Wild BNE

Having a car and a Driver's license this year greatly increased my scope for potential wildlife locations around South-east Queensland. How ironic then that my number one spot ended up being a tiny reserve near the main road of a busy suburb! Nature always finds a way to surprise me, no matter how well I think I've become acquainted with it. Thank you to each and every one of you who read this blog and/or follow the 'Wild BNE' Facebook page - I've loved sharing my adventures with you this year and look forward to a 'Wild' 2015! 1. Chelsea Street Environmental Reserve, Kippa-Ring. Resident Tawny Frogmouths (Podargus strigoides)  become active in the reserve shortly after sunset. How beautiful that among the swiftly expanding suburbs of the Redcliffe Peninsula, Chelsea Street Environmental Reserve  remains to preserve so much iconic Australian wildlife. Moreton Bay shire residents would do well to ensure that the

Of the top ten wildlife encounters I had this year, seven of them were with species I had never seen before. The amazing thing is, I didn't exactly have to travel to far-flung places to see these creatures either. Some of them were even seen in places like the outskirts of Caloundra, or among the busy new housing estates of North Lakes. This is why I love Brisbane, a place where the wilderness can creep into our suburbs and enrich our lives if we take the opportunity to notice it. Here is what I noticed this year! 1. Black Falcon , Jeebropilly. Black Falcon; Photo by David Jenkins courtesy of  'Birds as Poetry'. At a wetland out near Amberley Air Force Base in May, I saw nature's own version of a jet-fighter plane, and it was very impressive. Swooping in low over the water and scattering flocks of wildfowl into flight, I watched a Black Falcon - my first ever!

To increase my knowledge of the local area as well as my identification skills, I try and head out once a month to a new location to undertake a wildlife survey. Collected and published here are my surveys for 2014, just in case they are of interest to any researchers, surveyors or wildlife enthusiasts.

Bar-shouldered Dove Yesterday morning, I caught the 6am ferry over to Karragarra Island to check out the bird life there. While many of the three-hundred-and-sixty islands in Moreton Bay are nothing more than mangrove mounds, Karragarra and its neighbouring isles are well-established landforms. During the last ice age, these islands would have been small hills behind a coastline marked out by where Stradbroke and Moreton Island lie today, but rising sea-levels have since isolated these places from each other and the mainland. 

This month, I am presenting three photographs taken by other residents here in South-east Queensland. Supercell Thunderstorm, Kai Linkerhof. Approaching storm, Brisbane City.

Batty Boat Cruise departure point on the Brisbane River, with the CBD skyline in the background When I returned to Brisbane after living overseas for a few years, I was able to briefly see the city from a fresh perspective as I re-acclimatised to my surroundings. That was when I began to notice and appreciate a strange sight that happens every evening around our downtown district, one that long-term city residents undoubtedly take for granted. If you ever get to walk around the city centre at sunset yourself, you'll see what I mean. The bustling peak-hour crowds, the traffic and the noise will feel familiar no matter which city you are from. And when you look up at the skyscrapers towering into the evening air, well that could be a sight from any modern-day metropolis around the globe, couldn't it? But then you'll notice the bats.

A Parched Landscape Humpback Whale, Noosa Heads October has seen me showing off South-east Queensland to visiting guests from overseas. We have been enjoying sunny day after sunny day, but weeks on end without rain are starting to make the bush seem almost painfully dry. The month is concluding with record-breaking temperatures in areas away from the coast, and the heat is giving rise to towering clouds full of lightning. There's just one catch though

Wandering Percher (male) As a young man, I was always dismissive of Brisbane. My need for adventure took me far away, first to Sydney, then to London and Toronto. Eventually though, being on the other side of the world allowed me to see my home clearly for the first time, and when I finally returned to Brisbane, it was with love and pride. Showcasing South-east Queensland through my 'Wild BNE' blog and Facebook page has only increased my admiration for this beautiful city, and it leaves my hunger for adventure well satisfied. When I say I love Brisbane, I mean all of it. I find interesting and scenic places all around the city, from Bellbowrie to Brighton. Yesterday, a visiting English friend and I explored another delightful Brisbane location - Inala.

Signs of Spring Slender Hovea (Hovea lorata) , Bellbowrie Though it may be introducing itself to us gently this year, spring has definitely arrived in Brisbane! Temperatures have been slightly cooler than average, but decent rains from some robust storms have allowed the landscape to enter the new season with vigour. 

