Member-only story
Strolling through a Fungi Wonderland
Alien and intriguing
Not far from my home on the Atherton Tablelands, a patch of tropical rainforest clings to the western bank of Malan (North Johnstone River) near Tutamonlin, the falls where the river cascades over an ancient lava flow. Once most of the region was covered in rainforest, but settlers cut down the trees for their timber and farmed the cleared land. Today, the forest survives in national parks and conservation areas and on private property where landowners replant trees by the thousand in the hope of restoring the landscape to what it once was.
On weekends and in the mid-year tourist season, the walking tracks at the falls are busy. But it is quiet now at the start of the Wet Season. No one wants to slog along slippery, muddy paths under the constant threat of rain. Well, almost no one. On Friday morning, my birding buddy Jen and I sprayed our shoes with insect repellent to deter leeches, and headed off into the rainforest. It rained. We slipped. The leeches were undeterred.
We saw birds — Emerald Doves, Brush-turkeys, Grey-headed Robins, Spotted Catbirds, Victoria’s Riflebirds, Spangled Drongos: the usual suspects — and some Red-legged Pademelons, but, once again, I was distracted by non-target species. This time fungi caught my attention.
