Ian Fraser, talking naturally

Last time I talked a bit about the overall family characteristics of Columbidae - better known to their friends as pigeons and doves. Today I want to complete the story by going though the major groups, illustrating where possible (though we don't always achieve what we want - it turns out I won't actually finish until next week!). As ever my photos are almost exclusively from the southern hemisphere (except where I've strayed slightly north of the equator in places like Ecuador, Borneo and central Africa).

Most authorities recognise five or six sub-families within the overall pigeon family; as these authorities tend to be human, they don't always agree with each other and there is more to be said on this before the dust (which could well be pigeon powder down) settles. In addition the precise position is still unclear of the tragically extinct Dodo and Rodriguez Solitaire, exterminated by sailors on their remote Indian Ocean islands within decades of being discovered - in the early 17th century for the Dodo, a century later for the solitaire. They have widely been regarded as a sub-family of giant flightless pigeons, but some would put them in their own, related, family. Of living pigeons, the Pheasant Pigeon of New Guinea and the Tooth-billed Pigeon of Samoa each form their own sub-family, and the three magnificent crowned pigeons of New Guinea and islands form another.

Western Crowned Pigeon Goura cristata, courtesy Wikipedia.

The other sub-families are much larger and ubiquitous, and in fact are fairly intuitive. One comprises the fruit-eating pigeons and doves (roughly a third of the species), the other is made up of 'the rest', mostly seed-eaters. Some would go further and separate out the fruit pigeons and imperial pigeons (of Oceania and south-east Asia) from the blue and green pigeons which are also found across southern Asia and Africa.

The fruit pigeons are mostly arboreal (fair enough, as that's where fruit tends to be found!), in contrast with many of the mostly seed-eating 'typical' pigeons. My photos of them are relatively limited, due to this habit of hanging out in rainforest foliage (and my photographic limitations of course), but I have enough to illustrate the major groups.

The imperial pigeons of the genus Ducula comprise some 35 species of large often colourful fruit pigeons found from southern Asia to northern Australia and the Pacific.

Green Imperial Pigeon Ducula aenea, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah.
This handsome bird is found from India to Indonesia.

Pied (or Torresian) Imperial Pigeon Ducula bicolor, Darwin, Northern Territory.
This is one of a group of black and white imperial pigeons. It occurs coastally from
south-east Asia to tropical Australia (though some would divide it into four or five species).
In the western part of its Australian range it is sedentary, but from the Top End and north Queensland
it migrates to Indonesia and New Guinea after breeding, although increasing numbers now over-winter
in Darwin, perhaps as Carpentaria Palms, their favoured fruit tree, have become popular garden plants.
Formerly vastly abundant, numbers were shattered by 19th plundering of island breeding colonies;
fortunately they are now recovering.

The closely related genus of fruit pigeons (or doves) Ptilinopus is even larger than Ducula, with around 50 species centred in the area between New Guinea and the Philippines, but extending to Taiwan, Australia and Polynesia. I find them particularly hard to photograph!

Wompoo Fruit-Dove Ptilinopus magnificus, Cairns. This bird is every bit as magnificent as its name
suggests, despite this photo not doing it justice. The strange vernacular name is from its call,
a bubbling, guttural call that rolls through the rainforest, and is one of its characteristic sounds.
It is found in rainforest in New Guinea and the east coast of tropical and sub-tropical Australia.

Finally in this sub-family, the green pigeons, genus Treron, comprise 30 species found across Africa and Asia. They are all green, a pigment they derive from carotenoids in their fruit diet. Unlike most other pigeons, males and females have different plumages (ie they are dimorphic). They differ in other ways too - instead of cooing, they whistle or even quack! And unlike the Ptilinopus fruit doves, their narrow gut and gizzard have evolved to grind up the seeds of the figs they eat.

A beautiful softly-plumaged male Pink-necked Green Pigeon Treron vernans, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah.
(Females are mostly greenish-yellow.)
A very widespread little pigeon, found throughout much of south-east Asia, Indonesia and the Philippines.

Which brings us to all the rest... The type genus, as one would expect from the family name, is Columba, and it is no surprise that the type species is the perhaps over-familiar Feral Pigeon (or Rock Dove if you'd rather).

Feral Pigeons C. livia, Canberra.
As mentioned last time, this species was originally a cliff dweller around the Mediterranean,
and was first domesticated - for food - in the eastern Mediterranean perhaps 10, 000 year ago.
Since then of course it has spread around the world.

There are some 35 other species of Columba through Africa, Asia and Europe, with one having reached Australia.

White-headed Pigeon Columba leucomela, Nowra, New South Wales.
Associated with rainforest along the east coast of Australia, this handsome species is extending its range,
apparently in association with - both as cause and effect - invasive exotic fruit-bearing trees
such as Camphor Laurel and Privet.

Speckled (or Rock) Pigeons C. guineae, Bontebok NP, South Africa, but common across much of Africa.
(Scan of an old slide, sorry.)

Apparently similar American pigeons were formerly placed in Columba too, but DNA work has now separated them out as 17 species of Patagioenas, which actually diverged from the main pigeon line about 8 million years ago, so is much older than Columba.

The Picazuro Pigeon P. picazuro, here in Buenos Aires, is widespread in eastern South America.

Pale-vented Pigeon P, cayennensis, Puerto Maldonado, Peruvian Amazonia.
Another widespread South American species, this one throughout the northern lowlands and up to Mexico.

The Chilean Pigeon P. araucana, here near Puerto Varas, southern Chile,
is a pigeon of the temperate rainforests of the south of the continent.

Ruddy Pigeon P. subvinacea, Rio Silanche Reserve, in the cloud forests north-west of Quito, Ecuador.
This is another of the genus found across northern South America.

Spot-winged Pigeon P. maculosa, Putre, high in the Andes in northern Chile. (In a eucalpyt!)
Generally found east of the Andes in the centre-south of the continent.

Let's stay for now in South America, where there are also quite a number of smaller ground-dwelling doves. Zenaida is a small genus of just seven species, but includes some of the commonest and most familiar American doves, including the extraordinarily abundant Mourning Dove Z. macroura of North America, where close to 50 million birds are shot annually for entertainment and meat, with little apparent impact on the population.

Eared Dove Z. auriculata, Lima, Peru.
This dove is almost equally abundant throughout South America.

West Peruvian Dove Z. meloda, Lima.
Another common dove, but in a more limited range centred on the coastal plains of Peru.

Galápagos Dove Z. galapagoensis, Santa Fe.
A Galápagos endemic whose ancestor made the hazardous sea crossing - probably involuntarily - from the mainland.
Found throughout the arid lowlands of the archipelago.

There are just four species of the Metriopela ground-doves, limited to the high arid Andes, but at least a couple are common and conspicuous, including in towns.

Bare-faced Ground Dove Metriopelia ceciliae, Socorama, northern Chile,
a bird of high altitude scrubby vegetation.

Black-winged Ground Dove M. melanoptera in cactus, Colca Canyon, southern Peru.
It shares this high dry habitat with the Bare-faced Ground Dove, up to 4,400 metres above sea level.
Like it, the Black-winged also frequents Andean villages.

Another genus of small and widespread American ground doves is Columbina ('little dove', appropriately enough). Like the green pigeons they are unusual among their family in having slightly different male and female plumages, males being somewhat brighter.

Croaking Ground Dove Columbina cruziana, Cuenca, southern Ecuadorian Andes.
This is a male, from its pale grey head. The two-tone bill is distinctive, as is
the remarkably undove-like squelchy call. It is mostly a bird of the arid Pacific coast from
southern Colombia to northern Chile, but also climbs into the west slopes of the Andes, as here.

Leptotila comprises another eleven species of ground doves, some of which enter rainforests.

White-tipped Dove Leptotila verreauxi, Aguas Verdes, northern Peru.

Back in the Old World the turtle-doves Streptopelia are widespread in Africa and Eurasia, with some species widely transported across the world. (The odd 'turtle' of the name is onomatopoeic for the call; you may remember the apparently weird line in the Song of Solomon "the voice of the turtle is heard in the land".) The most familiar of these in Australia is the introduced Spotted Dove S. chinensis (for some strange reason the habit today is to drop the 'turtle' from the name), where it has become a serious invasive pest in cities and towns. Official apathy has been a good friend of this dove here, and there is good evidence that small native doves disappear when it arrives.

Spotted Dove, Rottnest Island, Western Australia.

Another exotic member of the genus has hitherto not left Western Australia, though since its deliberate release in Perth in 1899 it has spread north almost to the tropics, into the arid goldfields and south-east to Albany and Esperance. This species, the Laughing Turtle-Dove S. senegalensis, also has a vast natural range, throughout much of Africa, the middle east and central and southern Asia.

Laughing Turtle-Dove, Shark Bay, 700km north of the original release site in Perth.

Some other turtle-doves are not so easy to find. The Adamawa Turtle-Dove S. hypopyrrha is scattered across the arid inland of west Africa, but the Nigerian and Cameroonian populations are now deep within Boko Haram territory, though there is another population further west towards Senegal.

Adamawa Turtle-Dove, Bénoué National Perk, Cameroon.

Turtur (reprising the 'turtle' theme) is a small genus of similarly long-tailed African doves, some of which are very common and widespread.

Blue-spotted Wood Dove (the name refers to two small blue spots on each wing) T. afer, Entebbe, Uganda.

And with that I am going, unexpectedly, to leave it until next week. It has already become more of an epic than I anticipated, so I'll leave the not inconsiderable topic of Australian pigeons and doves - many of which are very different from those of other continents - until next week.

I hope you'll think it's worth coming back then.

BACK ON THURSDAY

This is the third (and finally the final!) part of a series looking at the world's pigeons and doves. If you missed earlier episodes, they began here with an overview. The second part looked at the five (or six) generally-recognised sub-families, three of which comprise only five species between them. We perused the sub-family of fruit-eating pigeons and doves (including some Australian ones) and began to look at the biggest sub-family of 'typical' primarily seed-eaters. This in the end proved too large a task for one posting, so I left the Australian members of the group to their own posting - many specifically Australian genera have arisen during the continent's long isolation, and I know a bit more about them than about some of the others.

However as I worked through this posting I found that a lot has happened recently with regard to our understanding of the relationships - the taxonomy - of Australian pigeons, so I hoped it might be useful to provide an updated overview as I went of where things stand with the latest thinking. In doing so I trust that I haven't obscured the more interesting topic, the birds themselves. Understandably, most of our field guides can't keep up with all this new thinking, so some of the names I use will not be in your favourite guide (though hopefully the next edition will have them). If at least two of the major authoritative international bird lists have adopted a name recently, I have too.

Spinifex Pigeons Geophaps plumifera with Euro Macropus robustus, Bladensburg National Park, central Queensland.

As with virtually everything else about Australia's biota, an understanding about our pigeons lies in the long period of isolation - from about 50 million years ago when we separated from Antarctica and South America, to the last few million years when we approached closely enough to Asia for an interchange of animals and plants to occur. The Australian fruit doves and imperial pigeons are recent arrivals - their ancestors came aboard as we (with New Guinea as the bowsprit) crashed into Indonesia. The seed-eating group in Australia (some of which do actually also eat some fruit) are old Australians and are for the most part quite different from equivalent pigeons in other lands.

Central to the the old Australian pigeons are the bronzewings, a group of nine fairly large species in four genera, which between them are found across the entire continent except for the extremely arid Great Victoria Desert and adjacent Nullarbor Plain in the central south. The longest-known of these (and the reason for the group name) is the Common Bronzewing - its familiarity is such that 'Pigeon' is deemed an unnecessary addition - Phaps chalcoptera, found across the virtually the entire continent. It was by far the first Australian pigeon to be named (aside from a couple occurring further afield and named from specimens collected elsewhere), in 1790, just two years after the founding of the first English colony at Botany Bay. Phaps, unoriginally but unarguably, just means 'pigeon'... The other bronzewing genera names are variations of this.

