Sunday 8th February 2026 - Franke Scrub. and Charles and Motee Rogers Bushland Reserve, Highfields.

Meeting Time: 8.30 am.

Small-leaved Tylophora
Tylophora grandiflora
found at Franke Scrub
and should be flowering
in February
Photo: L Beaton

Where: Peacehaven Botanic Park at 56 Kuhls Road, Highfields to car pool as car parking is limited at Franke Scrub.

Description: Franke Scrub is a small but incredibly diverse rare dry rainforest remnant with 38 types of rainforest trees, 21 types of shrubs, 15 types of climbers and 40 other native plant species on the local volcanic red soil. Nearby the Charles and Motee Rogers Bushland Reserve consists of remnant dry rainforest and eucalypt woodland plants. Both areas are managed by volunteer workers who meet regularly to maintain and weed these endangered ecosystems.

Activities: The terrain down to the gully is quite steep while a gentle walk along the roadway has many informative signs identifying the easily seen nearby plants. More about Frank Scrub here.

After morning tea, return to Peacehaven Park (for use of toilet facilities) before continuing north-east on Kuhls Road. For those arriving independently – turn left onto Clarke Road, right onto O’Brien Road, next left onto Polzin Road and left onto Rogers Road. Off road parking is available on the left. The well-defined walking tracks through this Reserve allow for easy walking. More about the Rogers Reserve here.

Facilities: None. Toilets at Peacehaven Botanic Park.

What to Bring: chair, lunch and morning tea, water, hat and sun protection.

Our first function for 2026: Peacehaven Botanic Park, 56 Kuhls Rd, Highfields

Happy Naturalizing New Year 2026

Marvel at the changes since our first visit to the park in December 2009.

TFNC Members with Robert Campbell in 2009

By time-honoured custom we do not have an evening meeting or an outing in January. Instead we have a members' get-together.

Meeting Date & Time:  Saturday, 17th January, commencing at 4pm.

Where:  Peacehaven Botanic Park, 56 Kuhls Rd, Highfields.

Description: We will meet on the grassy area near the rotunda. There will be several tables provided for food items.

Activities: Those wishing to have a wander around the park are of course welcome to arrive earlier. 

Level of Fitness: Easy, graded and surfaced paths.

Facilities: Toilets.

What to Bring: please bring your own chairs, nibbles to share and drinks. Insect repellent might also be advisable.

This is always a good opportunity to catch up, and to welcome new members. 

November 2025 Activity Details - Friday meeting, and the Sunday outing to two localities in the Mt Tyson area.

Flora types at Irongate
Photo: M. Simmons

CLUB MEETING: 7 pm, Friday 7 November 2025  

Speaker: Robert Ashdown presenting Wild in the suburbs

There is no escape from wild creatures. Whether we like it or not, they do their best to share the space we humans jealously call our own.

Rob has always been interested in photographing the more unusual species - often overlooked or even persecuted - found in our backyards, towns, or on the edges of places. From bats beneath our feet, spiders under the lawn, weird green cicadas in the hedge, strange slugs on the footpath to tiny resin bees inside walls, Rob will present some of his favourite images of urban creatures. 

Rob Ashdown has recently retired after more than a decade as Education Officer with the Queensland Museum and more than two decades as Senior Ranger with the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service. He now has a little more time to pursue his interest in photography, which has been a passion of his for many years. 

He is interested in the classic tradition of a sequence of images that tell a story and enjoys writing about natural history topics. Link to his blog.

St. Anthony’s Community Centre, Memory Street, Toowoomba. The speaker's presentation is followed by official business and supper. 

CLUB OUTING: Sunday 9 November 2025. Two locations in the Mt Tyson area.

Meeting Time:  8.30 am

Where: Behind the State School at Biddeston. 

Directions:  Approximate travel distance round trip from Toowoomba 120km. Car pooling is advised. Members, please refer to your newsletter for details. Non-members, please email toowoombafieldnaturalists@gmail.com if you need more information.

Activities: 1. A Land for Wildlife property south of Mt Tyson has approx. 70 ha of retained habitat which is a mixture of Mountain Coolibah, Belah, White Cypress, and an understorey of acacia, vine thicket species and grasses. Our walk will be mainly along a cleared fence line allowing easy access for all participants. 

2. Irongate Conservation Park.  Following morning tea on the property we will continue approx. 10km to the park on Wallingford Road.  The park preserves three fairly distinct vegetation groups based on Mountain Coolibah in the north east, Brigalow along the road to the west and Belah forming an arc around the southern boundary. This 29ha ‘accidental’ reserve was sold to the state government in 1976 and in 1994 a Pittsworth Landcare project led by John and Ruth Walter oversaw the creation of a 1500m easy, well maintained walking path through the park. 

