May Outing Report - Ravensbourne, 05 May 2024

Adapted from the Toowoomba Field Naturalist Club newsletter, Issue 796, June 2024

artificial nesting hollows
in situ
Photo: F. Mangubhai

Sunday’s outing turned out to be fine day as members made their way to the Ravensbourne property of 40 hectares surrounded by gardens and beyond that a wet sclerophyll forest. Our first walk was along a track that led through the forest where hollows for birds and bats were made using a chainsaw, the round one for, hopefully, a glider, while the slit was for microbats. Amongst the trees in the forest was Sydney Blue Gum Eucalyptus saligna, Brush Box Lophostemon confertus and stringy barks. A Moreton Bay Fig Ficus macrophylla, likely propagated from bird droppings, showed all the signs of turning into a magnificent, shade-giving tree.

An artist was at work in the forest; we came across a Sydney Blue Gum with designs on its trunk. The artist was the Red Triangle Slug Triboniophorus graeffei. Also, on this walk we saw a dragonfly, the Australian Emperor Anax papuensis, which looked to be petrified by us as it stayed perched on a leaf for all our photographers who approached it. 

Red Triangle Slug
Triboniophorus
graeffei
Photo: R. Hobson

Red Triangle Slug trails
Photo.: F. Mangubhai

   

Australian Emperor
Photo: J. Gundry

    

After morning tea, members walked around the extensive gardens.

Lunchtime was spent chatting about what had been seen, and a species list compiled. We also learned why there was no vegetable garden currently, as the Pale Field Rats Rattus tunneyi, Black Rats R. rattus, Bush Rats R. fuscipes, and two local bandicoot species had managed to burrow under the fence and eat anything that was growing. Rather than fighting them with poison, they’d opted to cease planting vegetables.

Thank you to our hosts, for sharing your home with us and making it such a wonderful day for the Field Nats members. Thanks to everyone who contributed to the species list below, as well.

Usnea sp. (a beard lichen)
Photo: G. Spearritt

Horehound Bug 
Agonoscelis rutila 
on salvia
Photo: G. Walter 

Golden Mistletoe
Notothixos subaureus
on Box Mistletoe
Amyema miquelii 
Photo: G. Spearritt

Click on images to enlarge.   

 

Species Lists: Mammals: Red-necked Wallaby, Red Deer* Birds: Pheasant Coucal, Shining Bronze-Cuckoo, Wedge-tailed Eagle, Laughing Kookaburra, Galah, Australian King-Parrot, Crimson Rosella (nom. subsp.), Satin Bowerbird, White-throated Treecreeper (southern), Variegated Fairy-wren, Brown Honeyeater, Blue-faced Honeyeater, White-naped Honeyeater, Eastern Spinebill, Lewin’s Honeyeater, Noisy Miner, Striated Pardalote, Weebill, White-browed Scrubwren, Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike, Rufous Whistler, Golden Whistler (south-eastern Australia), Eastern Whipbird, Pied Currawong (eastern Australia), Australian Magpie, Grey Butcherbird, Grey Fantail, Torresian Crow, Eastern Yellow Robin, Red-browed Finch, Welcome Swallow, Silvereye (eastern); also, of interest, a male Common Blackbird seen on the side of the Esk Hampton Road just below its junction with the New England Highway, Hampton on the way to the outing. Reptiles: Dark-flecked Garden Sunskink Lampropholis delicata, Eastern Small-eyed Snake Cryptophis nigrescens** Flatworms: Blue Garden Flatworm Caenoplana coerulea Molluscs: Red-triangle Slug Triboniophorus graeffei Spiders: Golden Orb-weaver Trichonephila plumipes, Silver Orb Spider Leucauge granulata Dragonflies: Australian Emperor Anax papuensis Cockroaches: Common Trilobite Cockroach Laxta granicollis Grasshoppers: Hedge Grasshopper Valanga irregularis Sucking Bugs: a water strider Tenagogerris euphrosyne, Horehound Bug Agonoscelis rutila*** Butterflies: Narrow-brand Grass-dart Ocybadistes flavovittatus vittatus, Pink Grass-yellow Eurema herlia, Large Grass-yellow Eurema hecabe, Monarch Danaus plexippus, Glasswing Acraea andromacha andromacha, Tailed Emperor Charaxes sempronius sempronius, Evening Brown Melanitis leda bankia, Brown Ringlet Hypocysta metirius Ants: Jumper Ant Myrmecia nigrocincta, a spiny ant Polyrhachis brisbanensis, a spider ant Leptomyrmex cnemidatus, a spider ant Leptomyrmex tibialis Fungi: Redlead Roundhead Leratiomyces ceres, Southern Cinnabar Polypore Pycnoporus coccineus, Turkey Tail Trametes versicolor. 

* several trees used as stag rubbing posts observed
** pair found under sheet of tin later in day
*** found on ornamental salvia; 34 x colour varieties represented in garden (owner's personal comment), but bug restricted to blue-coloured variety (observer's pers. obs.)