Common Bronzewing, Merimbula, New South Wales.
The glorious iridescent wing bars (see also below, in Canberra) are a feature.

The closely related and similar Brush Bronzewing P. elegans is a much less common bird of southern coastal scrubs and heathlands.

The third member of the genus is a very different bird in all ways, including appearance and habitat. The Flock Bronzewing is a nomad of the vast plains of the arid inland, a true child of El Niño, appearing in vast numbers in good years and strewing the ground with their eggs (there are tales of sheep stained yellow by them, through lying on them at night) then vanishing again. Flocks of up to a million were reported from the 19th century but by start of the 20th it seemed that they may have gone for good due to relentless habitat alteration, especially over-grazing by sheep and rabbits, shooting and cat and fox predation on nesting birds and eggs. By mid-20th century they were making a recovery – perhaps related to rabbit control by the Myxomatosis virus? – and I’ve driven through big scattered flocks, though nowhere near what they were.

Flock Bronzewing Phaps histrionica, west of Windora, south-west Queensland.
The apparently odd species name actually comes from Latin for a mime performer, for the strange face mask.

Another three-species genus is Geophaps ('ground pigeon', though all the group fits this description), all birds of the semi-arid tropics and sub-tropics. The most colourful - and I have to shamefacedly confess, utterly endearing - is the little Spinifex Pigeon G. plumifera from the central and western deserts. Spinifex refers to a large genus (Triodia) of grasses, forming large spiny hummocks, which dominates some 20% of Australia; Spinifex Pigeons (along with many other animals) are almost always associated with them.

Spinifex Pigeon (above Bladensburg NP, central Queensland,
and below Kings Canyon, central Australia).

Spinifex Pigeons have an always-surprising habit of materialising from the landscape; one moment you are alone,
the next there are up to a dozen scuttling about on whirring little legs.

Squatter Pigeons G. scripta (here at Cobbold Gorge, north-central Queensland) are found in the dry east coast
hinterland from far northern New South Wales to near the tip of Queensland.

Squatter Pigeons from further north (such as this one from Mareeba) have a red eye ring.

The third Geophaps, the Partridge Pigeon (named for their habit of running along the ground in jinking flocks, then flying up in a burst from the ground when disturbed) G. smithii, has a much smaller range across the Top End of the Northern Territory and the adjacent Kimberley district of far northern Western Australia. It has a very striking visage!

Partridge Pigeon, Kakadu National Park, east of Darwin, where they can be quite
confiding around visitor centres and picnic areas.

There are two species of the unusual-looking rock-pigeons, which are limited to the sandstone escarpment country of Kakadu (for the Chestnut-quilled Rock-Pigeon Petrophassa rufipennis) and the Kimberley to the west (for White-quilled Rock-Pigeon P. albipennis). They can only be seen by climbing into their rugged stony fastnesses, though they are not uncommon in their limited range. However it seems that feral cats could be a real threat, given their small distributions.

Chestnut-quilled Rock-Pigeon, Burrunggui (formerly known as Nourlangie Rock), Kakadu NP.
Both species are often seen out on bare rock, like this. They are most striking birds.

Last of the bronzewing group is the now extremely familiar Crested Pigeon Ocyphaps lophota, the only one of the genus. I say 'now' because they have expanded dramatically to the south and east in recent decades, to the point that they are now abundant and ubiquitous throughout much of the country and in all mainland capital cities except Melbourne (where they are making inroads). In Canberra for instance they regularly appeared as drought refugees from the west, then disappeared again. In the drought of the early 1980s however they came again - and for reasons uncertain, became established. Now it is pretty much impossible to walk or drive anywhere in Canberra without encountering them; a pair come daily to our bird bath. And I have to add that I find them a delight.

Crested Pigeon bathing in the sprinkler in our Canberra back yard.
(The cage is actually to keep green vegetables in and possums out!)

I have another reason for using this photo too. Below is a (very grainy) close-up of the opened wing; look at the narrowing of the third feather from the outside. This is the origin of the very distinctive whistling whirr that Cresties make when they take off - it is an automatic warning to others feeding on the ground that there may be danger approaching.

Another familiar and widespread genus is Geopelia, whose three small long-tailed ground-feeders cover most of Australia except for the south-west. They superficially resemble the turtle-doves (see the last posting) but it seems they are old Australians which branched off from the bronzewings. Diamond Doves have a huge range across virtually all of Australia except for the south and south-east coasts (where most of the human population lives). They can be seen at any watering spot in the deserts and semi-arid lands, and are limited to Australia.

Diamond Dove G. cuneata at the Diamantina River (perhaps appropriately!),
far west Queensland. This is a tiny dove, only 20cm long.

Equally tiny is the Peaceful Dove G. placida (though often called G. striata in Australia - see below), more familiar as it occurs more often in populated areas than does the Diamond Dove. I think it of as integral to the riverine River Red Gum forests (Eucalyptus camaldulensis) of the inland, where its incessant 'toodle-OO' reminds me of soporific warm afternoons, though it is found more widely than that. However there are strong signs that the introduced and aggressive Spotted Dove Streptopelia chinensis is displacing it in urban situations.

Peaceful Dove, Longreach, central Queensland.

It is also found in New Guinea, and closely related doves are found in Indonesia and south-east Asia. There has been a tendency in the past to regard all of these as one species (G. striata) but most authoritative lists, including the IOC (International Ornithological Congress) and Handbook of the Birds of the World, now recognise three species. In addition to the Peaceful Dove, these are the Zebra Dove G. striata of much of south-east Asia and Indonesia (though it's unclear which are native birds and which have been introduced), and the Barred Dove G. maugei of the Lesser Sunda Islands (which included Timor and Flores). Irrespective of their status, it would seem that these derived from Peaceful Doves which crossed the ocean straits northward in relatively recent times.

Zebra Dove, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah.

The third Geopelia is the Bar-shouldered Dove G. humeralis, whose musical but insistent 'let's go to school!' can be heard throughout woodlands of the east and north coast and hinterlands. It is half as big again as the two smaller species.

Bar-shouldered Dove, suburban Darwin.

That leaves us with four species, each in a separate genus, whose relationships are uncertain, not least because at least three of them are members of the seed-eating sub-family which eat a lot of fruit.

Chalcophaps comprises three species, one of which is confined to New Guinea, Sulawesi and the Solomons, while another, the Common Emerald Dove C. indica, extends from India to Indonesia. (Note that this is a recent understanding - until then the Australian Emerald Dove was included in this species.) Now emerald doves in Australia, New Guinea and associated islands are known as Pacific Emerald Dove C. longirostris (though this is not of course universally accepted). More vexed a question is what they actually are - the Handbook of the Birds of the World helpfully tells us that they "appear to be intermediate between the African spotwings and the Australian bronzewings", so their origin is anyone's guess! Irrespective they are lovely birds, found in Australia in rainforests and vine forests of the east and north coasts. Given their evident island-hopping skills it is unsurprising that they've found their way to Lord Howe Island.

Emerald Dove, Lord Howe Island.

The cuckoo-doves, genus Macropygia, are about 10 species of large long-tailed fruit-eating rainforest pigeons found widely from China and India to Australia, where there is just one species - a pretty good indication that they didn't arise here but arrived fairly recently. Until recently the cuckoo-doves from eastern Australia were in fact known as M. amboinensis, a species found from New Guinea to Sulawesi and islands between, but are now given full species status as Brown Cuckoo-dove M. phasianella.

Brown Cuckoo-Dove, Nowra. These are active and acrobatic pigeons whose long tails help them balance
as they scramble through branches, especially in rainforests, for fruit (though their primary purpose is
doubtless as a rudder when flying through dense vegetation).

The final two Australian species are undoubtedly home grown, though their relationships have long been debated. Perhaps this contributes, albeit subconsciously, to them being among my favourite pigeons, though you may observe, with some justification, that I have rather a lot of those.

Wonga Pigeons Leucosarcia melanoleuca are big striking blue-grey and white pigeons of dense understorey, especially rainforest, along most of the east coast. Their incessant 'woo woo woo' (they have a very high boredom threshold) is a familiar sound of the wet forests, often emitted from a perch above the ground, though they generally forage on the forest floor where they take more insects, worms and snails than most pigeons. Some believe it to be of ancient Australian pigeon stock with no close relations, others that it was an early side-branch of the bronzewing lineage. Clearly more DNA work is required.

Wonga Pigeons, Nowra, New South Wales.
The name is presumably onomatopoeic, from an Aboriginal language, but as is so shamefully often the case
we don't know with certainty which one, though we can deduce that it was likely to have been
one of the Sydney area tongues. It was originally recorded as Wonga Wonga or Wanga Wanga.

Finally, the Topknot Pigeon Lopholaimus antarcticus. There is no consensus as to which of the sub-families it even belongs (though if it is of the fruit pigeon sub-family, all other Australian members of which arrived here recently, its origins require some interesting explanation). It is a big (45cm long), strange-looking pigeon with a unique double crest and very seldom-used voice (when it is used it utters either a low grunt or screech) which lives in highly mobile flocks in rainforests of the east coast, following the fruits.

Topknot Pigeons, Bunya Mountains, southern Queesnland.

So, pigeons, in many more words and pictures than I'd expected. I've learnt a lot in putting these postings together, and I hope you've found it worth while. At the least I hope it contributes in a small way to your enjoyment of these delightful and fascinating birds.

BACK ON FRIDAY

There are a lot of what we might consider the basics that we don't know about Charles Fraser, though we do know that he arrived in Sydney on 8 April 1816 and went on to contribute much to our knowledge of botany across most of the then-known parts of the continentin the relatively few years that he had left.

We don't know for sure when he was born in Blair Atholl, Perthshire, Scotland, though "1788(?)" is usually cited for no apparent reason. (Some more recent work by Tim Crampton produces circumstantial, though fairly compelling, evidence that he was born in 1791.) Even his name is a bit shadowy; the Australian Dictionary of Biography calls him Frazer, as do newspaper obituaries of the time. However his gravestone (in St John's Anglican Cemetery in Parramatta) apparently says Fraser, and that is the spelling of the many plant names dedicated to him, and apparently in early records of the Sydney Botanic Gardens. If Crampton's Blair Atholl research does refer to Charles, then 'Fraser' is correct. (Surveyor-General John Oxley, with whom Fraser travelled on three occasions, hedged his bets by referring to him as 'Fraser', 'Frazer' and 'Frazier' in his published journal of the expeditions!)

Dwarf Lantern Flower Abutilon fraseri, Family Malvaceae, central Australia.
Like much relating to Fraser, it is not totally certainly that Sir William Hooker of Kew Gardens named this
widespread plant for Charles (as was common at the time, he didn't specify) but given that he
named it from a specimen collected by Fraser on the Moreton River, I think it's a pretty safe bet.

He arrived as a soldier, a private, but somehow his horticultural or botanical skills (supposedly picked up while working as a gardener in Scotland, both on estates and at major botanic gardens, especially in Edinburgh) were rapidly recognised and valued by the shrewd and liberal Governor Macquarie, and he seems to have undertaken very little guard duty or parade ground drilling. There is circumstantial evidence that he was given almost immediately a supervisory role at the nascent 'government gardens' at Farm Cove, though the first record we have of him being officially in the role is from 1823.

He did however accompany Oxley on expeditions to inland NSW in 1817, 1818 and 1819 and made major collections of specimens and seeds, including hundreds of new species. Oxley referred to him as the 'colonial botanist' and 'government collector' but it seems these were not formal titles. Allan Cunningham, the 'King's Botanist' accompanied the first of these expeditions, along the Lachlan River, and Fraser worked with him. By next year however Cunningham was sailing round Australia and Fraser was trusted to work as the sole botanist on Oxley's New England and Hastings River expeditions of 1818 and 1819.

