Queensland Term Abroad

Lamington National Park

Lamington II — 13 October, cont.

O'Reilly's caters to guests who want to have a rain forest experience. To enrich that experience, the family has built a series of catwalks and towers that allow guest to climb (safely) into the rain forest canopy. An amazing view from the treetops is only one benefit. In most forests like these, most of the biological action takes place in the canopy, where the sun's energy is more abundant. A completely different community of plants and animals live among the topmost branches. A wide variety of ferns and orchids live only in the canopy, along with insects, frogs and birds that forage among them. The rain forest towers allowed us to see first hand the very different treetop life. Bowerbirds (two species of the genus Ptilinorhynchus are common in Lamington) were another fascinating feature of Lamington. The male satin bowerbird (Ptilinorhynchus violaceus) builds a "bower" or tunnel of twigs on the ground. This and a pile of treasures scattered nearby, attract the female. The male sits in a nearby tree and waits for a female to come inspect his construction. If she approves, they mate and the female goes off somewhere else to build a nest. The bower in the photograph below was built by "Jacque", the satin bowerbird originally filmed by David Attenborough 15 years ago. That footage is still the "classic" shown to demonstrate the species. The really funny thing is that individual birds have distinct preferences for things to put in their treasure piles. Most are color-coded. One prefers all blue, another blue and green, another blue, green and yellow, another white. We tried adding an object of a different color (red) to one of the blue treasure piles. After only a few minutes, the male bowerbird came down and removed the offending object and flew away with it. Apparently there is also a specific arrangement to the objects. We tried rearranging some and when we returned the next day, they had all been put back into their original configurations.

Paddymelons were another fun feature of the Lamington fauna. These cute little 'roos live in the forest understory, emerging at dawn and dusk to forage in grassy areas. They seem to be under contract with O'Reilly's because they do an excellent job of mowing and mulching the resort's lawns. It's not unusual to find one breakfasting outside your room in the morning if you get up early.