What to Bring: morning tea, lunch, water, chair, sun protection and please wear closed shoes. 

NB. Please check our blog, or our Facebook page or email    toowoombafieldnaturalists@gmail.com as activities are subject to change if there are adverse weather conditions. 

Bush Orchid in a Mountain Coolibah
Photo: M. Simmons

Neil Mahoney’s seat of knowledge
Photo: M. Simmons

October 2025 Activity Details - Friday meeting, and Sunday outing to three attractions in the Murphy's Creek area.

Black-striped Wallaby Macropus dorsalis 
Photo: By Queensland government, the State of Queensland.
https://apps.des.qld.gov.au/species-search/details/?id=914, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=141450561

CLUB MEETING: 7 pm, Friday 3 October 2025  

Speaker: Libby Moodie
Title: ‘The Reintroduction of the Grey Wolf to Yellowstone National Park: A Howling Success?’

Summary: In 1982, Libby spent the American Summer working as a volunteer for the US National Park Service and the US Fish and Wildlife Service in Yellowstone National Park. Over that  Summer, she was engaged in rewriting and updating management plans which included reintroducing wolves to the park, as well as travelling to the far reaches of the park with the Fish and Wildlife staff, assisting with backcountry stream surveys.
The last wolves were deliberately extirpated from Yellowstone National Park in 1926. With the advantage of knowledge from long-term ecological studies of predator-prey relationships, park policies changed.  The first Grey Wolf  was  reintroduced to the park in 1995,  where they have since thrived.  The reintroduction of wolves to the park, after an absence of many decades, has caused significant changes to the ecology of the park, affecting the dynamics of both flora and  fauna in positive ways.

St. Anthony’s Community Centre, Memory Street, Toowoomba. The speaker's presentation is followed by official business and supper. 

CLUB OUTING: Sunday 5 October 2025. Three attractions in the Murphy's Creek area.

Meeting Time:  9 am

Where: Jessie's Cottage, Murphy's Creek.

Directions:  Follow the New England highway north and turn right at the Mt. Kynoch lights, (clearly signed Spring Bluff and Murphy’s Creek) for 14 kms. to the town. Turn left over the railway line and left again around the perimeter of the sports oval to the cottage (signed 'Jessie’s Cottage'). More about the cottage.

Activities: 1. A brief orientation and tour of this historical museum. This cottage was built by the Taylor family (early Scots settlers) in 1899. The neighbourhood trust of Murphy’s Creek restored the cottage in 1996 as a community hub and is now a local history museum with information of locals from surrounding areas.

2. We leave at 9:45 for Second Chance Macropod sanctuary to meet our hosts, Catherine Buchanan and John Kirk.  While we have morning tea Catherine will talk of their long- term experiences and endeavours in the rescue and rehabilitation of macropods and other wildlife. Morning tea will be here.

From Humane World for Animals website:

"Second Chances spans across 128 hectares of heavily forested land dominated by eucalypts, acacia species and native grasses. Wildlife present on the property includes red-necked wallabies (Macropus rufogriseus), eastern grey kangaroos (Macropus giganteus), black-striped wallabies (Macropus dorsalis), brushtail possums (Trichosurus vulpecula), grey-headed flying foxes (Pteropus poliocephalus) and various microbats. Koalas (Phascolarctos cinereus) have been heard in the area. A wide range of birdlife including wedge-tailed eagles (Aquila audax) and yellow-tailed black cockatoos (Calyptorhynchus funereus) are also seen throughout the property."

3. Spring Bluff Railway Station. We will retrace our route to have lunch at this historical venue. This station was built in 1864-1867, employing 1600 men, with engineer Robert Ballard. It was the main Ipswich – Toowoomba line (5- hour trip). The Main Range (later Spring Bluff) station carried passengers, timber, dairy and other produce. The area was quite a social hub. The station and gardens are now maintained by the Spring Bluff Trust. There is an easy walking circuit (approx. 20 minutes) with interesting bird life and vegetation. More about Spring Bluff Railway Station.

What to Bring: suitable footwear for walking in the bush, a chair, morning tea, and lunch.

August 2025 Activity Details - Friday meeting, and Sunday outing to Goombungee "tip".

 CLUB MEETING: 7 pm, Friday 05 September 2025

St. Anthony’s Community Centre, Memory Street, Toowoomba. The speaker's presentation is followed by official business and supper. 