Squirrel Glider One of my favourite things about Brisbane is that native wildlife persists in our suburbs. One balmy night last week for example, I was thrilled to see a Squirrel Glider (Petaurus norfolcensis) less than a hundred meters away from houses in Kippa-Ring, a suburb on the Redcliffe Peninsula. If I had asked residents in the area how far I'd have to go to see such an animal however, I'm sure I would have been directed to National Parks forty kilometers away or more.

Rains bring mercy for some, but not others. Warning: Graphic image may cause distress Native Sarsaparilla, Ormiston August is often a fairly dry month for Brisbane, but the clouds have paid no attention to the calendar in recent weeks. Heavy, soaking rains have settled in over successive weekends, reviving lowland catchment areas and showing mercy upon previously parched plant life.  Before the rains hit, I undertook a plant survey along Hilliards Creek, in the Redlands. Longtime 'Wild BNE' fans may remember a post I made last year about the  fish of this waterway , and once again, it was a beautiful place to spend time in. On this occasion, I was pleased to become acquainted with Weeping Figs (Ficus benjamina)

Brisbane is changing.  When people say this, they usually refer to the cosmopolitan aspirations of a city no longer content to be regarded as an overgrown country town. It is now a city that caters to an affluent, expansive and modern middle class, offering fine-dining, bars, shopping precincts and lifestyle options that rival those found in Sydney and Melbourne, perhaps for the first time in its history. But I have lived here long enough to notice other ways in which Brisbane is changing. Rainbow Lorikeet, Bracken Ridge When I was a young boy with a bird interest, I could study the feathered visitors to my garden and neighbourhood for hours. I especially loved the evenly-mixed flocks of Rainbow (Trichoglossus haematodus) and Scaly-breasted Lorikeets (T. chlorolepidotus) that would visit the grevilleas Mum had planted around our housing commission yard in Bracken Ridge. Today, the Rainbow Lorikeets are as numerous as ever around Brisbane's suburbs, but the Scaly-breast...

Yellow Bittern Hysteria! Australian Little Bittern, North Lakes Earlier this month, a report went up on the  'Eremaea'  website: a Yellow Bittern (Ixobrychus sinensis) had been sighted at North Lakes. For those not yet initiated into the world of vagrant bird sightings, this is the feathered equivalent of a wild mongoose or monkey suddenly appearing in Brisbane of its own accord. Considered the first ever verified sighting of a live Yellow Bittern on the Australian mainland, this species usually has a home range across Asia, extending as far south as Indonesia. Little did we know, this little bird was set to tear the bird-watching community apart!

A few months ago, my friend Noah asked me where I get my wildlife knowledge from, thinking that perhaps I am currently undertaking a degree in a relevant subject area. This is not the case. Apart from my good grades in high school biology, I've never obtained any formal qualifications in animal study (though this is something that may change next year), and almost everything I know is self-taught. Sometimes I feel like my friends hold an un-earned level of respect for my skills, viewing my outdoor abilities as proof of me having an intuitive understanding of the natural world, when the truth is much more banal. The simple fact is, I spend a LOT of time utilising a wide range of fantastic resources which have helped build my knowledge of this subject area over a few years. Here, I wish to share with you some of these repositories of knowledge, so that any 'Wild BNE' reader out there can benefit from them also. Of course, many people reading this are much, much more knowledge...

Landscape of the Month What's so special about it? Platypus, Broken River Located along the Queensland coast near Mackay, the Broken River is the best place in the world to see wild Platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus). In the rest of their range, Platypus are notoriously shy and crepuscular creatures, but the population in Broken River can be easily observed from the river bank at almost any time of day. The Broken River is also famous for the ancient fossils found inside its rockbeds, including the preserved remains of primitive fish from 400 million years ago.

Snowflakes in Sandgate It seems like I am always starting off these monthly wildlife reports by saying that it's been a warmer-than-average month, and this holds true for June 2014 also. While this has led to some beautifully sunny and mild days for nature exploration, the effects on wildlife behaviour have not gone unnoticed.

