A newly hatched Cairns Birdwing Butterfly.

When it comes to BIG butterflies you don’t get better than the Birdwing Butterfly (Omithoptera priamus) or the Cairns Birdwing. Yes, the people of Cairns have named this spectacular butterfly their very own! It is the largest species of butterfly found in Australia. The female has a wingspan of a whopping 15cm, even if she is a little duller, black and white with a touch of yellow, than the male with his showy green, gold and black. They are a little more laid back than the more frantic Ulysses with a slower, more relaxed flight.  Cairns Birdwing Butterfly can live for 4-5 weeks.

The males are pretty predatory when it comes to mating and patrol their territory in the early morning, searching for newly emerging females. It’s not all easy  – he then has to cope, rather precariously, with a great deal of competition from other patrolling males who have invaded his territory. The battle is worth winning with a coupling lasting for up to 36 hours.

The females, who are often mated as soon as they emerge from the cocoons, start early setting a territory around the vigorously leafed vine of the Aristolochia where they prefer to lay their eggs. The female is able to locate the correct plant by using chemical receptors in her forelegs to taste various leaves. She also uses sense organs at the end of her abdomen to find tender leaves that would be suitable for caterpillar food. Unfortunately the one plant that can fool her is Aristolochia elegans a similar introduced species that the larvae will also feed on, which is toxic, and this leads to the death of the larvae.

The newly emerged Cairns Birdwing Butterfly in the rainforest.

The leaves of the Aristolochia vine is poisonous and though nutritious for the Birdwing caterpillar, is deadly to many other caterpillars. For the Birdwing caterpillar it is not only nutrition but by storing the toxins in fleshy orange-red spines on their backs, it is also protection. Bright colours, in nature, such as orange, red and yellow sometimes act as warnings to other animals letting them know they are dangerous or inedible.

When the caterpillars of the birdwing butterfly are almost ready to pupate they ringbark the vines on which they are feeding. The leaves then droop due to water loss, but the flow of nutrients to leaves is the same – the large caterpillar gets more nutrition with less water before pupation!

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The Ulysses Butterfly

One of the great pleasures of living in Tropical North Queensland is sitting on a verandah gazing out at luxuriant rainforest. Then there is the jeweled affect of a flash of iridescent blue. Luminous in the sunshine the colour gleams against the lush greens of the rainforest like a gem on a velvet cushion. These swallowtailed butterflies dance a morse code delivered at the whim of their wings.
This is, of course, the Ulysses Butterfly (Papilio Ulysses) and there is nothing flirtatious about the dance – it is intended to confuse a predator. The better the dance the more likely they are to breed and live from two to four weeks, which is when their wings eventually tire.

Planting a garden that attracts these glorious butterflies is an investment in hours of joy. Native plants that attract them include Geijera species and Halfordia kendack. Exotic shrubs such as the Ixora are also successful. The Ulysses is attracted by red and pink and can often be seen feeding on the Ixora.

The male Ulysses has a passion for blue and in his eagerness to breed will try his luck by landing on any blue object in the hopes it is the girl of his dreams. The female Ulysses will lay her eggs on small trees, preferably over 2m high, nestled on soft regrowth leaves. Subspecies of the ulysses butterfly are also found in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.

The food of the Ulysses larvae is Melicope Elleryana, still commonly known as Euodia – the Ulysses Butterfly’s favourite food plant. It is an attractive leafy tree with clusters of small pink flowers growing straight out of the branches. Caterpillars feed singly, usually one on each plant, and rest on a pad of silk on a leaf when not feeding – which is exactly how a jewel of the forest should begin.

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Now if you thought life was busy – you haven’t seen anything until you’ve seen a green ants  nest in full defense mode! They clamber all over the tree containing their nest and protect it from invaders with a fervour and ferocity only to be attributed to the Mongul hordes. These ants are often found in the fruiting trees of  Far North Queensland . When an unsuspecting forager tries to help themselves to some tasty fruit, they find themselves attacked by a formidable miniature army of slicing and slashing mandibles – and who could blame them! Their bite is not very painful but several ants attacking simultaneously can be a touch uncomfortable.

