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.