They Fly Through The Trees With The Greatest Of Ease

The Blue Tigers are a common sight on Fraser this month

April/May has been a mixed bag for us in terms of the weather and wildlife that we have seen out and about on Fraser Island.  At the moment, guests heading across island to 75-Mile Beach can’t help but spot our migratory ‘Blue Tiger’ butterflies (Tirumala limniace - pictured left), which seem to be everywhere and are easily identified by their brown wings with baby blue spots.

Closer to our home base at Kingfisher Bay Resort, guests on our night walks over the past few weeks have been in for a treat as some of Fraser Island’s cutest marsupials – our Sugar Gliders (Petaurus breviceps) – have made cameo appearances in the trees in and around Kingfisher Bay and, in particular, near our treetop villas.

The Sugar Glider (pictured below left) is a very small, but amazing little animal that makes their home in the tree tops and tree hollows in wet sclerophyll forests (that is, forests with an open canopy of tall eucalypts such as Rose Gum and Turpentine). Sugar Gliders are marsupials – that is they carry their young in a pouch called a marsupium – and, as the name suggests, have an amazing ability to jump and glide up to sixty metres.  It is this gliding ability which actually distinguishes them from the rest of the possum family.

Sacred Familiar's fabulous pic of a Glider in action

When marsupials are born, they are extremely underdeveloped and they crawl, using their barely formed limbs, into the mother’s pouch. New born Sugar Gliders are about the size of a jelly bean, and spend several months attached to the teat in the marsupium.  As they grow, they develop a furry, bushy tail and a black stripe that runs from the head down to the tail. Adult Gliders measure in at around 15-20 cm long.

Spotting them in the trees feeding on the nectar can initially be difficult - because they have a white belly that blends in very well with the white flowers – so it helps to have our Ranger ‘know how’ on hand.

DID YOU KNOW Gliders have a membrane of skin called a petagium that extends from the wrists to their ankles that enables them to jump and glide through the air as if they are paragliding or base-jumping?
 
The gliding part of this species’ behaviour is actually quite important for a number of reasons.   It’s energy efficient for them and saves them having to climb up and down trees and scamper between them.  It also protects them from predators that they could come into contact with on the ground like dingoes and pythons

Kingfisher Bay Resort Rangers to the rescue

As many of our regular readers know, Kingfisher Bay Resort was built to sit lightly on the land and allow Fraser’s wildlife to go about their daily business uninterrupted.

From time to time we need to step in and lend a hand with our furry neighbours, as was the case recently when a guest let us know a baby Glider was making some strange noises just underneath the Centre Complex building.

We promptly contacted a Certified Wildlife Carer and, following their expert instruction, rescued the little Gilder and popped in our Wildlife Rescue Box. Gliders normally feed on nectar and insects; however this baby did not have properly developed teeth and was unable to access its mother’s milk, we kept it fed on a diet of sugar water and fruit juice until we could relocate it to a care facility on the Fraser Coast mainland (see above pic).

As you can see, this little fella won the hearts of all our team as it eagerly lapped up drops of apple juice out of the dropper. However, as we could not give it the care that it needed here at the resort, we gave it to a wildlife carer in Hervey Bay to look after… and from all accounts he is healthy and ready to head back into the wild.

Stays tuned for next month’s update tree huggers and, for all those mad keen fisherman amongst us, catch Ranger Grant’s latest fishing update on our Life on Fraser blog.

April's Been A ‘Shore’ Thing For Our Fraser Island Twitchers

On Fraser Island, February to April is our migratory bird season and, during this time, we welcome our transient bird population who, as part of their migratory pattern, fly north for the winter and then flock back in the summer and spring to feast on the island's abundant supply of crabs, worms and crustaceans.

Some 354 species of birds have been officially sighted on the island and in the resort grounds. You may not know that parts of World Heritage-listed Fraser Island (in particular a sand passage estuary that runs between Hervey Bay and Fraser Island) are listed as a Ramsar wetland site – which is essentially a site of international importance, often because of the plant species that are there, and because of the protected migratory birds that can be seen inhabiting those wetlands.

A lot of the shorebirds we see on Fraser Island are migratory and 18 of them are actually listed under international migratory bird conservation agreements. With this in mind we always encourage our resort guests and Junior Eco Rangers to take care not to disturb nests and to observe signs when walking near wetlands.

