Wild BNE

Earlier this month, I drove up to Airlie Beach in the Whitsunday Region to celebrate the 40th birthday of my close friend, Kat. Photo by Luke Martin. Our time there overlapped for one weekend, in which we enjoyed swims, drinks, hearty dinners and a sailing adventure around the islands. The celebrations and wonderful catch-ups flew by quickly, but when Kat and her husband Luke flew back down south on Sunday, I still had a week's worth of time at my disposal to explore the nature of Queensland's coast. I started with a journey into the forests of Conway National Park, just a ten minute drive east of Airlie Beach. I spent a sunny, humid morning walking up to the peak of Mount Rooper, through vine scrub and eucalypt forest. It was exhilarating!  I immediately saw a new species of bird for me in the carpark there, a female olive-backed sunbird (Cinnyris jugularis). After so much rain earlier in the week, the forest floor was also teeming with amazing fungi! After lunch back in town,...

I recently spent five nights at the delightful Shelly Beach Motel in Urangan, Hervey Bay. A large portion of each day was spent photographing insects and spiders, some of which I’ve shared on the Wild BNE Facebook page. It wasn’t all invertebrate study though, and I thought I’d share some of my other experiences here.  On my first day, I headed into Vernon Conservation Park, halfway between Hervey Bay and Maryborough. When I arrived, I saw that the tracks were heavily degraded by dirt bikes and illegal 4WD use, and being the school holidays, I knew it wouldn’t be long before such vehicles arrived that day too. I decided to follow some very faint wallaby trails deeper into the park, and I did so just in time, as the roaring dirt bikes showed up just ten minutes later. I appreciated the stringybark woodland that the trails led through, weaving my way through a shrub layer composed of hakeas, she-oaks and grevilleas. The bike noise became distant enough to no longer intrude on my sen...