbed emu fat into the skin for protection from the cold.
For ornamentation people wore kangaroo teeth necklaces, hat mats and nose piercings.
For the woodland areas of Gariwerd, chinnup brings the following:
- Plants
- Fungi appear including:
coral fungus on mossy ground
boletus fungi in wet litter
First of the winter orchids including:
tall greenhood and early nancy lilly in flower
first nodding greenhoods and helmet orchids flower
first flowering chocolate lilies
Many early wattles flowering:
long leafed wattle in flower
golden wattle and prickly moses in flower
cranberry heath in flower
Fire damaged trees show epicormics shoots.
Yellow box flowering.
- Mammal
- Possums have young in pouch during chinnup.
Sugar gliders give birth.
Echidnas are searching for mates.
- Birds
- Several bird species nesting including:
brown thornbill building first nests
scrub wrens
jacky winter flycatcher returning to nesting sites
dive bombing magpies and lapwings
Many birds active and on the move:
shrike tits tear bark off manna gums
yellow tailed cockatoos on the move
first calls can be heard of fantailed cuckoos
flocks of sittellas pass through
yellow tailed cockatoos seek new feeding grounds
newly flowering eucalypts attract honeyeaters
noisy miners call loudly at dawn
satin bowerbirds on the move
little ravens flocking
powerful owls laying eggs
For the wetlands areas of Gariwerd, chinnup means the following:
- Birds
- Large flocks of pink eared ducks seen on lakes.
Swans and coot graze on lake shores.
Rising waters cause ducks to seek new feeding and nesting areas.
Lapwings are nesting on eggs.
- Reptiles/ Amphibians
- Frogs actively calling during chinnup.
- Insects
- Ponds full of little water creatures.
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