A White-faced Heron

This month we're pleased to report that we have spotted several of our shorebird species - including Herons and Egrets – when we’ve been out on our Ranger-guided beach walks.  Both species are beautiful to look at and commonly found in wetlands and intertidal mudflats, both of which we have here at the resort.

The White-faced Heron (Egretta novaehollindiae - see right) or White-fronted Heron, as it is sometimes called, is easily identified by its height – these birds can grow up to 70cm – and by its pale grey-blue back feathers, long yellow legs and white cheeks.  In flight, the dark feathers of the wing contrast with the pale plumage making it easy to spot.

When we’ve been out, we’ve spotted our Herons wading along the shoreline or stooping down to dig their beak into the soft sand to pluck out some of the crabs and other tasty morsels like sea snails and exposed yabbies.

Another fabulous shorebird, the Little Egret (Egretta garzetta - pictured below), is a small, nomadic bird that has wide distribution across eastern and south-eastern Australia and, on Fraser, is commonly found hunting from a perch in a mangrove tree near Kingfisher Bay Resort.  Little Egrets are slightly smaller than the Herons and grow between 56 and 65 centimetres tall.

Did you know that The Little Egret will spread one or both of its wings to shade the water whilst stalking prey? It's fascinating to watch

The Little Egret is also know as The Lesser Egret

As you'll see from our photo, these birds are almost completely white, except for their dark grey-black legs and black bill with yellow colouring on either side of the bill.  Interestingly, in the breeding season their plumage is abundant on the back and breast and includes two ribbon-like head plumes.

On Fraser Island we also see the large, thick-set Beach Stone Curlews (Esacus neglectus) waders from time to time and April was no exception.

This particular species is listed as vulnerable in Queensland (Nature Conservation Act 1992) and has one of the strongest beaks out of all the shorebirds, which allows them to easily crush crab shells and prize open bivalves (i.e. oysters, mussels, scallops).

Beach Stone Curlews are usually found solitarily or in pairs and need a runway and a good run in order to take off in flight   At high tide they can be found roosting around mangroves or in the shade of trees - their habitat is marine tidal zones, which fits the western coast of Fraser Island to a tee.  We haven’t seen their chicks or nests yet, but suspect there is bound to be quite a few on the western side of Fraser - so we'll keep you posted.

Well as you've read, it’s been a great much for bird watching on Fraser – stay tuned to find out what we spot next month.  Happy twitching.

There's Plenty For Night Owls To See On Fraser Island This Autumn

As the sun dips below the horizon on another autumn Fraser day, all sorts of wonderful creatures go about their business in the bushland surrounding the resort.  The diversity of the island’s habitat supports a wide range of animals including many nocturnal species.

Nothing upsets this little Pacific Black Duck!

At the moment Black Flying Foxes (Pteropus alecto) are commuting nightly to Fraser Island from daytime roosts in Hervey Bay and at the mouth of the Mary River on the mainland; and our Villa guests are starting to see our resident marsupials – the Sugar Glider (Petaurus breviceps) and Squirrel Gliders (P.norfolcensis) and the smallest gliding marsupials in the world – the Feathertail Gliders (Acrobates pygmaeus) –  gliding between the branches and treetops in search of nectar and insects. We expect to see more of these little guys on our Ranger-guided autumn night walks.

This month two of our regular resort visitors – in the form of Pacific Black Ducks (Anas superciliosa) - have returned to their Wallum Wetlands (just a stone’s throw from Kingfisher Bay’s Centre Complex) after an absence of several months.  These birds have a fairly dull brown appearance with some mottling on their side and chest, but have vivid splashes of colour on a spot on the side of their wings called a speculum (see right).

Diagram credit: www.paulnoll.com

If you watch as these ducks move, the wing colours switch from a dull brown to purple to vivid green and back to brown.  This is due to the way their feathers interlock, which in turn reflects different wavelengths of light.

All birds need to preen themselves, using their beak to rearrange their feathers and keep them orderly.

DID YOU KNOW that it is essential for ducks to preen and keep their feathers not only orderly, but watertight?  If they don’t, they could drown under their own body weight! 

Whilst spiders aren’t everybody’s cup of tea, there’s no doubt that intricate spider webs glistening in the moonlight are a thing of beauty.  At night time, our harmless Net-casting spiders (Deinopis sp) spin small, pretty made of thick, bluish-white cribellate* silk in bushland nooks – which we sometimes spot on our guided night walks or with our Junior Eco Rangers.