He accompanied Commissioner Bigge on his journeys of enquiry into the state of agriculture and trade to Tasmania (then still Van Diemen's Land) and the interior of New South Wales in 1820.

In 1821 he was formally appointed Colonial Botanist by Governor Macquarie, and soon after persuaded the governor to open a new and larger six hectare gardens at Double Bay; it was the Farm Cove site however which flourished, initially as a food garden, and later as the official Sydney Botanic Gardens, as they are today. (Governor Brisbane, who replaced Macquarie soon afterwards, didn't support the Double Bay site and they languished.) He didn't spend a lot of time in the gardens, but they benefited greatly from his extensive plant collecting. He visited New Zealand (briefly) and Norfolk Island, and returned to Van Diemen's Land.

Yellow Kapok Cochlospermum fraseri Family Bixaceae, Litchfield NP, south-west of Darwin.
This tree, found across the tropical Top End and Kimberley, was named by Frenchman Jules Planchon
to honour Fraser 16 years after his death.

In 1827 he went with James Stirling to the Swan River; his support of Stirling's enthusiasm for the site led eventually to the establishment of the Swan River Colony, which was to become Perth. (Unfortunately the rich alluvial riverside soils he praised soon change to low-fertility sands away from the river, and he didn't go that far. Later settlers were not at all happy with him.) In 1828 he travelled again with Allan Cunningham, this time to Moreton Bay where they worked on laying out a botanic gardens for Brisbane; Commandant Patrick Logan unfortunately had no interest in it beyond a vegetable garden and much of their work was wasted.

Fraser's work, which also included experimentation on eucalyptus oil and growing cotton, was valued highly in Sydney however, and by 1829 he was being paid £200 a year, plus a grant of £150 for past expenses. Sadly he didn't live long to enjoy the benefits. In 1831 he was taken ill while returning from Bathurst with cartloads of live plants, and died in Parramatta of 'apoplexy' - a stroke.

Hakea fraseri Tregole National Park, central southern Queensland.
This tree was named by the great Scot Robert Brown, shortly before Fraser's death.
However, it seems likely now that true Hakea fraseri is limited to a small area of New England in NSW, and that
the Queensland populations are better included in H. lorea.
Never mind, at the time I took the picture both I and the Queensland Parks Service thought it was Fraser's tree,
and they might change their minds again...

The obituaries and tributes were generous; the Sydney Monitor spoke of "the urbanity of his manners, and his universal and unremitting benevolence", as well his achievements. They singled out in particular "the roads and walks of the Domain, the last work of his planning". The Colonial Times of Hobart however, perhaps being a little further from the action, felt freer to make a couple of other interesting observations, while being also unstinting in its praise of his accomplishments. For instance "his talents threw him continually into every variety of company, of which he was usually the convivial and agreeable companion. Paradoxical as it may seem, yet it is the way of the world - for a man having such numberless acquaintances as he, perhaps none had in proportion fewer friends." This seems a curious comment - it would be hard to imagine a modern obituary remarking on someone's lack of friends. And perhaps illuminatingly with regard to his early death (at somewhere between 40 and 43, depending on which version of his birth year we accept): "Naturally of a plethoric habit, his convivial disposition probably contributed not a little to induce the apoplectic attack...". Plethoric is a medical term for unnaturally red-faced; as a non-medical person it seems to me this could refer to high blood pressure, though the reference to his 'convivial disposition' does appear to imply a fondness for imbibing.

We don't know the truth of that (as is so often the case with matters relating to Fraser), and it's none of our business really. Few would know his name now, but he contributed quite a bit to the early knowledge of Australian plants, and especially in introducing them to the public via the botanic gardens. All who have strolled in the Sydney Botanic Gardens and the Domain are in his debt and it doesn't hurt us to acknowledge that.

Burra Eremophila fraseri, family Scrophulariaceae (though traditionally included in Myoporaceae)
Mount Magnet, inland Western Australia.
I had already included this photo, based on what turns out to be a long-standing misconception on my part.
I now learn that it was not named by Ferdinand von Müller for Charles Fraser, but for Sir Malcolm Fraser
(again, not the recent Prime Minister, but a 19th Western Australian surveyor-general).
However it's a lovely flower and I've put it outside of the actual article; do I get away with that?

BACK ON THURSDAY

Colca Canyon is much-publicised as one of the deepest canyons in the world; only the nearby Cotahuasi Canyon is deeper. Colca's deepest point is 3.4 kilometres below the rim, twice the depth of the Grand Canyon. However this is only part of the valley of the Colca River and the section between the historic town of Chivay and the canyon represents a magnificent landscape with lots of wildlife.

The upper Colca Valley and Chivay are indicated by the arrow, in the southern Andes of Peru;
Chivay is at 3,600 metres above sea level, and the rim of the canyon at a similar height.

Whether coming from Arequipa to the south, or from Puno (on Lake Titcaca) to the east, you will see some spectacular Andean scenery, especially when you reach the highest point of the road at Abra Patapampa (abra is a pass). This is seriously high by most standards; at the lookout you are at 4,900 metres above sea level, and even the few steps up to the viewing platform can provide a challenge.

Part of the remarkable vista from Abra Patapampa, looking west.
From the left the volcanoes are Ampato (6300m), Sabancayo (6000m) and Hualca Hualca (6000m).
Some of the cloud is actually volcanic smoke.

Looking back to the east; this is a tough forbidding landscape, formed from volcanic eruptions and mountain uplift.

From here the road descends, but not to anything reminiscent of lowlands! East of Chivay, above the valley, we pass through high swampy plains, bofedales, rich in wildlife, especially waterbirds. The next few photographs were taken from the roadside.

Crested Ducks Lophonetta specularioides; these are old South Americans, the only one of their genus,
lovers of the cold windy expanses of the Andes and Patagonia.

Puna Teal Anas puna, another high Andes specialist.


Yellow-billed Teal Anas flavirostris; this little duck is widespread in the southern part of the continent, and north up the Andean chain. (Formerly lumped with the Andean Teal, from further north, as Speckled Teal.)

Two other birds of the bofedales are also Andean specialists, with the range centred on southern Peru.
This is the Puna Ibis Plegadis ridgwayi.

Giant Coot Fulica gigantea. To those of us used to fairly diminutive coots, this magnificent bird is a real
eye-opener. 60cm long and weighing up to 2.5kg, the adult can scarcely fly. It rarely deigns to descend below
3,600 metres, and can be found in lakes and swamps up to 6,000 metres above sea level.

Alpacas grazing in the bofedales near Chivay.

The Colca Valley around Chivay has been a human-utilised landscape for thousands of years. Over the last thousand or so years it has been the scene of intensive agriculture, with terracing and irrigation for growing corn, potatoes, quinoa and beans, as well as grazing flocks of Llamas and Alpacas. While the Incas generally get the credit for Andean culture and technology, much of it actually predated them.

Pre-Inca terraces in the Colac Vally in front of Chivay (at the foot of the range in the middle distance);
Volcao Misanti can just be seen on the skyline to the right of it.
In the foreground is the gorge of the river still far from its downstream depth.

Black Metaltail Metallura phoebe on Opuntia Cactus.
Mostly it looks all-black, until light catches the startling throat iridescence.
This magnificent Andean hummingbird was in a garden on the outskirts of Chivay, as
was the subject of the next photo.

Black-throated Flowerpiercer Diglossa brunneiventris.This group of specialised tanagers, as the name and awl-shaped bill suggest, make a living by piercing
the base of flower tubes and stealing the nectar without achieving pollination.

Downstream of Chivay the valley becomes drier, with very different vegetation and wildlife. Bromeliads and cactus become dominants.

Airplants, Tillandsia sp., bromeliads, growing on the road cuttings in no soil at all.

Puya sp, another bromeliad, west of Chivay.
Many Puya species die after flowering, but it seems this is one of the lucky ones.

Cushion Plants Azorella sp. (family Apiaceae), west of Chivay.
These are hard to the touch and immensely hardy; mounds this big could be centuries old.
Curiously, the genus is also found in New Zealand and in Southern Ocean islands to its south.

Canyon Canastero Asthenes pudibunda. The resemblance, in appearance, habitat and behaviour, to
Australian grasswrens is striking, though it is entirely unrelated, being one of the ovenbirds (family Funariidae),
the ancient South American sub-oscine passerines.

Andean Flicker Colaptes rupicola, a large, vocal and almost entirely ground-dwelling woodpecker.

Which brings us to the canyon itself, or at least the section of it with lookouts and walking tracks high above the river (though only a modest 1,200 metres above it here at Cruz del Condor).

Lookout, shelter and walking tracks above Colca Canyon at Cruz del Condor.

It is a very striking landscape.

Colca Canyon, above and below; while nowhere near the 3,400 metres of the deepest
part of the canyon, the river is 1.2km vertically below us.

Cactus predominates here, and I'm a big fan of cactus in its natural environment (ie not in rockeries or the Australian bush, but that's just me). I hope you don't find this a cactus surfeit; sadly my enthusiasm isn't matched by taxonomic knowledge so any identification assistance will be gladly received.

Puyas are here too, adding to what is a pretty exotic-seeming landscape to those such as I, entirely unfamiliar with it.

Puya sp. above Colca Canyon.

Not all the flowers belong to cactus or bromeliads.

Calceolaria sp. growing from a rock crevice above Colca Canyon.

Cantuta Cantua buxifolia Family Polemoniaceae, above and below.
This is a pretty appropriate place to encounter Peru's national flower!

And of course there are birds, even in the cactuses.

Black-winged Ground Dove Metriopelia melanoptera.

Slender-billed Miner Geositta tenuirostris.This is another of the ovenbirds; as suggested by their name, the miners nest in burrows.

Ash-breasted Sierra-finch Phrygilus plebejus.As with so many South American birds, the sierra-finches turn out to be tanagers.

Tabanid Fly, known as March flies in Australia, horse flies in some other places.
Fortunately (for me, not her) this beauty was unable to get that proboscis through my trouser leg.

However none of these beautiful beasts are what draw most people to Colca Canyon. This is about the only place in Peru where one still has a reasonable chance of seeing the magnificent and huge Andean Condor Vultur gryphus, which has largely gone from most of its formerly vast Andean range, except in Patagonia in the far south. They roost on ledges down in the canyon, but as the air heats up in the morning sun they ride the thermals up until, if we are lucky, they can be seen at eye level. And on that morning we were very lucky, with 17 appearing, many more than an average morning.

To see one condor is a rare privilege; to see them in groups like this is utterly thrilling.

Adult above, and immature below.

Adult females, photos above and below; they lack the male's red facial skin.

This is a wonderful wildlife spectacle, which we watched for a long time before the condors scattered and we walked off into the warming day to enjoy all the other treats that Colca has to offer. When you're in Peru - and I do hope it's on your agenda - please be sure not to miss this beautiful and very exciting valley.

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This is the fourth in a sporadic series on plants of the great Gondwanan family Proteaceae; it began here, but it might be easiest to go the most recent instalment, on grevilleas, and follow the links back.

While not nearly as large a genus as the better-known Grevillea, Hakea is still pretty substantial with around 150 species recognised. It is possibly less widely familiar because hakeas have generally been less cultivated; they are often regarded as prickly and not as colourfully bloomed as grevilleas, but neither of those observations are anywhere near universally true, as we shall see. All are Australian.

Corkwood Hakea lorea, Kata Tjuta National Park, central Australia.

