Face to face with a wild cassowary in Mission Beach

Hi all,

We shot this video (poorly compressed but still watchable in 360p) on a rainforest walk in Mission Beach, QLD, home of the cassowary.

We were walking along one of the many paths, and rounded a bend. I was fiddling with my camera but my girlfriend suddenly stopped dead and said, "Look up!" And there, stepping lightly towards us down a slight decline, was an adult cassowary. I managed to flick the camera over to video and capture this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jsnDbSXXT8

The thing that struck us both was its complete lack of interest in us - it was clearly simply focused on scanning the ground for berries, seeing us as neither a threat nor a potential source of food. We love how it picks it feet up so gently, how the toes come together mid-step and splay when they touch the ground - utterly prehistoric.

We both feel very privleged to have had this experience :)

I do have the original HD version on my camera but at the time we had data upload restrictions, hence the lower quality. Alsp please forgive the expletive right at the end - I'm sure you can understand why it was said!

Cheers

Luke