Net-casting spiders can be found along the east coast of Australia in a wide variety of habitats and have a really interesting way of ambush hunting.   At night, these stick-like spiders build rectangular webs (about the size of a postage stamp) and deposit spots of white faeces on the surface to act as aiming spots.  The spider then hangs from a thread of silk, holding the net in its front pairs of legs and waits patiently for its dinner (see picture below).

Net-casting spiders create miniature works of art

When unsuspecting insects fly into the web, the spiders - which are super-sensitive to any movement in their web - rush over, break a strand off their web and wrap it securely around their prey.

Often, whilst eating their dinner, the spider starts building a new net for its next meal.  These spiders have extremely good night vision and can concentrate available light more efficiently than owls or domestic cats making them extremely good predators in the night-time environment.

Speaking of the environment, there are many who read our blogs who care a lot about the conservation and the effects of climate change on sea levels and global fauna and flora.  As a developed society, the amount of energy we use is of concern.  Kingfisher Bay Resort's vision since opening has been to educate staff, guests and regional district – from schools through to townsfolk – about the environment and our impact upon it... so we joined the global Earth Hour community on March 23 to show what one simple idea can achieve and one person's actions can inspire.

Catch you next time, tree huggers... and if you have any fabulous flora or fauna shots that you've snapped on Fraser Island, we'd love to see them on our Facebook or Instagram pages.  And, if you're interested to know more about island life, check out our Life on Fraser blog.

*A small sieve-like spinning organ in certain spiders that occurs between the spinnerets.

The Birds And The Bees And The Flowers And The Trees

FRASER ISLAND:  March and April is a stunning time to visit Fraser Island – the climate is temperate, autumn birds are returning to our shores and, with the change of season, the many Paperbarks and Eucalypt trees around the resort flower and fill the air with a sweet aroma.

A Slender Skimmer is skillfully snapped in the resort grounds

Most insects will be making last ditch mating attempts before the cooler weather overcomes them; Damselflies and Dragonflies are prolific and, if you look in the dead grass tree stalks in the wallum, you’ll likely find our blue Carpenter Bees (Xylocopa) busily burrowing away.

If you’re staying at Kingfisher Bay Resort at this time of the year, one of the first birds that you will hear in the morning at the moment is the Eastern Yellow Robin (Eopsaltria australis - pictured below).  These small to medium sized birds are inquisitive and confident with humans.  The Eastern Yellow is easily identified by its grey coloured back and beautiful yellow underparts with both sexes similar in plumage colour and pattern.  

You'll easily spot an Eastern Yellow Robin

Whilst they might be a lovely little bird to look at and photograph, they never still for long – darting from perch to perch in search of spiders, small insects and other arthropods.  This species has a good distribution across Eastern Australia, and will often make Woodland and Banksia heaths their habitat so, on Fraser Island, we see them Wallum and along the road to the resort’s jetty (where one side of the road is Wallum and the other Eucalyptus Woodland).

DID YOU KNOW? An arthropod is a small invertebrate animal (insect, arachnid or spider) with an external skeleton, segmented body and six or more jointed appendages.  They are found on land, in trees, in fresh water, salt water and even underground and experts estimate that they account for more than 80% of all known, living animal species.

The autumn aroma of sweet smelling flowers not only attracts human visitors to our resort grounds, but also visitors of the featured variety.  The Rainbow Lorikeet (Trichoglossus haemotodus) is a favourite with our international resort guests and is easily spotted with its bright red beak; colourful blue head and belly; green wings, tail and back; and yellow/orange breast. Their Latin name ‘haemotodus’ means ‘bloody’ and refers to their vibrant red colouring.  ‘Tricolgossus’ refers to their brush tipped tongue, which is most useful as they lick and scrape the nectar off Fraser Island’s flowers.

Their calls can be heard loud and clear across the island in the early morning and late afternoon, although the Lorikeets choose not to live on Fraser. Each day they fly across the Great Sandy Strait and feed on wild flowers, before descending back to the palm trees of Scarness and Pialba (in nearby Hervey Bay) to roost.

Note the wedge-shaped tail

As always, our birds of prey haven’t disappointed us.  During the month of March we’ve seen both Brahminy Kites (Haliastur indus) and Whistling Kites (Haliastur sphenurus - pictured left) soaring above the western beach and dunes on our way to the Dundonga Creek Mangrove colony.