Hakeas can be found throughout Australia, but unlike grevilleas they do not grow in rainforests. Many, like the Corkwood above, thrive in the arid lands, but like so many Australian groups their stronghold is the fabulously rich sandy heaths of the south-west of the continent. They grow as shrubs or small trees but, again unlike grevilleas, they tend not to form ground covers.

Mountain Needlebush H. lissosparma, Ben Lomond NP, Tasmania.
As suggested by these two photos, hakeas can be found almost anywhere.

Curiously the genus was named back in 1797 by German botanist Heinrich Adolph Schrader - 'curiously' because that was very early in the history of naming Australian plants, and the Germans weren't generally involved that early (though there were a number of significant collectors later on). In fact he named it in a book (in Latin) of rare plants grown in Hanover gardens. Of course this just begs the question, which is how did it get there so early? I have no answer to this teaser. The species, Hakea teretifolia, is a fairly common east coast one. Schrader called it Hakea glabra, not realising that British botanist Richard Salisbury had already named it Banksia teretifolia the year before. Salisbury's species name had to take precedence, but when it became clear that it wasn't a banksia, Schrader's genus name was the next in line. He named it for Baron Christian Ludwig von Hake, universally described as a Hanover councillor and patron of science (or botany); there must have been a bit more to him but I can't find any of it.

The name is usually pronounced Hay-kee-a in English, but I prefer Hah-kee-a, that being how the Baron would have said his name - the question of whether we should name organisms after people is a separate one, but if we're going to do so it seems to make sense to pronounce it like the model's name.

A final note before we talk about the real topic - the plants themselves. It's an interesting phenomenon that botanical taxonomists, at least in Australia, seem keen to expand the concept of a genus as widely as possible so that huge genera comprising several former separate taxa are becoming the norm. Zoologists (eg bird taxonomists) meantime, are going the other way and fine-tuning so that it's more common to find genera being split up to reflect subtler differences. It does seem to me that the latter tells us more about the history of the groups, including the timing of their separation. The point here is that we seem to be moving towards lumping Grevillea in with Hakea (which would mean that all Grevillea would become Hakea, not likely to be a popular move among most of the population!).

The most obvious difference between Grevillea and Hakea is in the fruit; while that of Grevillea is brittle and papery, Hakea fruit is hard, woody and even massive.

Mountain Needlebush fruit, Ben Lomond NP, Tasmania.

Many of these species live in fire-prone heathlands, and protect seeds (just one per fruit) in the massive cases. After the fire has passed, and the ash-bed has cooled, the case opens up and drops the seed into the enriched, unshaded, soil.

Post-wildfire opened hakea cones, Lesueur NP, Western Australia.

But for species which do not grow in areas affected by regular fires, the cases are flimsier and do not rely on a fire's heat to open them.

Small-fruit Hakea H. microcarpa, Namadgi NP above Canberra.
This species grows in high country boggy areas which do not regularly burn.

Leaves can be cyclindrical or narrowly strap-like as in the above examples, or flat and leathery.

H. neurophyllya, Lesueur NP, Western Australia.

Some other Western Australian species have unexpected stem-clasping leaves which surround the flowers; it could be that by trapping 'moats' of dew or rain they are preventing ants from stealing nectar.

Scallops H. cucullata, Twin Creeks Reserve near the Stirling Ranges, Western Australia.

Others are divided and spiky.

Unidentified hakea, Shannon NP, south-western Australia. Any suggestions?

Some of the most extraordinary foliage of all however belongs to the remarkable Royal, or Lantern, Hakea H. victoria, which has a small range centred on the Fitzgerald River NP, southern Western Australia. The plant can be three metres high and has colourful leaves the size of large cabbage leaves, surrounding inconspicuous creamy flowers

Lantern Hakeas in Fitzgerald River NP

The leaves of Lantern Hakea; it is likely that at least part of their function is to attract attention to
the otherwise non-obvious flowers.

Hakea flowers are rarely at the tips of branches, as those of grevilleas usually are. Many are indeed simply white and not very dramatic, with small clusters of flowers, as per the oft-heard bias against them as garden plants.

Harsh Hakea H. prostrata, Torndirrup NP, Western Australia.

Other white-flowered ones can be dramatic however, simply through the masses of flowers.

H. recurva, Paynes Find, inland Western Australia.

Many others are highly colourful with great cylinders or spheres of clustered flowers.

Grass-leaf Hakea H. francisiana (who thought the leaves were its most prominent feature?!),
Pinkawillinie Conservation Park, South Australia.

H. invaginata, Ballidu, Western Australia.

Grass-leaf Hakea (again - see above comment!) H. multilineata, Goldfields Woodlands NP, Western Australia.

So, there's a brief introduction to a genus which may be unfamiliar to some, especially if you're reading this from overseas, and which will probably never overtake Grevillea for popularity in the garden. But I reckon it deserves more admiration than it gets.

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(Remember too that if you put your email address into the 'Follow by Email' box at the top
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It doesn't give me access to your address.)

There are some places that just feel intrinsically special. For me - and very many others - Uluru is such a place. Sometimes when we finally visit a place that we've heard about for so long, the reality doesn't quite match the myth that we've imagined. I steeled myself for Uluru to be like that the first time I visited it, but when the moment came the opposite was true - it was, and is, beyond anything I could have conceived. The vast mass of sandstone looms from the desert, itself a remarkable experience, and something in my heart responds.

From the distance when we first see Uluru by climbing a dune near the Lasseter Highway the rock seems
fairly featureless, but this is an artefact of the distance - we are still tens of kilometres away.
From closer, as in this photo, though still many kilometres distant, the complexity of the monolith becomes obvious.
The red dune on the right is typical of the desert country of central Australia.

Mere numbers don't reflect the sheer vastness of the rock; soaring 385 metres above the desert, three kilometres long and two kilometres wide at its widest point, ten kilometres around. And, like a desert iceberg, most of it is hidden under the sands. Close up the apparently smooth monolith actually contains canyons with rockpools, caves and deeply incised erosion scars.

Uluru is not alone on the plains. Within sight to the west, 25km away, are the domes of Kata Tjuta (for a while known as the Olgas, as Uluru was known as Ayer's Rock); both are part of Uluru - Kata Tjuta National Park.

Kata Tjuta at sunrise, from Uluru.

Despite the different formation and base material (Kata Tjuta is comprised of coarse conglomerates, where the sandstones of Uluru are much finer), they formed at about the same time, some 500 million years ago, from material washing across the plains from mighty eroding mountain ranges to the west and south, though in different alluvial fans. Buried deeply, eventually they became compressed into solid rock, in time forced to the surface by movements in the earth's crust.

Ninety kilometres to the east is Atila (more usually known at Mount Conner); nearly everyone coming to Uluru comes by the Lasseter Highway which passes by Atila, and more than a few think they've found Uluru when they see it.

Atila from the highway. Unlike the other two mighty rocks it is is on private land and can only be visited
with a contracted tour company; the quality of their guides is unfortunately very much a matter of pot luck.

The three rocks are in a straight line and it used to be supposed that they formed during the same geological event, from the eroding mountain ranges, but sadly for a good story it seems that Atila is much older than the other two, formed by erosion of the surrounding beds as the hard cap just visible in the hazy photo above protected the underlying layers.

The Anangu, as the Pitjantjatjara- and Yankunytjatjara-speaking people refer to themselves (don't panic, just take the names a syllable at a time!), have lived in the centre for tens of thousands of years. To them Uluru is an immensely significant place - 'sacred' would probably be the closest we have to it. It's not my place to tell the stories of a living culture that I can never really understand, but if you're interested there are many of the Anangu Uluru stories on the web, many of them approved by the traditional owners. Other stories cannot be told to outsiders; many of them are restricted to one gender and they will not risk their own men or women seeing stories forbidden to them.

Desert Oak Allocasuarina decaisneana in front of Uluru at sunset.

Europeans arrived to run stock (at rates of one beast to tens of square kilometres) in the late 19th century and the conflicts that characterised the arrival of Europeans in occupied lands throughout Australia ensued. 'Aboriginal Reserves' were set up in the early 1920s to protect the desert people - generally of course on lands not required for other purposes. Indeed in 1958 the 'Ayers Rock - Mount Olga National Park' was excised from the Petermann Aboriginal Reserve to meet growing tourist demands.

This tourism is a remarkable story in itself; the first visitors arrived at the rock in 1936, twelve years before the first road was built! Tour bus services began soon afterwards; the facilities would be regarded as remarkably primitive today, but people came in numbers. By 1959, just a year after the park declaration, motels at the very foot of the rock, and an airstrip, were being constructed. Already by the early 1970s however, concerns of the Anangu were being heard and plans were in place to removed all accommodation from the immediate vicinity of the rock. The modern town of Yulara, 15km away, was planned to meet tourism needs and the rock-side motels and camp ground had closed by 1984.

Hawkmoth caterpillar, Family Sphingidae, base of Uluru.

The following year the Australian Government handed back the whole area to the Anangu, but with the condition that they immediately leased it back to the government to be run, in close consultation with them, as a national park. Prime Minister Bob Hawke had promised to abide by a 10-point plan drawn up by the Anangu; these included a ban on climbing the rock, in line with traditional beliefs, but when the lease was signed, this promise was broken. I can't discuss Uluru without mentioning the ongoing controversy over climbing, but I'll come back to that later. In 1987 the park was listed as a World Heritage site.

Many of us first see the rock properly with the sun setting on it - there are extensive dedicated viewing areas for the purpose. One of the extraordinary aspects is how rapidly the colours change; the following series (and I could have imposed many more on you!) was taken over 33 minutes, some only a couple of minutes apart. The red incidentally is due to the iron-bearing minerals in the rock; at the surface they are oxidising (rusting in effect), while within, as seen in some newly-exposed cave surfaces, the rock is grey.

28 minutes before sunset; this is pretty much the colour it appears during the day.

14 minutes to sunset; the colour is intensifying.

Nine minutes to go.

Six minutes to sunset.

The shadow of the horizon is starting to climb up the rock, as the sun slips from sight.

Five minutes after sunset.

At the same time, don't forget to look over your shoulder as the sun sets behind Kata Tjuta too!

Kata Tjuta domes in silhouette (above), and seen
through flowering Spinifex grass Triodia sp. (below) from the Uluru viewing area.
(Both photos taken on the same evening, but a different one from the Uluru series above.)

Sunrise is equally spectacular, but you don't need to see a series for that too!

The sun appearing behind the Desert Oaks (above) and beginning
to warm the rock (below).

I am surprised how few photos I actually have of details of the rock, though I've walked and driven around it several times. Perhaps I've been too busy being enthralled to remember to take shots, though there is also the issue that we're asked not to take pictures in some sections of the walk - again because of the risk that Anangu men or women might inadvertently thereby see things they ought not see.

Tumbled rocks fallen from the slopes.

Crevice in the rock face.

In addition to the Desert Oaks, the major woodland tree is Mulga Acacia aneura - which in fact dominates some 20% of the Australian landscape.

Mulga flowers.

Eremophilas (the 'desert lovers') are among my favourite plant groups, not least because of their tough arid habitats; there's an entire posting on them coming up. And there are some at Uluru, as there are seemingly everywhere inland.

Berrigan, or Long-leaf Emubush E. longifolia, with Uluru as a backdrop.
('Emubush' because of an apparently erroneous belief that the seeds need to pass through an emu to germinate.)

Wills' Desert Fuchsia E. willsii. Fuchsia for a supposed resemblance to the unrelated South American
genus, and Wills for William Wills, who perished with nearly all his comrades on the infamously
badly-planned and led Burke and Wills expedition in 1861.

Again I have remarkably few animal photos from the rock; they are of course present, but are often kept at a distance by noisy tourist groups, and are often familiar species which tend not to draw too much attention from the rock itself. One of the most striking residents is the Black-breasted Buzzard Hamirostra melanosteron, a large raptor of the arid inland. It is the only member of the genus which, far from being related to the true buzzards, may well prove to be a member of an ancient southern sub-group of raptors.

