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.

TFNC campout to Myall Park Botanic Garden, Glenmorgan. 22nd – 25th August 2025

Bird Beak Hakea
Hakea orthorrhyncha

Myall Park Botanic Garden conserves and displays species from arid, semi-arid and dry tropical regions with an emphasis on rare, threatened and vulnerable species. This historic natural bush garden attracts botanists, gardeners, bird watchers, photographers, artists and bush walkers. We'll  also visit Erringibba National Park which conserves shrubby open forest and open forest to woodland.

Itinerary – 

Friday 22^nd August – Make your own way to Myall Park Botanic Garden to arrive mid-afternoon (after 2pm).  Gather together 5pm for meet’n’greet and shared communal dinner.

Saturday 23^rd August – Full day at Myall Park walking the many trails or taking short drives along the circuit road. Meet again 5pm to discuss sightings. Self-catering all meals.
Sunday 24^th August -  Meet 8.30 am at the Gallery for tag-along drive to Eringgibba National Park approx. 15km east (through Glenmorgan) from Myall Park. Return to Myall Park for lunch. Afternoon at leisure. Meet 5pm to discuss sightings. Self-catering all meals.
Monday 25^th August – Return to Toowoomba (or home). 

Added information – There are many different routes to travel to Glenmorgan with interesting stops along the way. Some suggestions  - Hugh Sawrey Memorial Park Kogan, Caliguel Lagoon Condamine, Brigalow Creek Meandarra, Tara Lagoon and many creek crossings with water.

Non members: please email toowoombafieldnaturalists@gmail.com for more information on accommodation and directions.

Lagoon on the way into Myall Park

Myall Park entrance by the lagoon

Mud map of key birding sites
near Myall Park (not to scale)

2025 Activity Details - Sunday outing to Goombungee

Rush-leaf Wattle Acacia juncifolia

CLUB OUTING: Sunday 3rd August 2025. Goombungee Tip

The Goombungee Waste Management Facility  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 expected boronia, prostanthera, acacias and hovea - to name just a few will be in flower.

Meeting Time: 9.00 am

Where: Bottle Tree Park in the main street of Goombungee between George and Edward Streets. Car-pooling into high clearance vehicles is suggested. 

Activities: We will take short, easy walks as we make frequent stops around the site.  Morning tea within the forested area, and return to Bottle Tree Park for lunch.

Facilities: Toilets & picnic tables at Bottle Tree Park

What to Bring: Come prepared with water, closed footwear and sun protection. Bring morning tea, lunch, a chair and enjoy this rare opportunity with Lisa.

All welcome.

Boronia inflexa

Hovea

  

July Outing Report - Muntapa Tunnel and the Palms National Park, Cooyar, Sunday 06 July 2025.

  Adapted from the TFNC newsletter report of M.Simmons

Rhyolite blocks and tuff
Photo: K. Stephenson

Our day was designed to drive the Oakey-Cooyar Road through the localities of Wilthorn, Sabine, Sugarloaf, Beith, Acland, Muldu, Balgowan, Plainview, Rosalie Plains, Kulpi, Peranga and Narko before reaching the Muntapa Tunnel – all were sidings along the Oakey-Cooyar railway line built in 1911 to carry timber and other primary produce to the coast. A brief roadside pull-over atop a hill enabled a view over the current workings of the Acland coal mine.

In the Muntapa picnic area we were given interesting little stories and information on the geological formation of the surrounding rocks and topography. ‘About 18 million years ago [this area] was subject to complex and violent volcanism where rising rhyolitic magmas superheated groundwater resulting in huge phreatic explosions. Craters between 100 and 200 metres deep were infilled with masses of material fallen from the sky. Both portals [of the tunnel] will show us the variety of this material – through which those who had constructed the tunnel had worked with hand tools.’ 

The tunnel has now been fenced giving a Gothic-like appearance through to the roosting and breeding colony of several thousand Bent-wing Bats, Miniopterus schreibersii. These bats cluster tightly together (up to 1,500 per square metre) on the ceilings of caves, mines, disused railway tunnels, storm water drains and old cement buildings. (‘Bats of Eastern Australia’ Qld Museum booklet No.12).  The historical markers and information recording the  history of the tunnel, the workers campsite and associated memories of long-term residents all added to making this a worthy revisit for the Nats.                                                                        

Black Bean
Castanospermum australe 
pods at The Palms N.P.
Photo: D. Pagel

Further north beyond Cooyar in the Palms National Park we walked the short track through Piccabeen Palms, Strangler Figs, Bunya and Hoop Pines and an ancient Grey Gum – over 300 years old through which flows a spring fed gully in the headwaters of the Brisbane River. 

