Perfect winter weather enticed fifteen walkers to join the Wildlife Queensland monthly excursion on the Sunday just past. The group met at the Freshwater bird hide (see Town Common map (pdf) if you’re not familiar with the park) at 9.00 and ambled along the causeway (someone called it a “dam wall”) to the foot of Many Peaks range near Bald Rock, then up to the top of Mount Marlow, the highest point of the range. I walked down it a year ago and commented that “I would rather go down it than up” but really, going up wasn’t too demanding.
Most of us came back the same way but some continued along the Many Peaks track to Tegoora Rock and down to Pallarenda, taking advantage of the offer of a lift back to Freshwater with a member who had chosen to approach the peak from the other direction (doing my last-year’s route in reverse, in fact).
I posted lots of landscapes last time, so these few here are just to show the current state of the wetlands and the birdlife.
We saw lots of birds including brolgas, hawks, egrets, ibis and large flocks of Magpie Geese; lots of butterflies – milkweed butterflies, Tawny Coster and Grass Yellows on the causeway and Ringlets, Argus, Bush Browns and Glasswing on the hillsides; and grasshoppers and dragonflies everywhere.