Green Ants in North Queensland, Australia

The nests are large and built by sticking the leaves at the end of branches together to create a sort of globular home. Most of the nest construction and weaving is conducted at night with major workers weaving towards the exterior of the nests and minor workers weaving within the interior. A mature colony of green tree ants can hold as many as 100,000 to 500,000 workers and may span as many as 12 trees and contain as many as 150 nests. Green ant colonies have one queen and a colony can live for up to eight years. Minor workers usually remain within the egg chambers of the nest tending the larvae, whereas major workers defend the colony territory, assist with the care of the queen and forage.

Now the numbers don’t always have it. There are sneaky spiders like the Salticid spiders, or jumping spiders, as they are sometimes referred to, which have excellent eyesight and are only active during daylight, weaving a protective silken cocoon to spend the night in. Interestingly, this spider does not look like green ants but instead the fiendish arthropod chemically mimics green tree ants, affectively disguised as an ant it sneaks into the green ants nest, bluffs it’s way into the nursery and feeds on their larvae. Green ants don’t have good vision and circumnavigate their surroundings by scent, smelling everything with their antennae. Consequently, the ants think the spider is another ant and ignore its presence within the nest.

Now is it any wonder green ants are pretty intolerant of any invasion into their territory.

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Port Douglas, despite extensive development over the years, has always maintained a  community rich in creativity. From the creator of exquisite shell jewelry who played a significant roll in the culture, and history of the community – to actress and author Diane Cilento, who adopted the town while it was still no more than a sleepy village. Diane has since developed the renowned Karnak theatre on her Rainforest property where the beautiful and talented flautist, Jane Rutter, has performed hanging, Jane like, from a jungle vine.

Join in the Festivities at the Go Troppo Arts Festival in Port Douglas

The Tropics of North Queensland exemplify renewal and abundance. This is a region that draws artists from around the world to be inspired by trees laden with flowers and fruit and coral spawning in the heady spill of moonlight. The prolific underwater documentary maker Ben Crop, based in Port Douglas, captured the essence of life on The Great Barrier Reef, it’s islands, and the fertile mangroves that serve as nursery for so many marine life forms.

Sometimes artists just never leave, choosing instead to nurture their creative muse in the relaxed lifestyle and luminous light of the Tropics. At Thala Beach Lodge you can  watch the moon rise over Coral Islands and reflect it’s light onto Rainforest mountains – that’s when you too will feel the magnetic draw of the tropics fix you in place.
September is when the community of Port Douglas celebrates the creative fecundity of Far North Queensland at the Go Troppo Festival. ‘Go Troppo’ being a delicious play on the friendly jibe when one tends to unravel a little too loosely in the fungus soup of a monsoon season.

At a festival it is permissible, even for the uninitiated, to dabble in clay, oils, coconut cream, writers block or a whiff of grease paint as a piece of local community history is masterfully brought to the Clink (used to be the local jail) Theatre.
‘Go Troppo’ and you may never want to leave either! – More info at the Go Troppo Blog here…

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I had never taken so much note of the eucalyptus of my homeland, the Northern Tropics of Australia, as when I read Eucalyptus, a novel by Australian novelist Murray Bail.

I saw them straight and sparsely leafed. I saw them lean and sinewy with tufts of foliage. Heavy with flower and bearing painted birds, spreading their limbs for roosting flying foxes as the sun sank beneath the Coral Sea. They were always there, 700 species in all, but I had not really seen them.

It is fitting that a literary work that makes you see your world anew should win the Miles Franklin Award – and it did in 1999.

That was when I started musing and gazing at the Poplar Gum. There are great stands of them at Thala. They wind the paths and push against the rock walls. They shiver in the breeze and sprinkle their leaves. White powdery bark, stark in sunlight, is luminous when caught in the shine of a fat, full, tropical moon. The shadow of stout, ovate leaves dance across the gleam. The image is sensuous, secret and alluring.

It is easy to see what could have inspired Murray Bail to write his fairy tale novel of a man who rears his young daughter and watches her grow into a beautiful young woman on a property he has planted with hundreds of different gum trees. When she is nineteen, he announces she can only marry a man who can name all the species of eucalyptus he has planted – down to the last tree.

In soft morning light I watch the white bark peel to show the soft salmon of it’s under skin. It rains. The bark is a sheen of pale pastels painted by a master. This is how you come to know the name of a Eucalyptus.

