For an interview with this very well-published economist, visit:

http://wildlifetourism.org.au/wildlife-tourism-workshop-2012/key-note-speakers/economics-of-wildlife-tourism-an-interview-with-clem-tisdell/

Also see a sample of published papers on:

http://wildlifetourism.org.au/wildlife-tourism-workshop-2012/key-note-speakers/

Where: Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary, Gold Coast

When: Wed-Friday 16-18 May 2012

We’ll be discussing the economics of wildlife tourism, quality interpretation, how tourism can contribute to wildlife conservation, and more – and determined it will not just be a talkfest but have some genuine follow-through actions such as  policy-formulation, letters to government, new projects and partnerships and dissemination of useful information for small tourism  businesses, conservation managers and others.

Registration has now officially closed, but it may still be possible to accept a few extra if you’re quick!

Visit http://wildlifetourism.org.au/wildlife-tourism-workshop-2012/program-wildlife-tourism-workshop-may-2012/ for details of the program

Birds on the Araucaria property, Scenic Rim, Queensland

I’ve just been looking back over our records of the birds we have been seeing over the past few years on the Araucaria property and the adjacent Andrew Drynan Reserve campground (where guests on our camping option stay)

Here’s a summary, more or less in order of frequency of sightings

Lewin's Honeyeater feeding on nectar from a bottlebrush flower

Very common (seen almost every day):

Brown cuckoodove

Common (at least seasonally):

white-faced heron in tree near creek

Reasonably common (at least seasonally)

osprey watching topknot pigeons on Araucaria property

Occasionally seen or heard:

Bunya pines near the edge of Bunya Mountains National Park

Our Bunya Mountains tour is a relatively new one, developed because:

1. We visited with 6 guests on a customized tour a couple of years ago and loved the forests and peacefulness there.
2. Our name is Araucaria, and althugh we regularly see giant hoop pines (Araucaria cunninghamii) growing naturally in the forests, we don’t see the even more giant bunya pines (A. bidwillii) in the wild on our usual travels – and they really are something to see!

A few days ago we headed off that way on a 2-day  tour with a lovely from Germany who were especially keen to see the bunya forests, and their son who is living in Australia.

So, off we went out west, up the range to Toowoomba, down again to the flat farming country and finally the climb towards the Bunyas.

While enjoying bunya burgers and bunya pies for lunch (made with meat, bunya nuts and some delicious herbs and spices) at Poppies Restaurant, this red-necked wallaby posed for us in front of an Australia flag and an Aboriginal flag, and a kookaburra joined in, sitting in the tree to the left – nice little collection of Australiana for our visitors!

Red-necked wallaby and Australian flags, Bunya Mountains

Silky Oaks Chalet,Bunya Mountain

We all agreed the chalet Silky Oaks (which Darren and I had stayed in with guests on our last visit) was quite delightful. Great views, polished timber floors, bathrooms upstairs and downstairs and fully self-contained.

As soon as we had unpacked our things we  walked across the road and into the forest, beneath towering bunyas, although trying not to stay too long under any of them, as this is the time of year they drop their massive cones.

A tall bunya pine in the national park

Looking up into a bunya

I had been thrown by a horse two weeks earlier when he was startled by a bunya cone falling at home from a tree that was inside our house many years ago decorated for Christmas and is now much taller than the house.

The cones are BIG! Here are a couple that had fallen near the accommodation, one of them open and showing the nuts that are so important to the Aboriginals. They used to gather from many kilometres away to feast on the nuts for several weeks whenever there was a good crop.

Bunya cone fallen and broken apart

Cones on a bunya

The following morning we chose a walking track that didn’t go under too many of the bunyas! Darren let us off at Westcott parking area and we started off on the track to the Paradise parking area, through a great variety of vegetation.

We started off through a ‘bald,’ a grassy area of which there are several on the mountain

Grassy 'bald', Bunya Mountains National Park

Grass Trees, Bunya Mountains National Park

We were soon in rainforest, then came out into eucalypt  forest with some tall grass-trees that would have been around since before white settlement in Australia.

We stopped to admire good views across the Darling Downs from the clifftops, then continued on into more forest, with tall strangler figs and plenty of ferns and lianas.