Bird list for July outing.  (Muntapa Tunnel and Palms Nat. Park compiled by L. Moodie.)

Oakey Rotary Park: Pacific Black Duck, Australian Pelican, Australian White Ibis, Little Corella, Noisy Miner, Grey Butcherbird, Australian Magpie, Magpie-lark. 

Muntapa Tunnel:  Red-backed Fairy-wren, Lewin’s Honeyeater, Yellow-faced Honeyeater, Noisy Miner, Spotted Pardalote, Speckled Warbler, Brown Thornbill, Varied Sittella, Grey Shrike-thrush, Pied Currawong, Australian Magpie, Grey Butcherbird, Grey Fantail, Torresian Crow, Silvereye, Red-browed Finch.

Palms National Park: Australian Brush-turkey, Brown Quail, Laughing Kookaburra, White-throated Treecreeper, Lewin’s Honeyeater, Spotted Pardalote, Brown Gerygone, White-browed Scrubwren, Golden Whistler, Eastern Whipbird, Grey Fantail, Eastern Yellow Robin.

July 2025 Activity Details - Friday meeting, and Sunday outing to Muntapa Tunnel & Palms National Park.

 CLUB MEETING: 7 pm, Friday 4 July 2025  

St. Anthony’s Community Centre, Memory Street, Toowoomba. The speakers' presentations are followed by official business and supper. 

Two speakers:

Dingo on K'gari
Photo:  Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

1. Peter Jesser on 'Wild Dogs and Dingoes' (Peter has worked for the Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Mines, and is a pest management consultant.)

2. Ann Alcock on 'Puffins to Penguins' (Ann, a professional freelance photographer, photojournalist, documentary photographer, and event photographer for newspapers and magazines, is not one to shy away from adventure.)

CLUB OUTING: Sunday 6 July 2025. Muntapa Tunnel and the Palms National Park, Cooyar

Meeting Time: 8.30am

Map of railway route
from Oakey to Cooyar

Where: Rotary Park on Campbell Street, Oakey (next to the Park House Motor Inn). This route closely follows the original Oakey-Cooyar railway line.

Description: This 287 metre single bore tunnel is unique in that it goes through the Great Dividing Range from the Murray-Darling river catchment to the Brisbane Valley catchment area. The tunnel has now been fenced to protect the roosting and breeding site of several thousand Bent-wing Bats.

Activities: Historical information signage, a picnic area and amenities, make this an interesting site to revisit. After morning-tea here we will travel through Cooyar north to the Palms National Park known as a roosting site for three different species of flying-fox - black, grey-headed and little red. (On last visit early June there were no flying-foxes present.)

Level of Fitness: easy to moderate

Facilities: Muntapa - BBQ, picnic tables, shelter & toilets; Palms - picnic tables, toilets in nearby Cooyar.

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

June Outing Report - Postmans Ridge and Helidon Spa, Sunday 08 June 2025.

 Adapted from the TFNC July 2025 newsletter report of D. Pagel.

Withcott Waterlilies
Photo: M. Simmons

It was a clear winter’s day, and the temperature was much warmer below the Range when we met at our destination in Withcott. We strolled down a grassy slope past scattered Forest Red Gums Eucalyptus tereticornis where there was some evidence of koala activity in foliage and on bark, and past specimens of Soap Tree Alphitonia excelsa and Flat-stemmed Wattle Acacia complanata. The slope led to a large dam that was more like a picturesque billabong skirted by a path and fringed with Common Rush Juncus usitatus. On the water were a number of waterbirds, and patches of exotic Blue Water Lilies Nymphaea caerulea flowering on their tall stems. However, some flowers appeared larger, paler and to sit on the surface of the water. Surely, they were not the native Giant Water Lily Nymphaea gigantea, locally extinct, that years ago excited our Field Naturalists on outings to several locations on the Downs? (Yet to be confirmed.)