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A day trip from Thala Beach Lodge takes you via the Rex Range to climb to the Atherton Tablelands. The views are spectacular as you begin a journey that can take you from 500 to 1000 meters above sea level. The Coral Sea, home of the Great Barrier Reef, spreads below the lush surrounds of Tropical Rainforest.  Volcanic in origin, the landscape of the Atherton Tablelands is an undulating rich fertile plain of rolling hills interspersed with World Heritage Rainforest, spectacular waterfalls and crater lakes.

The history can be traced to the late 1870s when European explorer James Venture Mulligan accidentally discovered the Atherton Tableland. His original purpose of exploring Australia was to look for fertile land and minerals, particularly tin and gold. Aborigines had already inhabited the region for about 10,000 years.

Grazier, John Atherton, and European explorer John Newell joined Mulligan. Together they set out to find rich deposits of tin, gold and other natural resources such as timber and lumber. Vast tracks of forest were cleared for grazing and crops. Conservation has now seen much of the land regenerate and large tracts of original forest preserved to form one of the largest conservation zones in the world. There are a number of extinct volcanoes, caves and hills to explore.

The Lumholtz Tree Kangaroo

The unique natural environment of the Atherton Tablelands is also home to the rare Lumholtz’s tree kangaroo, a small arboreal kangaroo, discovered by Carl Sophus Lumholtz, a Norwegian naturalist, ethnologist and explorer. He worked in South and North-Eastern Australia from 1880 to 1884 to collect new mammal specimens for the zoological and zootomical museums of the University of Christiania, Norway. He also studied the customs and anthropology of the Aboriginal populations. Lumholtz enlisted the help of some Aboriginal hunters to collect specimens and in 1882 they told him of an unusual animal species that lived high up in the trees of the coastal mountains. These turned out to be what are now known as Lumholtz’s Tree Kangaroos or, among the Aboriginal people, the Boongarry.

They are about the size of a dog. The tail is long, cylindrical, and tufted on the end. It is used as a counterbalance while climbing or hopping and is not prehensile. The head is small and round with a large snout and small, rounded ears – rather like a bear. They are generally brown or black, solitary and nocturnal, sleeping in tree branches during the day. They live in small, loose-knit groups of three to five, consisting of a male and female mates dispersed within a strongly defended home range.

To sight them during the day, the long pendulous tail is the best give away as they nestle high in the canopy. On wet drizzly days they will avoid the heavier foliage and perch on the outer branches. Night spotlighting is difficult since the eyeshine is a dull ruby red and they are skittish at night.

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Rainbow Lorikeet at Thala

I could watch Rainbow Lorikeets for hours, given the time. At Thala they pierce through the forest at lightening speed. Their wing beats, perfectly synchronized, can carry their irridescent colours darting through the foliage to hang upside down with cheeky confidence on the most fragile leafy stem.

They are gregarious, volitile, impulsive and screechingly bossy. All the qualities in fact of an unruly mob. The range of body language is vast and there is no mistaking the head bob or pupil dilation when an unwelcome feathered friend decides to share the same leafy limb. On the other hand there is nothing more enchanting than the whispered squeeks and tweets of a  bit of shared head rubbing.

The northern tropics of Australia has an incredibly diverse bird population and the Rainbow Lorikeet is unmistakable with its bright red beak and colourful plumage. Both sexes look alike, with a blue (mauve) head and belly, green wings, tail and back, and an orange/yellow breast. They are often seen in loud and fast-moving flocks, or in communal roosts at dusk.

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About five years ago two furry little morsels arrived at Thala in the hands of an amazing wildlife carer who had rescued the orphaned baby Sugar Gliders, while still hairless, and raised them to a stage where they could be released into the wild. I would think this a heart rending part of the job of a wildlife carer, however rewarding a good outcome would certainly be. Thala Beach Lodge was chosen as their home in the wild. Newly named Doogle and Zebedee, we all watched entranced as they bounced up the silver -white bark of a Poplar Gum.

Sugar Glider

These amazing little animals are native to Australia, and have taken their name from their ability to glide through the air and their love of sweet things such as sugar. The flowering eucalyptus trees at Thala provide an abundance of sweet nectar. They feed at night and are also rather fond of insects and the sap from the eucalyptus trees.
Sugar Gliders are delightful small creatures with shiny grey-silver coats. Doogle and Zebedee showed all the promise of being incredibly handsome. When fully grown they would get to be around 40 cm’s long from nose to tail, and weigh just 150 grams.

