This was published 7 years ago
Buster busts in on far north Queensland beach wedding
By Amy Mitchell-Whittington
A north Queensland wedding had a surprise guest when a cassowary named Buster decided to take a walk down their beach aisle.
Cassowary Wedding Arches owner Rebecca Neill was at Etty Bay, south of Cairns, helping to set up a beach wedding when she first spotted the cheeky cassowary.
Here come the bride, er, bird: Buster the cassowary showed up to the Etty Beach wedding on July 1.Credit: Cairns Wedding Arches
"He was hanging around the majority of the day at the caravan park, going from beach to road to beach to road," she said.
Once the wedding ceremony wrapped up, after the bridal party took off to have their pictures taken, the endangered bird made his appearance at the start of the aisle.
Buster frequents the Etty Beach caravan park often.Credit: Cairns Wedding Arches
"The ceremony had finished and he just appeared out of nowhere and happened to stand on the end of the aisle runner while I was on the other side. He really surprised me," Ms Neill said.
"I had been trying to get a photo of him all day and then it was just like, 'Oh, there he is'. You would never think in a million years he would stand there, you couldn't have planned that if you tried."
Ms Neill said it was the first time she had seen a cassowary, which appeared to have a "pretty cool" temperament.
"He didn't seem too worried, I assume he must be a local," she said.
"I think I was probably more surprised than anyone else because I had never seen one before.
"People at the caravan park were like, 'Oh, there is the cassowary'."
Ms Neill said the bird ran off down the beach not long after the picture was taken, perhaps embarrassed his bride didn't show up to the event.
"He didn't seem threatened or scared, he just ran around minding his own business and he happened to get his photo taken," Ms Neill said.
"You don't get to see them much in the wild let alone at the end of an aisle runner, it really made my day, it was one of those memorable moments."
Etty Bay Caravan Park and Kiosk leasee Antoinette Duncan said four resident cassowaries were known to wander through the caravan park, and the one that crashed the wedding was a 15-year-old male named Buster.
"That is our regular male, our cassowaries are here often, between dawn and dusk," Ms Duncan said.
Ms Duncan said there were two females, called Etty and Marylin, as well as another male called Bimbo who had been looking after four 12-month-old chicks called Huey, Duey, Luey and Catch Up.
"It's the female that chases the male at mating time. Once she has mated with the male, she lays the eggs and then takes off to mate again," she said.
"Dad sits on the eggs and incubates them and stays with chicks until 12-18 months.
"We are so lucky this other one has four and have survived; we get a lot of visitors here and if they don't know the area and are speeding it is really hard to see the chicks.
"They are very much subject to road kill."
Ms Duncan said Buster was not the first of their cassowaries to be snapped in a candid moment.
"One of the ladies does massage and beauty treatments while they are here," Ms Duncan said.
"One time Etty went inside this woman's annex and came out and a photo was snapped as she was just coming out with the beauty sign above her, it was just classical."