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.

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

Kauris at Sherwood Arboretum
Photo: L. Beaton

Time: 9 am

Where: Sherwood Arboretum on Jollimont Street, Sherwood, Brisbane

Directions: Follow the Ipswich Motorway in towards Brisbane and take a left exit into Fairfield Road at Rocklea. Then left into Sherwood Road and out past the Markets and over Oxley Creek and across Oxley Road, and over the railway line (near Sherwood Station). At a T-section at the end of Sherwood Road, turn left into Dewar, and then right into Jollimont. Down the street a bit, and you are there. More information here.

Activities: A guided tour (by one of our Brisbane members) of some of the features of this historic place. It is a 15 hectares heritage-listed park. We are just dipping our toe into what the Arboretum has to offer. There are several walking trails, and over the past 20 years, some 170 bird species have been recorded in the park. After morning tea we will travel back to the Oxley Creek Common along Sherwood Road (just over the Oxley Creek bridge). Walks along the creek, birds, trees and then lunch.

Level of Fitness: Easy walking. Tracks are flat.

Sherwood Arboretum
Photo: L. Beaton

Facilities: toilets, picnic tables etc.

What to Bring: binoculars for birds, etc., chairs, morning tea, lunch, water and suitable walking shoes.

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

Camp Report - Leslie Dam – 16-18th May 2025

 Adapted from the FFNC June 2025 newsletter report by I. Reynolds

Yellow-tufted Honeyeater at Durakai
Photo: I. Reynolds

At least some brave souls ignored the weather forecast and settled in at Lake Leslie Tourist Park on Friday afternoon. There was 38mm of rain overnight, brightening up by Saturday, although still cloudy.

Before the camp proper a couple of early campers were fortunate to watch an Australian Hobby vigorously plucking some unfortunate small bird in a dead tree near the Lake.

Durakai State Forest was our first call, and  walking along one of the tracks, we encountered a birding ‘hot spot’ centered around a small puddle of water. Many Fuscous, Brown, Yellow-faced, Yellow-tufted and White-eared Honeyeaters were bathing, as well as Yellow Robin, male Golden Whistler, and Grey Fantail amongst others.

Later a look at the dam wall at Lake Leslie gave us excellent views of 2 Osprey perched on a rail. A walk along the edge of the Lake and surrounding bushland in the afternoon gave us another decent species list. Out on the lake were at least 1,000 Eurasian Coot, many Darters and a cluster of 40 Australasian Grebe as well as the usual Pelicans, Cormorants, etc.

Scaly-breasted Munia at Allora Mountain
Photo: Yathin S Krishnappa
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported

On our way home on Sunday, four of us called in at Allora Mountain Flora and Fauna Reserve, a very interesting area with a steep climb to the top. There was lots of privet that the local Allora Landcare group are trying to eradicate. The couple last to leave had an unexpected bonus, a dozen Scaly-breasted Munia, aka Spice Finch or Nutmeg Manikin, sighted near the area where we had recorded Yellow-rumped Thornbill and Double-barred Finch.

A great weekend in great company.

Bird Species Lists

Lake Leslie – north side (40 sp.)

Australian Wood Duck-12, Pacific Black Duck-4, Grey Teal-4, Crested Pigeon-8, Dusky Moorhen-20, Eurasian Coot-1000, Australasian Swamphen-2, Pied Stilt-2, Masked Lapwing-2, Australasian Grebe-40, Australasian Darter-8, Little Pied Cormorant-4, Little Black Cormorant-12, Pied Cormorant-4, White-necked Heron-1, Great Egret-1, Australian Pelican-20, Osprey (Australasian)-2, Laughing Kookaburra-2, Australian Hobby-1, Galah-15, Little Corella-80, Sulphur-crested Cockatoo-10, Australian King-Parrot-2, Red-winged Parrot-1, Eastern Rosella-4, Red-rumped Parrot-8, Musk Lorikeet-2, Superb Fairywren-6, Noisy Miner-10, Blue-faced Honeyeater-6, Striped Honeyeater-2, Grey-crowned Babbler-2, Grey Butcherbird-1, Australian Magpie-6, Pied Currawong-4, Willie Wagtail-2, Magpie-Lark-6, Apostlebird-12, and Torresian Crow-6.

Durikai State Forest (25 sp.)

Little Lorikeet-4, White-throated Treecreeper-2, Brown Treecreeper-1, Yellow-faced Honeyeater, Yellow-tufted Honeyeater-2, Noisy Miner-2, Fuscous Honeyeater-12, Brown Honeyeater-1, White-eared Honeyeater-2, Striped Honeyeater-2, Noisy Friarbird-1, Striated Pardalote-4, Weebill-8, Grey Shrikethrush-2, Golden Whistler-2, Rufous Whistler-2, Grey Butcherbird-1, Willie Wagtail-2, Grey Fantail-3, Australian Raven-4, Rose Robin-2, Jacky Winter-1, Eastern Yellow Robin-1, Welcome Swallow-2, and Mistletoebird-1.

Allora Mountain Flora & Fauna Reserve (22 sp.)

Crested Pigeon-3, Black-shouldered Kite-1, Superb Fairywren-8, Noisy Miner-2, Striated

Pardalote-2, Weebill-3, Yellow-rumped Thornbill-7, White-throated Gerygone-1,

Black-faced Cuckooshrike-2, Golden Whistler-2, Rufous Whistler-1, Australasian Figbird-2, Grey Butcherbird-1, Australian Magpie-4, Pied Currawong-2, Willie Wagtail-1, Magpie-lark-1, Restless Flycatcher-2, Torresian Crow-4, Jacky Winter-1, Double-barred Finch-6, and Scaly-breasted Munia-12.