An image of comet C/1995 O1 (Hale-Bopp),
taken on April 04, 1997
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported 

Speaker: Professor Jonti Horner presenting A Comet’s Tale.

Jonti is an astrobiologist and astronomer based at the University of Southern Queensland. He is a passionate science communicator and teacher, taking great pleasure from delving into the mysteries of the cosmos, and the question of life elsewhere. His research interests encompass solar system evolution, the search for alien worlds and evidence of life in other parts of the cosmos. He teaches astronomy, planetary and exoplanetary science at USQ, and supervises several post-graduate students whose research journeys relate to these disciplines. Aside from his scientific work, he has published many articles in ‘The Conversation’ and on the website ‘SpaceAustralia.com’. 

CLUB OUTING: Sunday 07 September  2025. Goombungee ‘tip’

We will try for Goombungee wildflowers again and keep our fingers crossed for mild weather.

The Goombungee Waste Management Facility holding protects a large area of pristine native vegetation beyond the rubbish sites where public access is not available. By special arrangement, guided by Lisa Churchward we are privileged to have entry to the area for this outing where it is hoped boronia, prostanthera, acacias and hovea - to name just a few will still be in flower. 

See Full times and details here.

August Outing Report - Highfields Falls Bushland instead, Sunday 03 Aug 2025.

Adapted from the TFNC newsletter report of F. Mangubhai with contribution on galls from D. Johnson.

Galls on a young wattle plant
Photo: F Mangubhai

The planned outing to Goombungee had to be cancelled because of the amount of rain during the night. Instead, we were to meet at the James Byrne end of the Highfields Falls Bushland. Ten members and a visitor arrived by 9 a.m. on a sunny but cold morning.

It was an easy walk with a chorus of birds to keep us company. The stops made on the route were mainly to try to spot birds which were flitting about, quite often high in the canopy. These spots were where the sun broke through, as well as at the top of the waterfall, and again at the bottom of the Falls. Recent rains ensured that there was a good flow of water. Opposite the descent to the bottom of the Falls was a tree where Powerful Owls used to roost, but there was no sign of any owl, nor any giveaway signs on the ground to indicate they might have been there. 

One of the non-avian things that caught our attention was some large galls on a quite small wattle tree (see photo). It was not the gall that poet Gerard Manley Hopkins was referring to in these few lines:

I am gall, I am heartburn. God's most deep decree

Bitter would have me taste: my taste was me;

Bones built in me, flesh filled, blood brimmed the curse.

But it is a bit of a curse for the wattle tree. The gall is a reaction to insects such as mites, thrips and wasps, laying eggs in the plant tissue, and their larvae release chemicals (like cecidotoxins) that stimulate abnormal cell growth, forming the gall. The gall is essentially the tree’s defensive response - a kind of botanical scar tissue - triggered by foreign substances or organisms. It walls off the invader, but in doing so, creates a nutrient-rich shelter that ironically benefits the pest. Gall shapes vary on different Acacias. [For more information on galls: gall history in Aus.pdf.]

Bird list for Highfields Falls Bushland Park (compiled from members' observations)

Straw-necked Ibis; Pacific Baza (probable sighting); Brown Quail; White-headed Pigeon; Galah; Sulphur-crested Cockatoo; Rainbow Lorikeet; Little Lorikeet; King Parrot; Pale-headed Rosella; Laughing Kookaburra; Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike; Eastern Yellow Robin; Grey Shrike-thrush; Grey Fantail; Eastern Whipbird; Superb Fairy-wren; White-browed Scrubwren; Brown Thornbill (probable sighting); Varied Sittella; White-throated Treecreeper; Noisy Miner; Lewin’s Honeyeater; White-naped Honeyeater; Brown Honeyeater; Mistletoebird; Spotted Pardalote; Red-browed Firetail; Olive-backed Oriole; Australian Figbird.

AGM - Friday 01 August 2025.

CLUB MEETING: 

  

Latham's Snipe  
Photo: Jason Girvan by CC BY-SA 3.0

7 pm, Friday 1 August 2025  at 

St. Anthony’s   Community Centre, Memory Street, Toowoomba. 

 The members' presentations are followed by official business and supper. 

• Glenda Walter is presenting the TED (Technical Entertainment Design) talk by  Scott Loarie, founder of iNaturalist. Glenda gets a mention in this due to her discovery of a new genus/species of mantis. 
• Ben and Jean Gundry are giving a short talk on the remarkable behaviour of Latham's Snipe.