Contributed by Joy Window, Member – Big Scrub Landcare Grey-headed flying foxes (Pteropus poliocephalus) are familiar to many of us who have gardens – they eat pollen, nectar and fruit there when their wild sources of food are scarce. Because most of their wild habitat (including the Big Scrub) has been destroyed by humans, they...
Contributed by Sally Cooper Where do the seedlings you use in your revegetation projects come from? I’m not talking about which nursery they were purchased from; I am talking about where they were collected from as seed or cuttings. Where were the seedlings’ parents located? Was the seed sourced locally or from further afield or...
Contributed by Ken Dorey, Big Scrub Landcare Dingy Swallowtail butterfly (Papilio anactus). Image provided courtesy of James Dorey. Butterflies do their best to get our attention but they seem doomed to be overshadowed by birds. Birds are bigger and louder but butterflies do have some advantages when it comes to identification. For a start, there...
Contributed by Joy Window, Member, Big Scrub Landcare What has large, hairy feet and lurks in the rainforest? No, not a yowie, but the southern myotis (Myotis macropus, aka the large-footed myotis or fishing bat). This bat has big feet for its size – while its wingspan may be 28 cm, its feet may be...
Contributed by Ken Dorey, Member Big Scrub Landcare. Birds may have evolved from dinosaurs but they’ve definitely upped their game in the PR department. They’re proactive in getting your attention, only too happy to flash colour and sing perfect notes – and all for free for those who stop to watch and listen. Ken Dorey...
Contributed by Joy Window, Member, Big Scrub Landcare. In the rainforest, the calls of unseen birds echo eerily through the treetops. Closer to the ground, you might hear the odd chortles and whirrs of the Alberts lyrebird (Menura alberti), found only in south-east Queensland and northern New South Wales – for instance, in the former...
Contributed by Stephanie Lymburner, Committee Member, Big Scrub Landcare. The Richmond River Birdwing Butterfly was a reasonably common species when the Big Scrub rainforest once covered this region; its range extended from Grafton to the subtropical rainforest around Noosa in Queensland. This range has been severely modified due to extensive habitat destruction for timber, dairy...
Contributed by Ken Dorey, Committee Member, Big Scrub Landcare. In a previous edition of this newsletter, entitled Don’t Panic, I urged readers not to become frustrated at not instantly recognising the name of every species of flora or fauna in your forest – give it time. But we do wish to learn. In this edition,...
Contributed by Shannon Greenfields, Manager, Big Scrub Landcare I grew Lomandra from seed as a teenager with remarkable success – so I thought why not give it another go? It’s one of the easiest native plants to grow – cost efficient, fun and the kids can join in; and there is a certain satisfaction when...
Contributed by Joy Window, Member, Big Scrub Landcare When you’re out in the Big Scrub rainforest and want to rest against a tree, don’t lean against this curtain of silk. Underneath it may be the highly venomous northern tree funnelweb (Hadronyche formidabilis). You can see the silk trip-lines that alert the spider to things crawling...