They can glide through the air and move about very efficiently from tree to tree. Amazingly these gorgeous little animals can glide through the air for up to 100 meters! When they glide, they spread their arms and legs stretching the loose flaps of skin out and float down to their landing. Using their long tail to help steer through the air.

Sugar Glider’s nest in a hollow of a tree, or in a nest made of twigs and leaves. A number of Sugar Gliders will inhabit the same nest.

They are quite secretive little animals and the sighting of a Sugar Glider at Thala is cause for great celebration knowing they would almost certainly be members of Doogle and Zebedee’s new family.

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Here we are in August, our Tropic Winter, and our region is ready to celebrate as a community. It’s Festival Cairns! From the 21st August to the 6th of September and I’m trying to make a plan – where do I begin? We will be celebrating our community’s creativity in all its forms; visual art, dance film, written and spoken word – we will even be Spraying our Stories by aerosol artists. Or there’s the Tropical Writers Lunch, a long lazy Sunday Lunch with a good author – that’s my pick!

Then there’s the, I Love Cairns Speech Festival at the new speakers corner – is this parochial pride unhinged?. Do we get to bring along bags of mushy tomatoes in case we don’t approve of the subject matter? No! There’s Farmers Market so no mushy anything; it’s all fresh and frisky.

What about Reggaetown with headliners like Blue King Brown and dread locks by Nashka! I think I’ll skip that – remember having an Afro once and frightening my children near to death.

Families will be out in force on the esplanade. They may be busy with a public construction extravaganza called ‘We Built This City’ using nothing but thousands of cardboard boxes and oodles of energy and ingenuity – under supervision of course, by performing construction workers! Can they build an entire city in two days? Would I want to live in it? Would I be able to move out in time before the de-construction workers stomp all over it like sandcastles!

Jazz under the stars, Grace Knight, James Blundell, Stomp the Nard, Miss Saigon or the Illumination White Party – is there any sleep to be had! And it’s happening everywhere throughout the city and the beaches – I’m not going to be able to get away from it! I’m beginning to wonder if I should be having a survival plan!
I might have to retreat to my favourite art form – nature and unwind on a bird walk at Thala Beach Lodge! Check out times at festivalcairns.com.au.

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It isn’t as if life ever really gets boring up in our part of the world even if it’s the odd Jezebel or Big Greasy. Don’t get too excited they’re butterflies, great big flappy winged ones that bob through the air as you sit back and enjoy something long and cool beside the Thala pool.

1st Ladies at the Pacific Forum, Cairns August 2009

Then there are days when Australia’s first Lady steps nimbly up the stairs into the wow zone – That’s where you get to really see the view from here. Ms Rein is surrounded by a bevy of smiling South Pacific first ladies and I think of a Kaleidoscope of butterflies – no, really that’s what they call a gathering of butterflies…well they could also be a swarm – but not these ladies, they are colourful, vibrant and animated. I’m just glad I didn’t do the all black thing when I was dizzying into the ‘what do I wear’ phase.

The sky’s painted a blue wash, the sea’s ridiculously sparkly and the trees are shivering with birds as I put my hand out to greet Ms Rein. She softly says ‘I’m Therese’ and that sets the tone of delicious informality. What she doesn’t tell me until all the butterflies have feasted on a sumptuous lunch is that she’s just got back from climbing Mt Kilimanjaro – well now that’s just the highest free standing mountain in the world – the roof of Africa! Talk about the wow zone! She’s exuding vitality and I’m thinking I should start doing a little hiking up the mountains I see sweeping down to the ocean – well for a moment anyway. She’s no wimp this first lady.

Over coffee the chat moves to the first lady of Vanuatu who visits the school of the air studio. She doesn’t speak English but she walks into the studio just as the kids are into a French lesson and speaks to them in French! Sometimes the world is just with you and these ladies are out to make it all a better place.

These first ladies have alighted from some of the most exotic and romantic islands in the world. I look over at our lady mayor and she is fluttering effusively, loving the fact that they are loving this tropical dot on the map of our much larger island.

Back to our first lady -Therese gathers the Kaleidoscope, and with a last long look at the ocean they all shimmer down the swoop of stairs to the hum of a waiting coach. There is a feeling of loss – did they take some of the light with them? No, it’s just a fluff of cloud sailing past the sun.

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