Black-breasted Buzzard pair at nest near Uluru.

Each year, inexplicably to many of us, thousands of visitors climb the rock, using chains attached to poles hammered into the rock face by a private operator in the early days of the park before there was control over such activities. Many more thousands do not. One very good reason not to do is in the conspicuous sign at the start of the walk. ‘Our traditional law teaches us the proper way to behave. We ask you to respect our law by not climbing Uluru. What visitors call the climb is the traditional route taken by our traditional Mala men on their arrival at Uluru in the creation time. It has great spiritual significance.’ Pretty clear you might say, but many don't see it that way. Anecdotally those who choose to disrespect the wishes of the traditional owners are likely to be Australians who see it as their 'right', though some tourist operators bringing overseas visitors also encourage their clients to do so.

Part of the climb; the erosion in the rock face alongside the chain is evident.

The steepness of the climb is here evident. Over 30 people have died climbing the rock, most from heart attacks.
The traditional owners feel a responsibility for those deaths, despite asking people to desist.

You can read some people's reasons for ignoring the pleas here and here, but in reality any arguments seem to me irrelevant - it's a matter of the respect due to a host by a guest. Legally and ethically we are on Anangu land and should be bound by courtesy. If I am invited into a stranger's house and they say "this furniture is very old and of great significance to us; we would be grateful if your children didn't climb on it", I would not be interpreting this to mean we could choose to do so anyway, simply because the residents were too polite to ban it outright. And then there is the more specific question of religious respect - it is no secret that I don't share any religious beliefs, but if I choose to take myself to a place of religious significance to somebody else, be it a cathedral or mosque or Uluru, it behoves me to treat it with appropriate courtesy.

So why don't the Anangu simply ban the climbing? At one level, it's simply not their way of doing things; they prefer to leave it to a guest's sense of decency and, again, respect. At another level it seems that, under the terms of the 1985 lease, they can't do so; only the Federal Government can do that, and successive governments have refused to do so, fearing an electoral backlash perhaps, or maybe for ideological reasons.

In 2010 the new management plan stated that "for visitor safety, cultural and environmental reasons the director and the board will work towards closure of the climb". The criteria that would provide a trigger for permanent closure (any one of them would be sufficient) are when:

* the board, in consultation with the tourism industry, is satisfied that adequate new visitor experiences have been successfully established, or

* the proportion of visitors climbing falls below 20 per cent, or
* the cultural and natural experiences on offer are the critical factors when visitors make their decision to visit the park.

The first and third seem to imply that a significant number of people only go there to climb (and of course that this should be of over-riding significance), but surveys suggest that only 2% of visitors say they wouldn't go there if they couldn't climb. I would also suggest that the associated publicity would draw at least that number of extra, sympathetic, travellers.

As for the '20% of visitors who climb' criterion, it seems that the number had dropped to that some years ago, and remains at the threshold level, but actual numbers are suspiciously hard to obtain, though no-one is challenging the assertion. So it comes back to politics. Earlier this month, Environment Minister Greg Hunt announced, with no justification offered for yet again ignoring both the management plan and the wishes of the Anangu, that there are "no plans to change current arrangements".

All I can say is, when you visit wonderful Uluru, and please believe me that you must, please don't climb. (Though I realise that anyone who chooses to snub the pleas of the traditional owners are not going to be swayed by me!).

However I don't want to end this piece on one of the most wonderful places on the planet on such a sour note. I have an abiding mind-image of a Black-breasted Buzzard gliding along the mighty red rock face, which I suspect might be one of the last images to fade from my mind when the time comes. Please go as soon as you can; you'll be richer for it.

Black-breasted Buzzard over Uluru.

BACK ON THURSDAY

It's been a while now since I did my last posting in the ongoing but irregular series on colours in nature; that one was the third in a series of orange in animals, a topic that gave me some angst, in that I found it very difficult to say just where orange ends and rufous-ginger-chestnut colours begin. I doubtless included some examples that you don't agree were really orange, and I'm not going to argue; in addition to our propensity to define colours differently from each other, the limits of 'orange' do seem to be very blurry indeed.

Chestnut Teals Anas castanea, south coast New South Wales, females on the left, males on the right.
The rich rusty colours on the males are the ones I'm talking about today.

Not that it really matters of course; the ultimate purpose of these postings, in addition to saying a little about how colours come about, is to revel in a parade of glorious animals (not many flowers in this colour category, though I may look into plants again in this context in the future). Once I started looking at potential examples of gingery-coloured animals, I realised that the options are very plentiful indeed. Indeed, I reckon I've got material for four postings; as it happens I'm going back to Malaysian Borneo next week, so I'll prepare another two postings on this topic to tide us over until I return in late May.

While perusing the possibilities, I realised that we use different terminology when talking about rusty birds and the same-coloured mammals. We use 'red' fairly carelessly in mammals (think of Red Kangaroos, Foxes and Deer for instance, not to mention 'red'-haired humans) but not nearly so much in birds. In fact for today's posting I'm going to concentrate solely on birds with Chestnut or Rufous in their name - and there are very many indeed.

The chemicals that make the Chestnut Teals chestnut, and red-headed people 'red', are a class of melanins called phaeomelanins (or pheomelanins). Melanins are produced in the body, unlike some other pigments we've discussed in the past which can only be obtained in food. Combinations of various phaeomelanins and brown or black eumelanins give rise to all the shades we'll be looking at over the next few weeks, plus others. And now, let's just enjoy some Chestnut and Rufous birds.

Chestnut Quail-thrush Cinclosoma castanotum near Norseman, inland southern Western Australia.
Quail-thrushes of course are neither of these bird groups, but belong to an ill-defined family of Australian
(and possibly New Guinea) passerines.

Chestnut-quilled Rock-Pigeon Petrophassa rufipennis, Kakadu National Park.
A little more about this lovely sandstone endemic here; the chestnut quills are just visible.

Chestnut-breasted Mannikin Lonchura castaneothorax, Darwin.

Chestnut Munia Lonchura atricapilla, a close relative of the previous species,
though 'munia' is not much used in Australia.

Chestnut-bellied Starling Lamprotornis pulcher, Waza NP, northern Cameroon.
This attractive starling has a huge range across arid sub-Saharan Africa, from the Atlantic to the Red Sea.

Chestnut-breasted Coronet Boissonneaua matthewsii, Guango Lodge, northern Peru.
A gorgeously rich hummingbird from the cloud forests of the northern Andes.

Chestnut-crowned Antpitta Grallaria ruficapilla, Paz de las Aves, Ecuador.
Without the patient habituation to being fed worms by the Paz brothers, such a sighting would be almost impossible.

Chestnut-hooded Laughing-thrush Garrulax treacheri, Kinabalu NP, Sabah.
Not a thrush at all, but an Old World babbler.

Chestnut-mandibled Toucan Ramphastos ambiguus, Milpe Reserve, north-west of Quito, Ecuador.
It is assumed that phaeomelanins are also responsible for such tones in bills and legs too, but
as far as I know it has never been demonstrated.

Which brings us from Chestnuts to Rufouses - and I suspect that if I jumbled them up and didn't tell you which was which, you'd have some real trouble allocating them correctly!

Rufous Treecreeper Climacteris rufus, Porongorups NP, Western Australia.
The Australian treecreepers are a very ancient passerine lineage.

Rufous Owl Ninox rufa, Yungaburra, tropical Queensland.

Rufous Fantail Rhipidura rufifrons, Monga NP, New South Wales.
A very active and attractive flycatcher of wet forests of eastern Australia and beyond.

Rufous Whistler male Pachycephala rufiventris, near Canberra.
A rather more washed-out rufous than most we've met so far.

Rufous-banded Honeyeater Conopophila albogularis, Kakadu NP, Northern Territory.
A small tropical honeyeater also found in New Guinea.

Rufous Songlark Megalurus mathewsi, near Georgetown, north Queensland.
Not quite as silly as it sounds - the rump is rufous, just visible here.

Rufous Antpitta Grallaria rufula, Yanacocha Reserve, north-west of Quito, Ecuador.
A shy resident of high altitude cloud forests.

Rufous Motmot Baryphthengus martii, Arasha Lodge, Mindo Valley, Ecuador.

Rufous Hornero Furnarius rufus, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
A common ground-dwelling ovenbird in Buenos Aires parks.

Rufous-bellied Thrush Turdus rufiventris, another common Buenos Aires bird.

Rufous-collared Sparrow Zonotrichia capensis, Machu Picchu.
One of the most ubiquitous and delightful South American birds, found the length and breadth
of the continent, and from sea level to the high Andes.

Rufous-tailed Hummingbird Amazilia tzacatl, Alanbi Lodge, Ecuador.

Rufous-tailed Plantcutter Phytotoma rara, Chilean Patagonia.
For now at least regarded as a cotinga.

Rufous-crested Coquette Lophornis delattrei, Waqanki Lodge, north-eastern Peru.
Even by hummingbird standards, this one is over the top!

And with that I think we can leave it for today; there were others I could have featured and of course there are many rufous/chestut/etc birds which aren't called that; we'll visit some of them in due course, but I think that next time we'll look at some rusty-coloured mammals.

BACK ON SATURDAY 14 MAY

In my last post I started a new thread in my irregular series on colours in nature, by featuring birds with 'rufous' or 'chestnut' in their names; I wonder if you were as surprised as I was how many there were? These rusty/gingery tones are widespread in animals, and are the result of reddish phaeomelanins combined with brown or black eumelanins. As I mentioned last time, we seem to have gone to more trouble with being precise about the colour with birds than we have with mammals, where we often just use 'Red' as a descriptor, though (or perhaps because?) very few mammals sport actual red tones.

Red Kangaroos Macropus rufa, inland Western Australia.
This is a male and a youngster, which is probably male but not necessarily; females are usually bluish-grey,
but some 10-20% of each sex are the 'wrong' colour.
This is the common kangaroo of the arid inland and central deserts.

Red-necked Wallabies Macropus rufogriseus, Namadgi National Park, Australian Capital Territory.
A common medium-sized wallaby in near coastal eastern Australia.

Little Red Fruit-Bats (or Flying Foxes) Pteropus scapulatus, Cooktown, tropical Queensland.
They really are a gloriously rich colour, but still not really red....
These are part of a big colony which roosts in the mangroves just across the road from Cooktown's town centre.

Red Panda Ailurus fulgens, Adelaide Zoo. (Sorry, I try to keep my photos here 'wild' as far as possible.)
Another stunningly colourful mammal. Not at all closely related to the Giant Panda (which is a true bear)
but the only member of its own family, loosely allied to weasels and raccoons.

Red-tailed Squirrel Sciurus granatensis, Alanbi Lodge, north-western Ecuador.

Think too of Red Deer and Red Fox, not to mention 'red'-headed humans. However many other mammals share such hues, sometime overall, sometimes as highlights, without using 'red' (or any other colour word) in their name. Primates feature quite strongly, from both Old and New Worlds, though other major groups are also well-represented. I've left out Orangutans here because I included them in the Orange posting, but they're one of those many borderline cases.

Proboscis Monkey Nasalis larvatus, Sarawak (above and below).
This gorgeously pigmented monkey, the only one of its genus, is endemic to Borneo.

Patas Monkey Erythrocebus patas, Waza NP, northern Cameroon.
Another single-species genus, found across arid west Africa.

Coppery Titi Monkey Callicebus cupreus, Tambopata Reserve, Peruvian Amazon.
Just three members of this widespread neotropical genus were recognised until recently -
now there are 16.

Ecuadorian Squirrel Monkey Saimiri macrodon, Yasuní NP, Ecuadorian Amazon.
(I think that expression is concentration rather than a lack of enjoyment.)

