Tag: Wet Tropics

The elusive Musa jackeyi

Ten years ago I introduced the readers of Green Path to Australia’s two species of wild banana, Musa banksii and Musa jackeyi. At that time I had seen the former growing in rainforest several times but hadn’t tried the fruit. I hadn’t even seen the latter.

I eventually tried the fruit of M. banksii, but I still haven’t seen M. jackeyi. Odd snippets of information have come my way, however, and I thought it was time to pull them all together, supplementing them with what further information I could find online.

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Wallaman wildlife 2024

We visited Wallaman Falls in Girringun National Park again last week. It hasn’t changed much since previous visits in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2022. Those links will take you to all the general information about the falls and the camping area so I won’t repeat it here.

misty falling water
The foot of the falls

The biggest differences this time were seasonal. All our previous visits were May-June and here we are near the end of October. The creek was still running well so the falls were as good as ever but the flowers and wildlife were somewhat different.

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Time capsules: the Daintree Blockade

The recent North Queensland Conservation Council garage sale attracted a wonderful collection of old environmental books – mostly 1970s – 1990s, reflecting the age of the organisation and its older members.

Every book is a time capsule, preserving knowledge and attitudes current at the time of writing. This one was more in-the-moment than most.

The Trials of Tribulation by The Douglas Shire Wilderness Action Group is a  60-page book written in haste during a pause in the very physical blockade of the bulldozers pushing a road through Cape Trib rainforest in 1983.

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Broadwater camping ground revisited

Braoadwater State Forest near Abergowrie is basically a pine plantation so it’s not of any great interest to naturalists or bushwalkers such as myself. However, a very pleasant camping ground and a small patch of rainforest are hidden away between the pine trees and the creek so I’ve been there a few times.

My first visit, and the most rewarding in terms of birdwatching, was nearly ten years ago. I was there again in 2021 and posted a few photos to mark the occasion, and I have just been back once more. I knew it would be quite wet. That didn’t bother me because I had no ambitions to do anything more than relax in beautiful natural surroundings, which is precisely what I did. Mission accomplished!

But I did take a few photos.

Broadwater - hills in cloud
Looking across the creek to the hills

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Lloyd Neilsen’s bird books

Birds of the Wet Tropics of Queensland & Great Barrier Reef & Where to Find Them

Lloyd Neilsen

Second edition, 2015. Self-published, it is available from your favourite local bookshop or Neilsen’s own site.

Birds of the Wet Tropics is a field guide to 451 birds found in our region, and its unique feature is that it is arranged primarily by observable features – black plumage, red eye, forked tail, etc – rather than family and genus.

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