Rodent droppings
Photo: L. Moodie

We then moved on to an area of scrubby woodland  on poor thin soil at Postmans Ridge. Here the Gatton Sandstone that had not been so conspicuous at our first stop demonstrated how friable and easily eroded it can be. Our sandy road became impassable because of deeply eroded channels, probably the result of tunnelling where the clayey subsoil contains sodium salts that dissolve or ‘melt away’ on wetting. On one side of this road, we noted stands of Black She-oak Allocasuarina littoralis and termite activity both on trees and in a prominent mound that was capped with the dark droppings of an unidentified species of rat. Those who walked on the other side noted Geebung Persoonia sp., Cough Bush Cassinia laevis and Sweet Canthium Psydrax odorata subsp. buxifolium. Acacias included Flat-stemmed Wattle Acacia complanata and Blake’s Wattle Acacia Blakei subsp. diphylla.

Fungus Pisolithes sp. 
Photo: D. Pagel

 Emerging from the road surface itself was a fresh specimen of the Horse Dung Fungus Pisolithus sp. that had been spared by many of our vehicles’ tyres. Its white globe would finally become dark brown and crumble when mature to reveal its spore mass. This fungus has been known to emerge on roadsides through bitumen.

Our final destination was Helidon Spa where Nats enjoyed lunch at the water’s edge while admiring large numbers of Plumed Whistling Ducks and the image of Little Corellas in a eucalypt, vivid white against an intense blue sky. Warm thanks to Melanie for organizing this enjoyable excursion.

Little Corellas at Helidon Spa
Photo: M. Simmons

Species Lists

Birds: 

Withcott. Superb Fairy-wren, Magpie Lark, Willie Wagtail, Common Myna, House Sparrow.

Postmans Ridge.  Plumed Whistling Duck, Australian Wood Duck, Pacific Black Duck, Hardhead, Australasian Grebe, Crested Pigeon, Little Black Cormorant, White Faced Heron, Dusky Moorhen, Pale-headed Rosella, Noisy Minor, Grey Butcherbird, Magpie-lark, Welcome Swallow. 

Helidon Spa. Plumed Whistling Duck, Pacific Black Duck, Australasian Grebe, Dusky Moorhen, Straw-necked Ibis, Masked Lapwing, Little Corella, Sulphur-crested Cockatoo, Pied Butcherbird, Australian Magpie, Willie Wagtail.

Butterflies: Small Green Banded Blue, Caper White, Common Grass Yellow, Wanderer (Monarch).

June 2025 Activity Details - Friday meeting, and Sunday outing to Helidon lowlands.

CLUB MEETING: 7 pm, Friday 6 June 2025  St. Anthony’s Community Centre, Memory Street, Toowoomba 

Assoc. Professor

Tomatoes
Photo from Wikipedia: 
Creative Commons Attribution

John Dearnaley will speak on Australian Serendipita fungi and their interactions with native plants and crops

John Dearnaley is Associate Professor in Plant Microbe Interactions, School of Agriculture & Environmental Science, University of Southern Queensland. 

His research interests include the taxonomy, ecology and economics of Australian fungi, in particular, those that are fungal symbionts of plants. 

He has published widely on this interesting group of fungi during his 30 year research career. 

Currently, he and his students are working on a range of projects centred on the taxonomy, ecology and bioactive properties of rainforest endophytes (fungi that live inside the tissues of plants.) Recent research has found that inoculating plants with Serendipita sp. increased the fresh weight of tomatoes and improved immunity against the powdery mildew pathogen in an alternative, eco-friendly and non-chemical approach. 

Other research includes the taxonomy and ecology of Australian Marasmiaceae (Pinwheel fungi), Australian mammals that eat fungi, fungal biomaterials (materials that are derived from or produced by fungi), and the symbiotic relationship between fungi and plant roots in agriculture.

CLUB OUTING: Sunday 8th June 2025. Helidon Lowlands

Paynter Rd waterlilies

Meeting Time: 8.30 am

Where: Withcott; the car park beside the Freedom Fuels Service Station 

Description: Normally we head for the hills at Helidon but this month we're never very far from Rocky Creek which meanders into Lockyer Creek west of Helidon.

Activities: We will be visiting a property in Paynter Road along a watercourse, then shrubby woodland on Ashlands Drive (look out for Painted Button-quail), and lastly Helidon Spa for waterbirds.

Level of Fitness: 

Ashlands Drive

There is easy vehicle access to all stops. Easy walking at all stops although walking along the watercourse and around the waterlilies is through a well-grassed paddock. 

What to Bring: 

Helidon Spa

Bring morning tea, lunch, chair and a friend.