Few bats are as strikingly rusty as the Little Red Fruit Bats above, but others have nice coppery highlights.

Short-nosed Fruit Bat Cynopterus brachyotis Nanga Sumpa Lodge Sarawak.
These tiny fruit bats are common in rural buildings and under eaves in northern Borneo.

Black Fruit Bats Pteropus alecto, Charters Towers, Queensland.
This is a big fruit bat, found across northern Australia and into New Guinea and Indonesia.

Grey-headed Fruit Bat Pteropus poliocephalus, Sydney Botanic Gardens.

Among non-kangaroo marsupials, the most beautifully rusty has to be the lovely Numbat Myrmecobius fasciatus, once found across Australia but reduced - mostly by fox and cat predation it would seem - to pockets in south-western Australia, where once-promising reintroduction efforts seem to be faltering for reasons uncertain.

Numbat, Perth Zoo. (I have old slides from Dryandra Forest, but they really are not worth showing here!)

Some antelope certainly meet our criteria for inclusion.

Bushbuck female Tragelaphus sylvaticus, Kruger NP, South Africa.

Impala Aepyceros melampus, Lake Mburo NP, Uganda.

Female and young African Buffaloes Syncerus caffer, can be quite rusty in colour (when not covered in mud)
unlike the very dark bulls.
(The Little Egret and African Skimmer are bonuses.)

And some carnivores are also handsomely rusty. But I still can't decide if tigers are just rusty or outright orange!

Sumatran Tiger Panthera tigris sumatrae, Adelaide Zoo.

Culpeo (or Andean Fox) Lycalopex culpaeus Torres del Paine NP, southern Chile.
You wouldn't know it from this photo, but the legs are notably reddish.
This relatively large fox is found along the Andes from Tierra del Fuego to southern Colombia.

South American Coati Nasua nasua, Umbrellabird Lodge, southern Ecuador.
This beauty is undeniably rusty, but other individuals can be quite grey.

Which is about all I've got for you today, but I'll be back soon with an offering of gingery-looking invertebrates and reptiles. There is also another posting on rusty birds to come, but by then I'll be back from Borneo, and we might have a change of topic before returning to them.

BACK ON MONDAY 23 MAY

Here is the third - and for now at least the last, though there is another in the offing - in this instalment of the occasional series on colours in nature. Starting here I've been looking at shades usually referred to as reddish-brown, rufous, copper, chestnut, rusty and other evocative appellations, looking first at some birds and more recently at mammals.

I have more rusty birds to share with you at some stage, but I want to give the too-often ignored players, invertebrates and reptiles, a starring role before you get bored with this topic.

Given the common origins of feathers and fur in scales, it seems reasonable to assume that the same phaeomelanins that produce these earthy colours in birds and mammals are found in reptile scales, but I doubt that much work has been done on the subject. Looking at some of my pictures of Australian desert lizards, it struck me how logical it was to employ rusty tones, as they match those of the iron-infused sands and stones they often inhabit.

Central Bearded Dragon Pogona vitticeps, near Coober Pedy, South Australia.

Spotted Military Dragon Ctenophorus maculatus, near Cue, central Western Australia.

Ctenotus brooksi Kata Tjuta NP, central Australia.
This is one of dozens of members of this genus, many of them desert-dwellers.

Gidgee Skink Egernia stokesii, Whyalla Conservation Park, South Australia.
A large skink which lives in ironstone-rich rock crevices; if threatened it puffs itself up to wedge itself
into a crevice, and presents its spiny tail.

On the other hand it seems there can be a point in being a rich bronze colour even if you live in tropical rainforest.

Hitherto unidentified (ie by me!) skink, Lacy Creek Reserve near Mission Beach, north Queensland.
Any suggestions welcomed.

One Australian reptile group (of three species) actually bears the name copperhead, but ironically I've rarely seen these snakes with such an adornment. On the other hand, this very handsome Lowland Copperhead Austrelaps superbus, crossing the road in Tasmania had a lovely glossy coppery body.

Lowland Copperhead, Bruny Island, southern Tasmania.

Other snakes, of other groups, also share such tones.

Anaconda Eunectes murinus, Yasuní NP, Ecuadorian Amazonia.
This magnificent animal (whose head is just visible in the centre of the coils) was resting on floating
vegetation at the edge of a lake.

Striped Bronzeback Tree Snake Dendrelaphis caudolineatus Labuk Bay, Sabah.
This elegant colubrid (back-fanged venomous snake) is common in the region.

And so to some coppery/gingery/etc invertebrates. There are of course many, and this is just a small selection across a range of groups. It is likely that the ubiquitous phaeomelanins play a role here too, but it is also likely that different groups have come up with different pigments, as is the case with other invertebrate colours. I have chosen examples from grasshoppers, beetles, bugs, butterflies, ants, snails and millipedes. As ever, I am unable to identify most of them I'm afraid.

As with the lizards above, camouflage seems to be an important driver in the rusty tones of many Australian desert grasshoppers.

Grasshopper, Kings Canyon, central Australia.

Long-nosed Lycid Beetles, Porrostoma rhipidium Family Lycidae, Namadgi National Park,
Australian Capital Territory. This colour combination is a warning that the beetle is both toxic and unpalatable
(or so I'm told!). Other chemically-protected insects adopt the same colours to reinforce the message, and still other,
quite edible, ones do so also to gain protection by deceit.

Double Drummer Cicada Thopha saccata, Nowra, New South Wales.
It is quite possible that these colours are such an attempt at protection by mimicry; most cicadas
are avidly sought by predatory birds.

Bullant Myrmecia sp., Currarong, New South Wales.
No bluff required here - bullant stings rate very highly on scales of 'sting pain'.

Yellow Admiral Vanessa itea Mount Granya NP, Victoria; please bear in mind that I didn't name it!
I love the gradation of rich rufous tones.

Antanartia sp. (I think) Family Nymphalidae, Bwindi Impenetrable NP Uganda.
Again, subtle and rich.

This huge snail came out in the rain at Rio Silanche Reserve, north-east of Quito, Ecuador.
I don't always think of snails as colourful, but this one certainly qualified.

And to finish off, another from the Ecuador rainforests, a millipede, a group of animals I always enjoy.

Millipede, Yasuní NP, Amazonia/

I hope you've enjoyed this coppery ride as much as I have; I've come to realise that these tones are high among my favourite colours, and of course any animal is among my favourites!

As previously mentioned I have another list of gingery birds to share with you one day, but perhaps it's time to take a break from the topic and talk about something else - next time I'll be back from warm Borneo in frosty Canberra, talking to you 'live'.

BACK ON WEDNESDAY 1 JUNE

I only recently discovered the concept of 'infinity pools' - I don't doubt that they're old hat to you, but just in case, they're an above-ground swimming pool from which you can look out across the landscape. One place where you might not expect one is on a working cattle station in the semi-arid tropical savannah country of north Queensland. Nonetheless, Robin Hood Station (!) boasts such a pool and it attracts not just hot outback travellers.

Pale-headed Rosellas Platycercus adscitus, having an early morning drink from the pool at Robin Hood Station.

The station has set up accommodation - motel-type rooms and camping, plus a restaurant and of course the pool - to encourage people to visit their chief attraction, which is Cobbold Gorge, still not well-known. It seems to have only been discovered by Europeans in the 1990s, when the current owner and a couple of mates paddled up Cobbold Creek from the Robertson River. Robin Hood Station (allegedly named because it adjoined Sherwood Lease!) was only taken up in 1901 - this is still relatively wild and remote country - and now covers 330,000 hectares (3,000 square kilometres). In 2009 the family signed a Nature Refuge Agreement with the Queensland government to create a 4700ha Nature Refuge around the gorge – a commitment to manage it sustainably in perpetuity, binding on future owners too. The station is generally known now as Cobbold Gorge Station, which is how I'll refer to it here.

Georgetown, the largest town in the inland Gulf Savannah, is 400km west of Cairns on the sealed Gulf Develpment Road. From there the station is another 85km on back roads, 55km of them unsealed (but 'good dirt', as my dad would have said).

The approximate location of Cobbold Gorge is indicated by the end of the red arrow.

I stayed there last year for the first time with a group I was escorting in tropical Queensland and am happy to recommend it to you. (I feel I must emphasise that when I do feature a private establishment like this one in a blog posting it is only ever because I really believe it deserves it - I will never accept any form of concession or other 'freebie' in return for writing about it, as is standard practice in newspaper travel pages.)

I will of course get to the gorge shortly, but this country is worth visiting for its own sake, though when we were there it was heavily droughted. I understand that things are much better now after heavy rains - more than 300mm - in March of this year.

For people staying at the accommodation the focus is the 'Home Dam', a large dam immediately below the restaurant and administration buildings.

Home Dam, Cobbold Gorge Station, in late afternoon light.
Even in drought it was pretty full.

Away from that the woodlands are rich and varied, even in drought.

The canopy stays green even in harsh times - this country lives with drought
as part of its life.

The ground cover however dies back, leaving seeds and underground structures to flourish
when the rains do come.

Termite mounds are a key part of the landscape; unimaginable millions of termites recycle the nutrients
in grass and ground litter, reducing the fire fuel load and providing food for the greatest dryland lizard
diversity in the world

Darwin Stringybark Eucalyptus tetrodonta is widespread across northern Australia.

A diversity of other trees and shrubs is also present.

Soapbush Wattle Acacia holosericea. This is a large wattle with big leathery phyllodes ('leaves')
which contain saponins used to create a soapy lather, which can also be used to stun fish by depleting oxygen levels in water.

Quinine Bush Petalostigma pubescens Family Picrodendraceae. While in the same family as the
South American quinine tree, it is not clear that this plant also contains the chemical. The bark is certainly bitter,
and is used by northern indigenous people as an antiseptic and a contraceptive.

Cooktown Ironwood Erythrophleum chlorostachys family Fabaceae.
Found across northern Australia, the timber is valued for its hardness and density;
the foliage is highly toxic to stock and indeed all parts of the tree are potentially fatal to mammals.

Leichardt's Breadfruit Tree Gardenia vilhelmii, family Rubiaceae.
We certainly know that Ludwig Leichardt sustained himself on some Gardenia fruits on his ultimately
doomed journeys across northern Australia; this may well have been one of them.
(The better-known breadfruits belong to the fig family, Moraceae.)

Hibiscus sp.; sorry I can't do better than this.

Batwing Coral Tree Erythrina vespertilio, family Fabaceae.
The first common name and the species name come from the shape of the leaves; 'coral' from the red flowers.

Even in drought there are many birds, though the property dams are of course important attractors.

A few of the vast numbers of White-browed Woodswallows Artamus superciliosus and Masked Woodswallows A. personatus coming in to drink in the late afternoon.

And at the water's edge (along with a few green Buderigars).

White-browed (female, above) and Masked Woodswallows.
Theirs is a fascinating story; they are usually found together, their calls are apparently indistinguishable,
as is their DNA. But they are very different physically and while they commonly breed in mixed colonies,
they never seem to interbreed!

Red-winged Parrot pair Aprosmictus erythropterus (male on the right).

Squatter Pigeon Geophaps scripta foraging quietly on a station track.

Black-necked Stork Ephippiorhynchus asiaticus flying over the dam.

And one can hardly overlook the Pied Butcherbirds Cracticus nigrogularis which come to scrounge (or demand) scraps from the tables.

Insects were perhaps less evident than one might expect, due to the drought, but were not entirely absent.

Moth in our room.

Longicorn Beetle family Cerambycidae.

And this one actually was absent... It is an ex-caterpillar, consumed by a fungus.

And so to the sandstone gorge itself, accessed by small electrically-powered boats (it is very narrow in parts). One of its features is a population of Freshwater Crocodiles Crocodylus johnstonii, but it was too cold for them to be basking when we visited.