 We’ve also spotted a few juvenile White-bellied Sea Eagles (Haliaeetus leucogaster) whose mottled colouring looks exactly the same as the Whistling Kite to an untrained eye. All three of these raptors are known to inhabit estuarine areas, though Sea Eagles and Brahminy Kites enjoy coastal areas and islands.

For those eager birders reading this blog, there is a method to distinguish these birds when they have their mottled juvenile colours or when you can’t quite make out the colouring in adults.

The first thing to do is look at their tail – the Brahminy Kite has a short tail, the Whistling Kite has a much longer and sometimes wedge-shaped tail and the White-bellied Sea Eagle has a large, fan-shaped tail.  These beautiful birds of pery can also be identified by their call - the Brahminy Kite has a high-pitched, drawn out call; the White-bellied Sea Eagle produces more of a goose-honking sound and the Whistling Kite has an unmistakeable and beautiful high pitched ascending whistle.

Well that’s certainly given us something to tweet about – until next time, happy twitching wherever you are! And if you've got any Fraser Island bird pics that you'd like to share on Instagram - just tag them #kingfisherbay and we'll happily share or post on our Facebook site.

A Change Of Season Is As Good As A Holiday On Fraser

FRASER ISLAND: As summer slowly starts to slip away most of our colourful summer bush foods, like the Blue Quandong (Elaeocarpus angustifolius) and Native Blue Tongue (Melastoma affine), have started to disappear and we've started to notice subtle differences in the island's flora and fauna - with the return of visiting Rainbow Lorikeets (Trichoglossus haematodus) and new flowering plants like the beautiful Snake Vine (Hibbertia scandens) - which is also a handy bush remedy for headaches.

One of our favourite summer fruits, the Midyim Berry (Austromytrus dulcis) can still be found in bloom as we head into Autumn. Midyims are delicious white, speckled berries with hints of blueberry, cinnamon and spice to the taste and the plants around the pool area have finally started to fruit - which is later than other areas of the resort mainly due to their sunlight availability, water and the sand quality - so we’ve been visiting regularly on our guided Bush Tucker walks.

Autumn begins with the Autumnal equinox and as the earth tilts closer to the sun, days become shorter and nights grow longer.  With this change of season, comes a change in the night skies as a new cycle of stars becomes visible above Fraser Island.

After a break of about five months, the Southern Cross has risen again and the Milky Way is clearly visible in a band that runs from south-east to the west.

Whilst we can still see the stars in our summer sky such as Sirius and the Pleiades, the winter constellations of Orion, Canis Major and Gemini are setting in the western sky.  Check out our blog from August last year to find out what happens in the skies during winter.  

This little Echidna was a show stopper on Fraser Island

But not all of the action has been taking place skyward and a group of passengers and Ranger Nick were lucky enough to spot one of Fraser Island’s more elusive critters in the sands around the resort – the Short-Beaked Echidna (Tachyglosgus aculeatus).  These little Australian natives are easily identified by the long spines covering their back; short legs; shovel-like claws; and long snout, though are rarely seen on the island.

This little fella (pictured right) actually stopped traffic when he crossed one of the asphalted roads around the resort enroute to his burrow. 

Echidnas are fascinating creatures.  They are one of only two mammals to lay eggs, but whilst the females have pouches, they are not considered marsupials because of this - .they're called monotremes.

DID YOU KNOW?  Baby Echidnas are called Puggles or Joeys.  But unlike their Kangaroo counterparts, Echidnas can’t keep their young in the pouch for too long.  Understandably; as the spines start to develop (at around two to three months), the mothers move them into burrows, where the Puggles continue to suckle for another six months or so.

In and around the resort, we can expect our Short-Beaked Echidnas to feed on grubs, earthworms, beetles, moth larvae, termites and ant nests. Echidnas have no teeth and catch their pray by flicking their long sticky tongue in and out – which is appropriate given their Latin name, Tachyglossus, means ‘quick tongue’.

Mother Nature puts on quite a show on Fraser's western side

As far as marine life is concerned, there’s been plenty of big craters and depressions left in the sand which tells us our Stingray population has been feeding – this makes for interesting viewing and great pictures when combined with one of our famous Fraser Island sunsets.  (If you want to learn more, check out our February blog for info on how these fascinating animals feed).

From all the team at Kingfisher Bay Resort, we look forward to sharing more wild and wonderful island facts with you next time, tree huggers!