Grey Fantail Speckled Warbler One of the first things you'll notice when you look at the woodland along Raysource Road is the barbed wire - there's lots of it! Situated in the rural Ipswich suburb of Haigslea, the area's bushland exists solely because private landowners allow it to. The farms here stock small numbers of Cattle, but several key blocks of land seem to hold nothing but wonderfully dense stands of old-growth woodland. Stay respectfully on the correct side of the barbed wire and you will experience a South-east Queensland 'secret' birding spot of excellent quality! To see what other

Seasons of change along the Great Dividing Range Left to right: Yellow-billed Spoonbill, Australian Pelican (Pelecanus conspicillatus) and a Black Swan (Cygnus atratus)  pair, Jeebropilly I was watching a Yellow-billed Spoonbill (Platalea flavipes) ou t past Ipswich when I saw it. My initial impression was that of a swift dark blur in the corner of my eye, but the waterbirds already knew of the danger they were in and burst into flight. There amongst the weaving ducks and egrets, my vision locked on to the cause of all this alarm - my very first Black Falcon (Falco subniger). A nd what a beauty it was!

I've never really taken much notice of plants until recently, regarding them usually as just the thing that a bird perches on while you're watching it. This week I decided it was time to change that attitude by trying my hand at plant identification in Denmark Hill Conservation Park, located in the centre of Ipswich. The park is just 11.5 hectares in size, but preserves a patch of bushland that acts as an 'island refuge' in a sea of suburbia. I did my best to focus on the trees and not be too distracted by birds or the resident Koala   (Phascolarctos cinereus)  population, and came up with nine interesting trees and plants seen on the Water Tower Circuit.

Wildlife and Waterspouts! Nature can be both cruel and kind within a short space of time. South-east Queensland residents have been blessed with perfect weather around the Easter and ANZAC Day long weekends, and I've certainly made the most of it, with daytrips out to a variety of areas. Buckley's Hole Conservation Park, Bribie Island. But these sunny days and clear skies of late almost seem like an apology from 'Mother Nature', after she unleashed a Sunday-afternoon thunderstorm upon us earlier this month that was breath-taking in its ferocity. Born in the hinterlands to the south-west of Brisbane, the storm cut power to some suburbs and then gained strength as it moved out over Deception Bay, forming waterspouts just off the southern coastline of Bribie Island.

It goes without saying that the freedom of being able to drive has expanded my wildlife-watching opportunities. I used to be bound by public transport access and timetables, so that only suburban reserves could be explored, usually around mid-morning or late afternoon. Interestingly though, since getting my license, I haven't really used my newfound liberty to head out to the well-known National Parks and wildlife hotspots yet. Instead, I prefer to survey unmarked but intriguing patches of bushland I see on satellite maps, and this is how I came to be walking down a country lane in the Sunshine Coast hinterland at dawn yesterday. Sunrise along Policeman Spur Road, Harper Creek

 Last Days of Summer Cloudy evening skies over Moreton Bay, Sandgate. Despite humid conditions and cloudy days, Brisbane received only 15.8mm of rainfall this month, making it the driest February since 1859. Some species adjust to these circumstances better than others. Unlike most other

Sometimes when I wildlife-watch, I watch a little too closely. My focus becomes so swallowed up by living, breathing detail - whiskers, feathers, eyes, scales, form, movement, behaviour - that I miss out on the bigger picture. The environment in which an animal lives is the canvas upon which its very life is painted into, and observing this relationship can offer as much beauty as the best art gallery. Yesterday's journey around the shores of Lake Somerset, a 52km long artificial swelling of the Stanley River, allowed me to ponder this bond between wild animals and their surroundings further.

North Lakes Town Park 'Lifers', Migrants and Climate Change. It's been a great start to the year for wildlife watching in South-East Queensland, especially for bird life. As this is therefore a 'bird heavy' post, I've shared this with 'Wild Bird Wednesday' , Stewart Monckton's excellent weekly collection of bird blogs that you should check out if you haven't already. This month I saw two new 'lifers' (ie. species I've never seen before) in the one location - the Moreton Bay Shire suburb of North Lakes. Sighted there earlier in January was a White-browed Crake (Porzana cinerea), a tropical species usually only found in the far north of the continent. Birdwatchers raced to the area after the bird was reported, in order to get

I spent Monday night of this week in the Redlands, searching along Hilliards Creek for frogs. Surveying wildlife in this area is not a new thing for me, and some of you may remember that I wrote a  feature last year on the fish found in this waterway.  I