September Outing Details - Spicers Gap, Saturday 20th September 2025

FFNC at Spicers Gap in 2022
Photo: L. Beaton

Time: 8:30 am

Where: Spicers Gap day-use area, near the campground, and opposite the mango farm.

Directions: Directions-Route A: From the Dugandan Pub (0kms) - head south and take the Mt Alford turnoff (right turn). Go through Mt Alford and on to Moogerah – up over the ridge on Mt Alford Road. At 28kms turn left into Lake Moogerah Road and the sign says to Mt Edwards. Go over Reynolds Creek bridge and on some good dirt until 38kms -turn left into Spicers Gap Road. There is bitumen for 3kms and then about 4kms of good dirt, but steep in places. 

Directions-Route B: alternate route. Get onto Cunningham Highway and travel south through Aratula for about 5kms and turn left into Lake Moogerah Road. Travel about 5kms until you hit Spicers Gap Road on the right.

Activities: Spring will have sprung. There will be birds and butterflies everywhere. It is a while since we went there last - 2022. The bush has come back a lot more since those fires of 2019. There are tall forest areas and rainforest pockets. There are tracks and roadsides –all reasonably flatish. There is even a spring-fed well (Moss’s Well). For those who want to walk a lot there is the Mt Matheson Track or the old road.  

We will stay up in the mountains for lunch. We might hang-around the campground for a bit; up the Matheson Track for a short distance; Moss’s Well and road for a bit; and maybe Governors Chair for a bit.

Level of Fitness: As easy or as strenuous as you like, your choice. 

Facilities: Picnic tables, toilet.

What to Bring: suitable clothing and footwear for walking in the bush, sunscreen, insect repellent, safety stuff, water, morning tea and lunch, chair, and the usual naturalist stuff of your choice; binoculars, camera, field guides, notebook, etc.

Upon Arrival: Please register in the Attendance Book and pay your $2 per person participant fee. 

July Outing Report - Sherwood Arboretum & Oxley Common, Saturday 21 June 2025

Adapted from the FFNC August 2025 newsletter report by K. McCosh

Little Pied Cormorant
Photo: FFNC member

A warm winter’s day greeted us at the Sherwood Arboretum for a city-based outing to a place I hadn’t seen for ages. Barry showed us around and gave some background to the Arboretum. It is quite a historical place. An “arboretum” is a place devoted to trees. This arboretum was certainly full of trees, with two rows of big old Kauri Pines down the middle. Various specimen trees had been planted across the site – some exotic but mostly Australian natives. 

The site is a low-lying creek area next to the Brisbane River, so it goes under water often. A small lagoon provides great habitat for waterfowl, but no rarities were seen today. We could hear dingoes howling at one time. I don’t think dingoes live in the revegetated creek bank area, that the western suburbs branch of SGAP has worked hard on. I hope it was from Lone Pine Zoo, at Fig Tree Pocket, just across the river from Sherwood. 

Milky Mangrove
Photo: Wikipedia under Creative Commons Licence
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

The rainforest is regenerating nicely, under some big old Blue Gums. It even has a Scrub Turkey. Along the river, three species of mangrove can be found – River Mangrove Aegiceras corniculatum, Milky Mangrove Excoecaria agallocha, and Yellow Mangrove Ceriops tagal. Some were covered in buds, and about to explode into flower. This area is about the limit of salinity but it is still very tidal. 

In one of the gardens we sighted a couple of Bush Stone-curlews. How can such a big bird be almost invisible? They seemed to be happy here and didn’t mind lots of people in the park. 

After a walk around the park, we headed over to the Oxley Creek Common on Oxley Creek. Picnic tables and a shelter shed make this area a popular place for Brisbane-ites. There is also a track that goes along the creek for a few kilometres. Lots of birds along this track. Lots of bushcare and tree planting too – the local Bushcare group have restored quite an extent of riparian habitat. They have even established some Berry Saltbush Einadia hastata as a thick groundcover. After lunch and a walk we all headed home. 