Ferny forest floor on the walk towards Paradise, Bunya Mountains National Park

Car Park at Paradise, Bunya Mountains National Park

Lunch that day was at the Bunya Gallery Cafe, including a bunya salad

Bunya nut salad

A wedgetail eagle (Australia’s largest raptor) happened to pass by while we were dining. Other birds we had seen included king parrot, crimson rosella, superb fairy-wren, brown cuckoodove, brush turkey and various others.

‘Magical’ and ‘idyllic’ were two of the oft-repeated words from our guests during our stay, and we’re looking forward to our own next visit.

Then we received a request for  one-person weekend wildlife camp, and this lady was only in Australia for one week (from Hong Kong) and really wanting to see some wildlife. She was happy to accept the uncommon routing for the weekend.

Our first stop was, as usual, Daisy Hill STate Forest and Koala Centre.

While walking I encouraged her to feel the texture of the sandpaper fig leaves, and some very alert ants rushed defensively out of the nest they had made between two of the leaves.

Ants on the alert at Daisy Hill

A little further on, amongst the paperbark tea0trees, we saw these large caterpillars, which appear to be one of the hawk moth species.

Caterpillars at Daisy Hill

After visiting the koalas in the centre (sadly we didn’t find any wild ones on our walk that day) we headed towards Canungra, making a sudden stop at Tamborine as we saw these impressive black-necked storks striding across the paddock

Black-necked storks in paddock between Tamborine and Canungra, Queensland

After a good meal at the Outpost, Canungra we continued up the mountain to O’Reilly’s Rainforest Retreat, where Denis took our guest walking in the rainforest while I attended Mike’s lecture, which recounted his rainforest experiences from his first-ever camping at the age of twelve, in a gully which was  inundated with rain that night, through teenage adventures, a PhD in botany and taking his own children walking and climbing.  He was lamenting that universities nowadays don’t teach enough basic natural history or encourage their students to get out and experience the forests firsthand.

Dr Mike Olsen (left) and Peter O'Reilley, before Mike's talk for the Vince O'Reilley Memorial Lecture

I then took our guest (who had already been on the treetop walk and botanic garden) to see a satin bowerbird’s bower (and the artist himself showed up as well) and we found red-necked pademelons grazing in the campground.

On to Kooralbyn, and the usual eastern grey kangaroos, whiptail wallabies and red-necked wallabies still grazing despite the development of more and more residential area around them nowadays.  We also drove past the Kooralbyn Resort, which has apparently been recently bought and is to be ‘restored to its former glory’, having languished for several years after the previous owner became bankrupt (owing a massive $60 million)

Kooralbyn Resort February 2012

Maybe it will be looking different soon (and more inviting!).

The platypus didn’t appear at their usual haunts at home, although they had been seen frequently over the past week. After sunset we headed out spotlighting. First stop – the campground toilets. The green treefrogs didn’t disappoint us here: two of them looked down on us from the entry wall, and high in a gum tree nearby sat a barn owl.

On our way to the NSW border we came across a carpet python lying on the road, so after photographing him we gently encouraged him to move into the safety of the long grass nearby

Carpet python on Lions Road

We doubled up the tour with taking some observations of animals along the Lions Road section (on the NSW side of the border) of the proposed CSG pipeline.  We are concerned about the effects on the wildlife if this construction goes ahead, but without ‘before’ recordings we’ll have nothing to compare the ‘after’ situation with, so on behalf of Scenic Rim Wildlife I’m recording what animals are present now.

This night (Saturday 4th February) we saw a sugar glider, a great barred frog and a beautiful bandybandy and heard several other frogs (emerald spotted tree-frog, sedge frog and several others). The bandybandy was crossing the road that leads down to the Border Loop lookout, and this appears to be the route to be taken by the pipeline from the valley, to join Lions Road, which it will then follow.  Many thousands of animals have been falling into the trenches dug for similar pipelines out west, and if this construction (very unpopular amongst residents of the area) goes ahead, we want the company to ensure that they will at least erect temporary wildlife-proof fences until everything is covered over again.

