3 minute read
• Catching up with Friends - Pages
Plant Sales Starry Night Cinema
Friends ‘Gardeneers’, Annabelle and Lee at the Christmas Plant Sale.
Garden Night Tours
The Rocky Horror Picture Show always attracts an audience that love to dress up.
Friends of the Cairns Botanic Gardens raise funds through plant sales, movie nights and other events. The fi nal plant sale for the year (top left) was quieter than usual after record breaking sales earlier in the year. The Rocky Horror Picture Show (above) was the most popular Starry Nights fi lm on the stage lawn this year. The partnership between End Credits fi lm club and the Friends raised over $5000 this season. Dr David Rentz AM held a night tour at the Chinese Friendship Garden, Centenary Lakes in November (see left). A big crowd of people attended the tour with fl ora and fauna caught on fi lm by attendees.
Friends President, Val Schier presenting John Seale with a 16 years of service certifi cate.
Friends of the Cairns Botanic Gardens (FOBG) acknowledged John Seale’s 16 years of voluntary service providing Bird Tours at the Cairns Botanic Gardens. John’s tours became well known in local, interstate and international birding circles, resulting in many Cairns visitors attending. Brian Fifi eld, who has supported John for a number of years, will lead the tours on Tuesday mornings, leaving at 8am from the Friends House, Flecker Gardens.
Garden Tour Guides needed at the Cairns Botanic Gardens
Would you like to become a Gardens Tour Guide? • The 1-hour tours, starting at 10am at Friends House, Flecker
Gardens, are held on Monday to Friday. • Each guide volunteers one hour a week on a chosen day at the their convenience. • Training is provided. • An interest in plants is desirable but it is not necessary to have guiding experience or botanical expertise. Interested? Contact Barry Muir 0419 918 330 or email unit57.may@gmail.com
Photo: Grunter
Pacifi c Baza
Of all the birds of prey that live in Queensland’s Wet Tropics, the Pacifi c Baza has the most distinctive profi le — at least when it’s perched! That’s when its erect crest becomes obvious. It’s Australia’s only hawk with a crest, so, unsurprisingly, many people call them Crested Hawks. In fl ight, however, the crest is fl attened. Nevertheless, they also have a distinctive silhouette when fl ying, with broad, paddleshaped wings and a long tail. Pacifi c Bazas’ most spectacular fl ight is performed just before nesting, and sees them fl ying upwards on a steep angle, with deep, laboured wings fl aps, then stalling briefl y before plunging into an equally steep dive on V-shaped wings, then repeating the display, sometimes many times, calling noisily all the while. It’s called the ‘undulating courtship display’. Some displays include somersaults and barrel rolls. They often nest in trees near water, building a shallow, cup-shaped structure of sticks, lined with fresh gum leaves, which may be refreshed often. Both sexes collect the sticks and build the nest, in which two or three whitish eggs are laid. Both sexes incubate, but mostly the female, and both feed the noisy chicks. After fl edging, the family remains together until the beginning of the next breeding season. Sometimes they hunt cooperatively, plunging into the canopy of trees, occasionally scrambling about among the leaves, to snatch almost anything they can fi nd among the lush foliage of the treetops — insects, such as cicadas and phasmids, as well as tree frogs, lizards, snakes and small nestlings. JOHN PETER BirdLife Australia
