Wild BNE

I had a great day searching for insects in Daisy Hill Conservation Park today. I found some rare and unusual critters too. The most visually spectacular of them all was a beetle from the Rhipiphoridae family, which are also known as wedge-shaped beetles. The one I found was a male, as told by his extravagant antennae, and he was perched at the tip of a small wattle. Rhipiphorids have a surprising lifecycle for a beetle, with their grubs being internal parasitoids of other insects, including other beetles. The strangest of all the insects I found was actually one that found me! I was standing at the track edge on the Buhot Creek Circuit examining something that I can’t quite remember now, when I felt a fly land on my leg. When I looked down, I saw a fly like no other I had seen before. It had a flattened shape with a strange, hawk-like face, complete with hooked mouthparts, and I didn’t trust its intentions! I tried to shake it off, but it kept landing back on my leg repeatedly, and I r...

I’ve had such a good year exploring for wildlife! I really pushed myself into new territory, both figuratively as far as my nocturnal and underwater adventures went, and literally as I travelled to the USA. For this list of my favourite encounters, I have only included species that I’ve come across here in South-east Queensland, though rest assured that my time spent amongst black bears, alligators and hummingbirds made a huge impression on me!

White-throated nightjar, Cedar Creek. A foray into Plunkett Regional Park last Saturday night resulted in many excellent wildlife sightings, the highlight being white-throated nightjars (Eurostopodus mystacalis) .

Encompassing a landscape quite unlike any other in South-east Queensland, Plunkett Regional Park is somewhere local nature enthusiasts should know. The landscape of Plunkett features a variety of sandstone outcrops, boulder formations, cliffs and caves.

Tommy roundhead, Cedar Creek. On Good Friday, I hiked with some friends up into the rugged sandstone country of Plunkett Regional Park, a beauty of a reserve found at the southern end of Logan. Joseph’s Coat moths (Agarista agricola) , flowering slug herbs (Murdannia graminea) and a common bronzewing (Phaps chalcoptera) all made for enjoyable sights, but the highlight was a tiny dragon that crossed our paths on one of the more elevated trails.

Red-eyed tree frog, Springbrook. Last Sunday evening, I headed up into the Gold Coast hinterland to attend a frog-spotting walk organised by Ceris Ash of the Springbrook Wildlife Appreciation Group . Meeting at the Springbrook Community Hall at 7:15pm, I joined a lovely group of people led by Adam Maund, a local wildlife expert and talented photographer , who found a great selection of stunning frogs for us to admire.

From the Queensland/New South Wales border right up to Noosa, and out west to the Lockyer Valley, I had a great year exploring as much of South-east Queensland as I could manage! Some places stood above the rest, however, offering unique wildlife-viewing opportunities that I hope to take advantage of and share with you in 2017.

Goodbye Sweltering Summer, Hello Wildlife! Whistling Kite (Haliastur sphenurus), Bribie Island I think April might be my favourite month for wildlife watching. It was particularly productive last year  and I've met with similar success just now. I think as animals and birds come out of their spring and summer breeding seasons, their numbers are temporarily boosted and they relax and wander more, leading to increased viewing opportunities.

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.

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!