Cobbold Creek, lined with River Red Gums Eucalyptus camaldulensis just below the gorge.


Part of the gorge from above.

The next four pictures are a selection from inside the gorge.

Reflections of water ripples on the wall of the gorge.

Golden Orbweb Spider web inside the gorge.

And I hope that is enough to encourage you, next time you visit the gulf country, to detour and spend a couple of nights at the station. I truly don't think you'll be disappointed.

I am now back from Borneo but still working on my pictures; I certainly hope to be ready to offer you something from that fascinating part of the world by next week.

BACK ON THURSDAY

A lot of people these days seem to visit Malaysian Borneo, with their focus mostly on Sabah - mighty Mount Kinabalu, the Orangutan and Sun Bear rehabilitation centres at Sepilok, the grim Second World War sites at Sandakan and Kundasang and perhaps the caves at Gomantong where swiftlet nests are still harvested for bird-saliva soup. All of these places, and more, are worthy of our focus and I'll doubtless be introducing most of them here in due course.

Today however I want to go west from Sabah, to the less-visited state of Sarawak, and an often-overlooked but delightful little national park on a South China Sea peninsula just 40km from the state capital Kuching. It is relatively popular as a day destination from Kuching, but I would highly recommend an overnight stay in the basic but quite adequate cabins; a restaurant provides all meals.

Bako National Park, the oldest in Sarawak (gazetted in 1957) is indicated by the red arrow.

After arriving at the little port of Kampung Bako ('kampung' meaning a village), we take to small boats to travel a short distance down the Bako River, then along a spectacular sandstone coastline where the rainforest comes down to the sea.

Boat returning from the sea with a catch of jellyfish; perhaps surprisingly there is a big market
in jellyfish for consumption in other parts of Asia.

Part of the catch; tentacles are cut off before the animals are taken on board.

Above and below, the rainforest comes right to the sea among weathered sandstone stacks.

The landing is among mangroves, with a board walk for the short distance to the accommodation, scattered around a clearing in the rainforest, just above the beach.

View from the landing of the beach and headland that fronts the accommodation.

Close-up of headland at the end of the beach.

The cabins (quite a few of which were closed, presumably for upgrading, when we were there in May 2016) are set into the forest edge and wildlife is prolific.

Typical cabin, run by the parks service.

The most immediately obvious residents are the Bearded Pigs Sus barbatus and the Long-tailed Macaques Macaca fascicularis, both of which forage around the complex.

The pigs, native to Peninsular Malaysia and adjacent islands including Borneo and Sumatra,
are content to keep their distance and wait for pickings.

The macaques however are not! They will seize food from plates if allowed (there is a constant battle between them and
restaurant staff) and can be quite menacing if they think food is being withheld - for instance in any plastic bag sighted!

Many less intrusive animals are present however - birding in Borneo can be quite a challenge, but around the cabins at Bako it can be easier than in some other sites. Even before them however, there are animals along the mangrove boardwalk when first you disembark.

Fiddler Crabs challenge each other with an enlarged claw whose sole purpose is for display -
it is non-functional as far as feeding is concerned.

Hermit Crabs, protected by scavenged sea snail shells, also roam the mud flats.

Mudskippers, re-enacting the drama of life moving ashore, are among the welcoming committees.

Mangrove Skink Emoia atrocostata on the sand at the landing.
This widespread skink specialises in coastal habitats on islands throughout the western Pacific
and in Queensland.

Reptiles are quite evident throughout any stay at Bako in fact.

Green Crested Lizards Bronchocela cristatella are incredibly agile, skipping through tree foliage, and hurling
themselves out into space.

Wagler's Pit Viper Tropidolaemus wagleri on the other hand waits patiently and immobile for prey to come within
striking range. The 'pit' refers to the heat-sensing indentation between eye and nostril. This one was in a
small bush very close to the ground, but they can also be found high in trees.

In addition to the macaques, two other monkey species are present, neither of which are interested in interacting with humans.

Silvered Leaf Monkeys Trachypithecus cristatus are also found in Sumatra and mainland Malaysia.
The strikingly orange babies darken quickly. These monkeys subsist almost exclusively on leaves, and
can manage tough foliage unavailable to other monkeys.

Perhaps the stars however are the Proboscis Monkeys, endemic to Borneo. Most people see habituated Proboscises at feeding stations, but Bako is an excellent place to see them in the wild.

The huge gut is a vat for digesting leaves through bacterial action (like a ruminant mammal) but in
fact Proboscis Monkeys also eat a lot of more readily digestible fruit.

For those with a particular interest in mammals, another resident is of at least equal interest.

The Sunda Colugo Galeopterus variegatus is carelessly referred to as a 'flying lemur' - it doesn't fly
(though it is probably the most consummate glider among mammals, with flaps from wrist to ankle
to tail tip, and between fingers and toes) and is most certainly not a lemur. The two species comprise
an entire Order, whose closest relatives do seem to be primates. (In fact there may be more than the two species,
with the possibility mooted that the south-east Asian mainland, Bornean and Javan populations all represent separate species, in addition to the Philippines Colugo.) They roost like this during the day, on tree trunks.

And so to the birds - just a few sample species here of the many present.

Red-crowned Barbets Psilopogon rafflesii can be seen wherever trees are fruiting.


Asian Fairy-bluebird Irena puella; a member of a family of just two Asian fruit-eaters. This one is found across southern Asia, the other just in the Philippines.

The Oriental Dwarf Kingfisher Ceyx erithaca is a tiny (13cm) forest kingfisher.

Blue-throated Bee-eaters Merops viridis sit out in the open watching for insects, often near the sea.

All of these can be found in the lowland rainforest and clearings close to the accommodation, but an only moderately strenuous short climb up a formed track to the plateau above leads to a different world. This is the kerangas, a heathy low-growing forest which subsists on low-nutrient acidic sands (the name is based on a local word meaning 'land where rice cannot grow'!). This habitat tends to be lower in animal diversity but is nonetheless fascinating, and is notable for pitcher plants, insect-eating plants which supplement their otherwise low nitrogen intake thus. They will surely be getting their own posting here soon!

Looking out towards Santubong Island, from where Alfred Russel Wallace purportedly wrote an historic
letter to Charles Darwin.

Nepenthes albomarginata; the white rim below the mouth of the pitcher has been shown to attract termites
to their doom in the liquid. (The rim on this one is fading to brown.)

Nepenthes rafflesiana, a very large and hugely variably coloured pitcher.
This is an upper pitcher; the plant is a climber and the twist of the stem around the branch
of the supporting shrub can be clearly seen.

The ant plants - various species which employ ants to bring them food in the form of droppings and other food waste, in exchange for shelter in hollow structures - are also found in this low-nitrogen habitat.

Myrmecodia sp. (Family Rubiaceae), an epiphytic ant plant growing on a tree trunk.
They are abundant in the kerangas; the holes in the woody bulb where the ants enter are clearly visible.

Dischidia species, twiners in a quite separate family, Apocyanaceae, pursue similar aims by different methods. They have two quite different types of leaf - 'normal' fleshy leaves, as can be seen in the photo above growing around the unrelated ant plant, and larger enclosed leaves which accumulate nutrient within, and which offer shelter to foraging ants.

'Ant accomodating'Dischidia leaves.

As I said, a fascinating habitat indeed, and one which you might like to contemplate with a drink down by the sea again, while you watch the sunset over the South China Sea.

As I hope I also said, Bako is a bit special, and you could do much worse than visiting it as your introduction to Borneo.

BACK ON WEDNESDAY

I am on record as being a passionate orchid-lover (even an orchiholic) but other groups of plants put up a pretty good case for my affections too. I love arid lands (which is as well for an Australian!) where there tend not to be orchids; here there is little doubt as to the subjects of my unashamed - or only a little bit ashamed - favouritism.

Crimson Turkey Bush Eremophila latrobei, near Windorah, south-west Queensland.
Eremophila means 'desert lover' (what a wonderful name) and the great German-Australian botanist
Ferdinand von Mueller named this one for 1850s Victorian Lieutenant Governor Charles La Trobe.
This is slightly ironic as Victoria is the only mainland state where it doesn't grow!

Eremophila is a large genus of woody shrubs (and a few small trees) found solely in Australia; the only New Zealand species, the prostrate E. debilis, appears to have been introduced from eastern Australia. There are over 220 named species, with at least another 40 awaiting description. Some have small distributions, most live in remote areas. As I have suggested they are consummate arid land survivors, though they may be found in a variety of habitats, including sand dunes and stony ranges.


Rock Fuchsia Bush E. freelingii, near Alice Springs, central Australia. Arthur Freeling was South Australian Surveyor-General through the 1850s, and may have collected the specimen which von Mueller named.

Desert Fuchsia E. gilesii, east of Uluru, central Australia.
Named for the great 19th century desert explorer Ernest Giles, who collected the type specimen.

We have already noted a mix of common names for the group; these include Emu Bush (for the erroneous belief that emus avidly seek them out and are responsible for triggering their germination in their gut), Fuchsia Bush (for the general flower shape), Poverty Bush (for the harsh environments where they are found) and Turkey Bush (probably referring to bustards or 'plains turkeys' in the same general context as Emu Bush). Some (including E. latrobei, above) are toxic to stock and are sometimes referred to as Poison Bush.

Until recently Eremophila was included with Myoporum (and some smaller genera) in the family Myoporaceae; now that whole family has been subsumed into the rather inelegantly named family Scrophulariaceae.

The genus name was bestowed by the eminent Scottish botanist Robert Brown, who sailed with Mathew Flinders on the Investigator from 1801 to 1805. He described two species of Eremophila from specimens he collected, but both were in the same publication and unusually he didn't nominate one of them as the type species (the 'reference species' by which all later plants included in the genus must be tested). I find it surprising that this situation has not bee retrospectively corrected; for instance if in the future it was decided that that the 'joint type specimens' actually belonged to different genera, there would be no way of determining which would remain Eremophila! The two were named by Brown (who had no way of knowing how many there actually were) very sensibly as E. alternifolia and E. oppositifolia, respectively with alternate and opposite leaves of course.

E. alternifolia (above) and E. oppositifolia (below),
both in Whyalla Conservation Park, South Australia.

The flowers are tubular with five petals, surrounded by a shorter tube of five sepals - this can readily be seen in the photo immediately above. However there are two basic flower types, determined by whether they are pollinated by birds or insects. Insect-attracting species tend to be blue or mauve, occasionally white, and with two petals above (often pointing backwards) and three below, protruding to form a landing platform. Their stamens are usually short and enclosed within the the tube.

Turpentine Bush E. clarkei, near Paynes Find, central Western Australia.
Von Mueller named it for one William Clarke who funded the Western Australian expedition which collected it,
but I can't tell you much more about him I'm afraid.
This is a classic insect-pollinated Eremophila.

Here are some more.

E. christopheri (the incorrect form christophori is also often met with), Olive Pink Botanic Gardens,
Alice Springs. It is endemic to the southern Northern Territory.

E. freelingii (above) and E. gilesii (below);
these are close-ups of the shrubs illustrated above.

E. rotundifolia, Coober Pedy, South Australia - this species is almost entirely
restricted to that state.

Scotia Bush E. scoparia, Nullarbor Plain.
This one is found right across dryland southern Australia.

E. willsii, Uluru NP, central Australia, where it grows on red sand dunes.
It was named for William Wills, second in command of the famously disastrous Burke and Wills expedition,
in the year after his death.

Bird-pollinated Eremophilas on the other hand are red, orange, yellow or even green, with four upper petals and one lower petal which is bent back out of the way to deny insects a platform. The stamens usually protrude beyond the tube to contact the face and forehead of the bird. Several of the previous photos illustrate this option, as do the following.