SPECIES LIST: Muscovy Duck (Domestic type), Australian Wood Duck, Pacific Black Duck, Hardhead, Australian Brush-turkey, Spotted Dove, Crested Pigeon, Buff-banded Rail, Dusky Moorhen, Australasian Swamphen, Bush Stone-curlew, Australasian Grebe, Little Pied Cormorant, Little Black Cormorant, Australian White Ibis, Striated Heron, Plumed Egret, Laughing Kookaburra, Galah, Sulphur-crested Cockatoo, Pale-headed Rosella, Scaly-breasted Lorikeet, Rainbow Lorikeet, Noisy Miner, Brown Honeyeater, Blue-faced Honeyeater, Striated Pardalote, Eastern Whipbird, Grey Butcherbird, Pied Butcherbird, Australian Magpie, Pied Currawong, Willie Wagtail, Grey Fantail, Torresian Crow, and Welcome Swallow. 

June Outing Report - Cotswold Road, Maroon, Saturday 21 June 2025

 Adapted from the FFNC July 2025 newsletter report by K. McCosh

Mt Maroon in the clouds
Photo: L. Beaton

Twenty intrepid members of the FFNC Club nearly got swept up into the crush of climbers going up Mt Maroon. There was even a bus load of Irish tourists! There’s a joke there somewhere. All looking for a parking spot amongst the trees of this very interesting Vine Scrub. All intent on getting to the top – somewhere up in the clouds. 

Mt Maroon is a very busy place these days. But we managed to see some big (and therefore old) scrub trees – such as Crow’s Ash and Leopard Ash. Older trees generally have smaller leaves, and those big Crow’s Ash trees had very small leaves. There were lots of smaller trees and shrubs – many with small or spikey leaves that are typical of “Dry” scrubs that dry out from time to time. Some Brush Teak Toechima tenax was impressive, being larger than most. This patch of Dry Vine Scrub is a remnant of much bigger scrubs around the mountain. 

There was also a natural dam there with reeds etc. How did that get there? Mt Maroon began as a rhyolite intrusion into the huge Focal Peak Volcano some 20 million years ago. Most of the volcano has eroded away down to the older sandstone layers, leaving tougher rocks exposed. The Cotswolds are old sandstones and rhyolite intrusions and basalt bits and pieces. 

The birds were a bit quiet, but considering the busy-ness of the place, they were more abundant than expected. One big ironbark tree on the edge of the scrub was just “full” of birds. Silvereye, Lewin’s Honeyeater, Yellow-faced Honeyeater, Golden Whistler, Grey Fantail, Varied Triller and Rose Robin were all there. We had a delightful morning tea picking out the birds in this tree. A mystery butterfly with two distinctive white spots on a black background near the wing tip gradually went from being a Caper Gull to a Yellow Albatross – a colourful sighting. Noela with the eyes of an eagle saw it perched in thick vegetation!

Species Lists for Cotswold Road, June 2025 

introduced species = *

Amphibians & Reptiles: *Cane Toad Rhinella marina – 1 dead.

Birds: Pacific Black Duck, Australasian Grebe, Shining Bronze-Cuckoo, Black-shouldered Kite, Dusky

Moorhen, Australian King-Parrot, Laughing Kookaburra, Rainbow Bee-eater, White-throated Treecreeper, Satin Bowerbird, Superb Fairy-wren, Red-backed Fairy-wren, White-browed Scrubwren, Brown Gerygone, Spotted Pardalote, Striated Pardalote, Eastern Spinebill, Lewin's Honeyeater, Yellow-faced Honeyeater, Brown Honeyeater, White-throated Honeyeater, Eastern Whipbird, Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike, Varied Triller, Golden Whistler, Rufous Whistler 􈄥􍿸 & 􈄥􍿷, Grey Shrike-thrush, Pied Currawong, Grey Fantail, Willie Wagtail, Torresian Crow, Jacky Winter, Rose Robin, Silvereye (some being the Tasmanian subspecies Zosterops lateralis, Double-barred Finch, Australasian Pipit.

Marsupials: Red-necked Wallaby. 

Butterflies: Black Jezebel Delias nigrina, Yellow Albatross Appias paulina, *Wanderer Danaus plexippus, Evening Brown Melanitis leda.