When we started to move the bandybandy off the road he threw himself into the defensive loops they use to startle their predators, which made it very easy to gently slip a small branch underneath him and lift him to the safety of the forest floor.

Bandybandy crossing the CSG pipeline route at the Border Loop, off Lions Road

Bandybandy throwing himself defensively into coils

See http://wildlifetourism.org.au/discussions/threats-to-australian-wildlife/coal-seam-gas-and-australian-wildlife/ for further concerns about impacts of CSG extraction on wildlife.

After dinner that night, Darren set up the spotting scope to view the moon’s craters, and took our guest spotlighting on our own property, seeing bandicoots, wallabies, barn owls and a brushtail possum, and our guest settled down for her second-ever night of camping (and first time ever in Australia)

On Sunday morning, after looking through the wildlife ecology centre and the butterfly trail and exploring a scrubby gully on the Araucaria property, we headed to Everyday’s Cafe for lunch and on to Beenleigh to view the fruitbat colony and Eagleby Wetlands for the World Wetlands Day talks, which I attended while Darren led a walk looking at pelicans, black swans and other waterbirds.

[photos coming soon]

Dr Margaret Greenway told us how the Ramsar Convention was formed many years ago in Iran, and how Australia was one of the 18 countries involved (now there are over 100) in the international agreements for conservation of wetland habitat.  Eagleby is part of a larger wetland area connected with southern Moreton Bay.  Barry Fitzpatrick spoke on how the current legislation on development and the emphasis on finding threatened species and then ways of mitigating threats to these is  not sufficient to protect the remaining, unreserved wetlands in this driest of all continents.

Not our usual schedule for a wildlife weekend camp, but our guest agreed it was a very interesting and rewarding one.

A workshop rather than a conference, the emphasis will be on interactive discussion, with ultimate actions in mind (e.g. policy statements and guidelines for the Wildlife Tourism Australia website, beginning of new projects,  lobbying government etc. but a limited number of oral and poster papers will also be accepted.

Call for papers ends 24th February

The workshop will be held at Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary, Gold Coast

See http://wildlifetourism.org.au/wildlife-tourism-workshop-2012/registration/ for details

Entry to Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary, the venue for the Wildlife Tourism Workshop in May 2012

Male and female golden orb-weaver spiders

Pair of golden orb-weaver spiders at Eagleby Wetlands

At least I didn’t have to apologise to this male  - I was very careful not to make contact with the web.

A few years ago I was tying to get a photo of male and female together and inadvertently bumber the web slightly with my shoulder.  This alerted the female, and as she turned to find what had landed in her net she saw the mamle – and immediately started eating him.  So yes, I did actually apologise to him while I was taking a photo.

I have on other occasions watched the makes – which are always much smaller than the female, cautiously approaching her from behind, apparently with the hope of jumping on board and starting to mate at some moment when she is not likely to notice what is about to happen. I certainly saw the reason for their apprehension that day.

I was able to leave this pair with both spiders still alive and in the position they occupied when I first saw them – the condition I like to leave any animal we see on tour (except flying foxes, as then we are generally sitting and waiting at dusk for them to start flying out of their roosting trees – but without any prompting from us).

This is one of our biggest  spiders. The largest one I ever encountered was on Mount French (near Boonah, Scenic Rim, southeast Queensland) – from the tip of her forefeet to the tip of her hind foot she measured 23 centimetres. We have some big ones at home as well, but I’ve never seen one quite that big here. The pair in the photo were at Eaglby Wetlands, on the edge of Greater Brisbane’s suburbs. The largest fossil spider ever found was also that of a golden orb-weaver unearthed in China.

They are big, but not dangerous – well, not to humans, that is. They really don’t want to waste their venom on something they can’t eat, and will run away rather than attack – you’d really have to try rather hard to get bitten, and if you do you will probably feel nothing worse than the initial pain of the bite, and possibly a headache, slight dizziness and nausea.

I was at surprised to see golden orb-weavers when traveling in Kruger National Park, South Africa, a couple of years ago,  looking very much like the ones we see here at home, but the group does occur in many warm countries of  the world.

