Volume 55

Bee-eaters, of the Family Meropidae, are known to ingest small pieces of grit as gastroliths and while a few anecdotal reports of them eating slightly larger gastroliths exist, documented evidence is lacking. A Rainbow Bee-eater was photographed swallowing a small stone, possibly for the first time, and this is reviewed and discussed.

Observers using field glasses, not shotguns, made pioneering contributions to regional ornithology in the 20th century, but their lives and influence have received little attention in Queensland. James Andrew Leslie (‘Jim’) Bravery, a young coal miner from south-east Queensland, was interested in birds and conservation by age 14, although he never collected eggs and no other family members were naturalists. After serving in WWI, he moved to the Atherton Tablelands as a soldier-settler and farmed there for the rest of his life. The most probable influence on his early development as a field ornithologist was the ‘new curriculum’, which introduced nature study to Queensland primary schools for his last four years of education, at ages 9–12. The nature study movement encouraged children to observe wildlife for themselves, and to form a personal commitment to nature. After recording birds and their behaviour on the Atherton Tablelands for nearly 40 years, at age 60 Bravery joined ornithological societies and began corresponding with leading naturalists including A. H. Chisholm and K. A. Hindwood, who encouraged him to write. Bravery’s articles, particularly his 1970 signature paper on birds of the Atherton Shire, have attracted more than 1000 citations   in published literature and continue to provide a baseline for studies of birds and their conservation in the region.

Bioblitzes are public events that engage the community and stimulate learning about the natural environment. On 9 November 2024, a bioblitz was held in Dungavel Park, Malanda, Qld, which is a public park with open areas and a narrow, revegetated riparian corridor replanted 20-25 years ago. During the event, which was attended by c. 300 people, experts and public participants were invited to make and submit observations of biodiversity over a period of 24 hours. A research team from the School for Field Studies and various specialists of different groups of biodiversity also conducted targeted surveys of plants, invertebrates, birds, reptiles and amphibians throughout November. We documented a total of 461 species, which included 262 species of plants including algae (1 spp.), bryophytes (12 spp.), ferns (11 spp.), gymnosperms (3 spp.) and flowering plants (235 spp.). Of the 249 vascular plants, 169 species were native, while 80 species were non-native. We also recorded 14 species of lichen, three of macrofungi, 107 of invertebrates, and 75 species of vertebrates. Although the sampling effort was intensive for only a limited time, the data collected should be considered a snapshot of the biodiversity of the site. Some groups of organisms, such as non-vascular plants, fungi, invertebrates, fishes and mammals remain underrepresented. Nevertheless, the plant and animal diversity documented is significant considering the highly modified environment at the bioblitz site and that most of the observations were recorded from the riparian strip. We conclude firstly that older revegetated rainforest patches, even when subject to heavy anthropogenic use, can provide important habitat for native biodiversity. Secondly, bioblitz events are useful initiatives for documenting local biodiversity, engaging the public, and promoting educational outreach about nature. Finally, we recommend organising similar events for other localities and habitat types within the Australian Wet Tropics to document and spread awareness about local biodiversity, and we hope that this work presents a useful example of how biodiversity data from future bioblitzes can be reported.

Bryophytes are an important but neglected component of the flora of the Australian Wet Tropics bioregion. In particular, the bryophyte flora of complex notophyll vine forest 5b, also known as Mabi forest, that occurs on fertile basaltic soils in the upland regions of the Atherton Tablelands, Queensland has not been thoroughly examined, despite the endangered status of this forest type. To address this information gap, we collected bryophytes using a floristic habitat survey   method where we sampled a wide range of microhabitats and substrates in a ~6 ha patch of Mabi forest within Hallorans Hill Conservation Park, Atherton. We collected 202 bryophyte specimens, and identified 44 species of moss, 41 species of liverworts, and two species of hornworts. Substrates included tree bark and twigs (epiphytic – 66.7% of bryophyte species), rock (epilithic – 41.4%), decaying logs (epixylic – 31%), soil (terrestrial –12.6%), and on leaves (epiphyllous – 3.4%). Around 30% of species occurred on multiple substrates. The high bryophyte diversity recorded in our survey highlights the need for additional bryophyte surveys in Mabi forests in the Wet Tropics, as well as investigations into their ecology.