June Outing Details - Maroon Track, Cotswold Rd - Maroon, Saturday 21 June 2025

Time: 8.45 am

Where: carpark at end of Cotswold Rd, Maroon. 

Directions: Drive to Maroon on the Boonah-Rathdowney Rd and after about another 2 kms turn right into Cotswold Rd. Drive to the end of the road where there is a parking area for the Mt Maroon Track in a piece of scrub (approx. 3.5 kms).

Activities: We will wander around that scrub where there are magnificent trees and cryptic birds. There are also great views of Mt Maroon.

We might also wander along Forest Home Road to see what we can see.

Level of Fitness: easy as you like

Facilities: none, nearest public toilet is Maroon Dam.

What to Bring: suitable clothing and footwear for walking in the bush, sunscreen, insect repellent, water, morning tea, 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. 

May Camp Details - Lake Leslie Tourist Park, Warwick – 16th- 18th May 2025

Lake Leslie Tourist Park camping area

Time: Arrive Friday afternoon

Where: Lake Leslie Tourist Park,113 Saddledam Rd, Leslie Dam

Activities: Saturday - Durikai State Forest, Sunday - Rocklands Reserve

What to Bring: suitable clothing and footwear for walking in the bush, sunscreen, insect repellant, 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. 

The Lake from the Tourist Park

Photos from Lake Leslie Tourist Park website: www.lakeleslietouristpark.com.au

April Outing Details - Shed Social, Saturday 26 April 2025

Though this shed may be a bit too far away
for our meeting 

Time: 2 pm for 2.30pm start

Where: Please contact us

Activities: Trips, adventures, socializing, a lot of laughter and a bonfire.

• We have three members who will give illustrated talks on their travels.
• As always, the floor is open to anyone to talk about any subject you would like to share or you can show us items of interest - there will be a display table available for showing items.

We expect the presentations to end around 5pm.

Facilities:  a fridge for food is available. 

There are plenty of chairs though none have side tables.

What to Bring: Your own drinks, afternoon tea and dinner (plus plates, cups, cutlery, etc.) if you would like to stay for socializing around the bonfire.

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

March AGM Details - Boonah – Saturday, 15th March 2025

Creazilla Open License

 Time: Arrive at 1.45 pm. Meettng commences at 2.00 pm.

Where: The Conference Room at ‘The Outlook’.

Directions: Coming into Boonah along the Boonah-Ipswich Road, just when you come over the hill and get your first view of Boonah with the Scenic Rim mountains as a backdrop, you will see the big ‘Welcome to Boonah’ sign on the left. Turn left just before the sign and immediately left again, proceed up the steep hill to the carpark. Park, get out, turn around and take in the view! Signs will direct you to the Conference Room.

Admission: $4 per person.

Agenda: Reports for 2024 year and voting on Executive positions for 2025.

AGM Formalities: Club officers will give reports on Club matters to the Club Members. Office bearers for 2025 will be elected. And upcoming events will be highlighted. Then on to the guest speaker and afternoon tea.

Guest Speaker: Dr Tamielle Brunt, researcher on the ecology of Platypuses, will give a presentation on the state of our beloved mammal in the Fassifern area, and wider SEQ. 

Tamielle has been part of platypus conservation efforts in Ipswich and Scenic Rim for many years, and set up PlatypusWatch in Wildlife Queensland. She conducts creek sampling to find DNA in the water – called eDNA. So come along to find out more about our little friends. And no, we won’t be going for a splash in the creek afterwards.

Bring Display Items: Your fossils, rocks, collections, birds’ nests, and anything you think may be of interest for our Show and Tell table.

Members: Please bring a plate of finger food for afternoon tea to share. Tea and coffee will be provided.

It is also time to pay your annual membership fee for 2025. Peter, our Treasurer, will be on hand to receive your payment or you can pay on line – details for online payments are on the Information page of our Newsletters.

Outing Report - Christmas Creek, Lamington via Stinson Park – Saturday, 15th February 2025

Christmas Creek was idyllic
Photo: C. Bonner

Fourteen members spent a relaxing morning at Christmas Creek in February. Surprisingly we had the place almost to ourselves. The creek was splashing over the rocks and crystal clear, the vegetation was verdant, and the weather was warm without being stifling. 

To begin with it was quite cloudy but as the sun came out so did the butterflies. At morning tea there was plenty of conversation about what we'd seen with photographs being scrutinized for identification.

Lunch was held in the shade at Stinson Park where more butterflies were seen.

Watch this space for the species lists and more.

Forest Day Moth Cruria synopla
Photo: L. Beaton

Forest Day Moth Cruria synopla
Photo: C. Bonner

Evening Brown Melanitis leda
Photo: G. Pardey

Black-faced Monarch
Photo: G. Pardey

    

  

Forest Darner Austroaeschna pulchra
Photo: G. Pardey

Black-headed Skimmer 
Crocothemis nigrifrons
Photo: G. Pardey

   

   

   

Lush vegetation
at Christmas Creek
Photo: L. Beaton

Christmas Creek
 at the car park causeway
Photo: L. Beaton

   

Pheasant Coucal
Photo: G. Pardey