You won’t often see them in winter, but when spring comes you will start seeing their webs stretched out between trees, sometimes across pathways or narrow roads, and as summer comes on and blends into autumn you will see the females getting bigger and bigger as they swell with the eggs (which they will bury in the soil.

The ‘gold’ of the web is hinted at in the photo, but it is most obvious in the thicker strands they spin for support between trees, and best seen if you find the right angle for the sunlight to reflect from it. There are other orb-weavers that do not have the yellow pigment in the web. Why is it yellow? Maybe to attract insects, maybe to stop birds from blundering in and destroying the web (although these spiders have been known to occasionally eat small birds that have done so).

Lamington National Park birding trip

We had to gently explain to our beautiful guest that we do not feed the wildlife here

A  male regent bowerbird sitting on our picnic table and a dispute between a rosella and a bird of paradise were two of the memorable events at our first birding trip for 2012  to the O’Reilly’s section of  Lamington National Park.

Red-browed finches, crimson rosellas and king parrots awaited us when we first alighted from the tour vehicle, the finches seeking scraps from the parrot-feeding area.

Our walk through the forest to the treetopsproduced the usual three species of scrubwren (white-browed, yellow-throated and large-billed), brush turkey, eastern yellow robin  and logrunner. We could hear noisy pittas, black-faced monarchs and eastern whipbirds but failed to spot them.  We did also see lewin’s honeyeaters, brown thornbills, pied currawongs and satin bowerbirds.

In the botanic gardens section was either a female or an immature male paradise riflebird (the world’s only subtropical bird of paradise) having some kind of dispute with a crimson rosella in one of the trees.

rifledbird&rosella

The riflebird seemed to have the most formiddable ‘weapon’ but suddenly flew off to another group of trees.

Our picnic was keenly watched by several birds, and we were joined by the beautiful fellow in the picture above, but he finally got  the message that we weren’t feeding him.

A stroll down Wishing tree track to the little swinging bridge above the pretty gully of  treeferns revealed either a Bassian thrush or a russet-tailed thrush (we saw him to briefly to be sure), a red-legged pademelon (they don’t come out of the forest as often as the red-necked) and finally a glimpse of the monarch.

Bridge in ferny gully, Wishing Tree Track

Our birdlist for O’Reilly’s that day included  paradise riflebird, regent bowerbird, satin bowerbird, green catbird, eastern whipbird (heard), logrunner, yellow-throated scrubwren, white-browed scrubwren, largebilled scrubwren, brown thornbill, black-faced monarch, noisy pitta (heard), Lewin’s honeyeater, eastern spinebill, thrush (russet-tailed or Bassian), rufous fantail, red-browed finch, pied currawong, Australian magpie (in the open grassy area), Torresian crow (ditto), crimson rosella, king parrot, wonga pigeon, white-headed pigeon (heard), fan-tailed cuckoo (heard) and (of course) brush turkey.

We called at Eagleby Wetlands on our return trip to Brisbane, where we saw a pair of swans with young cygnets (they may look like ducklings but we agreed they were not ‘ugly’)

Swans and cygnets at Eagleby Wetlands January 2012

Other birds we saw that day at Eagleby included azure kingfisher sitting prominently on an exposed tea-tree branch above the water, greater egret, cattle egret, wood duck, hardhead duck, black duck, grey teal, purple swamphen, dusky moorhen, Eurasian coot, masked lapwing, little black cormorant, darter, rainbow lorikeet, crested pigeon, welcome swallow, noisy miner, magpielark and red-backed fairy-wren.

Dainty green treefrog

We’ve been hearing and seeing a few frogs lately, on warm wet evenings (although some of the evenings have been surprisingly cool for a Queensland summer).

Clicking froglets (Crinia signifera) have been very vocal, and we’ve heard a variety of others, including spotted and striped marsh frogs, tusked frogs, the green tree frog and the great barred frogs.

This little beauty is the dainty green treefrog, Litoria gracilenta, on a Dianella (native flax lily) next to the small pond near our wildlife ecology centre.

The crested shriketit was a surprise – only the second time we’ve seen it here in 30 years.

The pale-vented bush-hen moved in last month, but that was the first time we have seen or heard it here.