E. forrestii, Mount Magnet, central Western Australia.
Von Mueller named this one for the impressive John Forrest, late 19th century explorer and politician.

Tar Bush E. glabra, Shark Bay, Western Australia.
A very widespread and familiar species, found in every mainland state.

Berrigan, E. longifolia, Uluru NP.
Another ubiquitous species found across the continent; it grows into a small tree.

Spotted Emubush E. maculata, south-west Queensland.
This hugely variable species can be mauve, blue, orange, red or yellow, and with or without spots!

Kopi Poverty Bush E. miniata, Norseman, Western Australia.

Pixie Bush E. oldfieldii, Nallan Station, central Western Australia, east of Geraldton.
Yes another named by von Mueller, this one for Augustus Oldfield, a British-born professional plant collector.

Crimson Eremophila E. punicea, Nallan Station.
The reason for the misleading common name is unclear.

After fertilisation the flower tube drops off and the hitherto relatively inconspicuous sepals grow and develop bright colours to draw attention to the fruits which are mostly bird-distributed.

Burra E. fraseri, Nallan Station; the flower tube has fallen away and the sepals are now very obvious.
This is yet another of von Mueller's, honouring one Malcolm Fraser - not the 20th century prime minister,
but an 1870s Western Australian surveyor-general.

I hope you've enjoyed this brief introduction to these truly beautiful desert-lovers as much as I've enjoyed presenting it. Next time you're driving the outback, keep a special eye out for them.

Bignonia Emubush E. bignonifolia, Windorah, south-west Queensland.

BACK ON THURSDAY

The far north of Chile is some 4,500km from the cold wet windy south - but in some ways it feels even further. The mighty Atacama Desert is unlike anywhere else on earth, though near to the sea it has similarities with the Namib of south-western Africa, centred on Namibia (which takes its name from the desert). Both have a cold current - the Humboldt in the case of the Atacama - hard on-shore, which doesn't give rise to moisture-bearing air masses. (On the west coast of Australia the desert also comes to the coast, but it isn't as arid and is vegetated.) What makes the Atacama unique however is the fact that it rises to over 4,500 metres above sea level (masl) across substantial areas in the Andes, though some people would technically exclude the arid Andean slopes from the definition of the desert. The Andes exacerbate the aridity by intercepting clouds moving west from the Atlantic across the Amazon basin.

A typical Atacama scene near San Pedro de Atacama.
There is no vegetation at all across vast expanses of the desert; in this area for instance the annual
rainfall is just 40mm, half of which is expected in January.
The three winter months (June to August) average exactly zero...
And there is something surreal about the backdrop of snowy peaks.

Most visitors are likely to fly into Calama on the Rio Loa, then drive the 100km south to San Pedro. Calama exists solely to support the world's largest copper mine, Chuquicamata, and unless you have business there, there is really no reason to linger. San Pedro is a much pleasanter town of some 5,000 people, built at 2400masl (a comfortable altitude for most people) on an oasis which is based on an aquifer originating in the high Andes and nearing the surface in the dry bed of the Rio Grande. It was inhabited at least 3000 years ago when it acted as a rest stop on the trading route to the highlands. It has been described as ‘the gringo gathering point of northern Chile’ and the main streets comprise mostly bars and souvenir shops - I am not surprised to find that I don't have any photos of it. However, we don't go there for its own sake, but as a base to explore the surrounding desert.

The arrow indicates the approximate position of San Pedro de Atacama,
at 2,400 metres above sea level on the Atacama Plateau.

The unvegetated expanses are hard to comprehend at first, even to someone like me who has spent quite a bit of time in deserts - I've always known that there are 'deserts and deserts', but I think you have to really experience the Atacama to appreciate the truth of that.

It seems extraordinary that people have been present in this harsh landscape for many centuries, but as mentioned above oases like San Pedro have long enabled trade routes to pass through the Atacama. And when the Inca Empire pushed south into Chile, their famed roads which took traders and messengers throughout the empire pushed even through the forbidding Atacama.

Inca Road, marked with rocks (for scores of kilometres) near San Pedro. There was no need to seal roads here
(unlike the amazing paved roads through the Andes, such as the Inca Track near Machu Picchu), but
they did need to be clearly defined. I muse on whether it would be worse to be an Inca runner here,
or in the high cold mountains.

The ever-present mountains are another remarkable aspect - and the Andes are still growing as the Nazca Plate (under the Pacific Ocean) shoves its way under the South American Plate, and the volcanoes are either potentially or actually still active.

Sunrise through a haze of mist - it's hard to imagine there could be moisture in the air - from San Pedro.

Volcano Lascar.

Volcano Lascar from a different angle - with smoke wafting from the crater.

And in that last photo something different appears - vegetation, even trees! Tamarugo is a pea, Prosopis tamarugo, which remarkably can grow in the total absence of rain, relying on dew and deep tap roots into water tables.

Tamarugo - old tree (above) and close-up (below).

Partially excavated Tamarugo root, Pampa de Tamarugo NR (further north in Chile).

Various species of chenopods (or saltbushes) grow as an understorey to the Tamarugo, or on their own.

Tamarugo woodland and chenopods, west of San Pedro.

As you might expect, wildlife isn't obvious, but it certainly exists, especially near settlements, which are associated with oases.

Female Greenish Yellow-finch Sicalis olivascens, Socaire.
Yellow-finches are now understood to be tanagers; this species occurs in flocks in the Andes.

Great Thrush Turdus fuscater, another high country species, though this one is more often encountered
in wetter habitats. It is well-adapted to urban living.

Guanacos Lama guanicoe, above and below, west of San Pedro.
They are far less common than in past times, and nowhere near as abundant in the
north as they are in the far south. More on them here.

There is in fact one habitat in this part of the Atacama which hosts a wealth of wildlife, but that's the topic of next week's posting.

Most visitors come for the desert scenery, and a tour of the Valle de la Luna (the Valley of the Moon) is on everyone's itinerary - and for good reason! It compromises a huge amphitheatre with jagged rock formations, and vast areas of gleaming salt from a long-gone age when there were lakes here; now no rain has fallen here in the time of a European presence. Here are just a few of very many images that I could have offered you.

Close-up of the salt surface. It can be near-blinding in the full sun.

A typical scene from within the amphitheatre, looking out to the Andes beyond.

Salt-crusted rocks come in a variety of forms, from massive domes...

... to strange twisted remnants of outcrops. This one is known as Las Tres Marias.

A striking juxtaposition of red sand dune and salt field, which resonates with an Australian.

A panorama incorporating some of the above themes.

Many of these tours are timed to end at sunset, absorbed from an extensive lookout area along cliff tops looking out across the plains to the Andes through more than 180 degrees. These photos don't need explanations. They are offered in chronological order, taken over a period of 17 minutes.

The Atacama is a grand and magnificent adornment to the world, and the San Pedro area is as good an introduction to it as any. And next week I shall conclude this visit to it with a look at two very different and unexpected features - lakes!

BACK ON WEDNESDAY

In my last posting I introduced some of the spectacular Atacama Desert landscapes in the far north of Chile, in the San Pedro de Atacama area; if you missed that you might like to have a quick look, as it sets the scene for today's instalment. In it I intimated that while wildlife isn't always obvious in this most arid of earth's non-polar areas, there are hot spots (some of which are actually very cold!), two of which I'd like to share with you today. Both, unsurprisingly, involve water but that aside they are as dramatically different as one could imagine.

The first is high in the Andes, some 110km south-east of San Pedro and at 4,100 metres above sea level (masl) is 1700 metres higher. The climb into the Andes is gradual but, as we approach our goal, which is Laguna Miscanti, the snowy peaks start to surround us and there is more vegetation (though still sparse) from the limited rainfall that finds its way over the peaks from the west.

Tussock grassland at 3,900masl, between the village of Socaire and Laguna Miscanti.

Small perched high lakes start to appear, giving us a taste of what is to come.

Looking out over the plains of the Atacama from where we've climbed.
This little lake is probably formed by a dam of material left behind by a retreating glacier
after the last glaciation.

While San Pedro's 2400masl doesn't bother most people, anything over 4000 metres is a challenge for most of us; the short walk from the car park to the lake will be a slow one, and is likely to be through a snowy landscape. It is also one that you won't want to miss - Laguna Miscanti is almost impossibly beautiful.

Laguna Miscanti, above and below; to the left is Cerro Miscanti.

The near-freezing waters nonetheless support bird life.

Andean Gulls Larus (or Chroicocephalus) serranus live only in the high Andes, even breeding up there.

Horned Coots Fulica cornuta are also high Andes specialists and are not common, but live and breed on Laguna Miscanti. They carry pebbles out into the water where they drop them to construct huge artificial islands on which they build their nest of vegetation. On the day we were there it was very windy and the track near the lake shore was closed, so I foolishly opted not to take distant photos in the expectation that I'd get other opportunities. I didn't.

However there were small passerines around, including species you won't readily see elsewhere.

Puna Miner Geositta punensis, Laguna Miscanti, one of a group of South American tyrant flycatchers
which nest in burrows (including those dug by rodents). This species is limited to a small area
of the central Andes above 3000masl.

Rufous-naped Ground-tyrant Muscisaxicola rufivertex.Another ground-foraging tyrant flycatcher of the high Andes.

And of course there are predators.

Culpeo, or Andean Fox, Lycalopex culpaeus, found throughout the entire length of the Andes.

To reach our other lake and an entirely different experience we must backtrack towards San Pedro and then head west off the bitumen into a section of Los Flamencos National Park - and yes, flamenco does mean flamingo! By the time we reach our destination and walk out on raised paths through the apparently forbidding Laguna Chaxa, we have descended 1800 metres to 2300masl, slightly lower than San Pedro. The approach does not suggest that a lake system is near.

Feral Donkeys; their ability to make a living here is remarkable, but one must hope that numbers are low.

Laguna Chaxa is in the Salar de Atacama, the world's third largest salt pan (after nearby Uyuni in Bolivia, and Death Valley in the US).

Salt and mud stretching into the distance; not a promising landscape for life, but it is abundant here.

Laguna Chaxa, with the ever-present Andes looming. Flamingos and other wading birds thrive in hyper-saline
lakes which, counter-intuitively, support numerous microscopic organisms, especially diatoms,
and larger prey such as brine shrimps.

The water flows underground from the Andes and comes to the surface in such lagoons, which have no outflow. Most famous of the wildlife are the three flamingo species which breed there - the more widespread Chilean Flamingo Phoenicopterus chilensis and the two more restricted high Andes species, Andean Phoenicoparrus andinus (the rarest flamingo species) and Puna Flamingo Phoenicoparrus jamesi. (For more on the American flamingos, see here.)

Andean Flamingo showing typical flamingo feeding style - bill upside down, using the fleshy tongue covered
with protuberances to pump water past similar protuberances on the bill to extract food from mud.
This bird has been banded - probably while a nestling - as part of ongoing studies.

And another of Andean Flamingos being aesthetic, which they're very good at.

Other high Andean waders are present too - again these are birds you won't readily see elsewhere, and several of these were new to me.

Andean Avocets Recurvirostra andina; yet another restricted range Andean endemic (by far the most restricted
of the four avocet species), breeding above 3,500masl. Like the others its curiously upturned awl-shaped bill
is swept from side to side, snapping shut on small animals.

Puna Plover Charadrius alticola; the species name 'high dweller' says it all.
It has a very similar central Andean range to the Andean Avocet, living mostly between
3,000 and 4,500 masl.


Baird's Sandpiper Calidris bairdii on the other hand has a huge range, breeding in the Arctic from Greenland to Siberia, and migrating to South America where it can be found from northern Peru to Tierra del Fuego, from the mountains to the coast.

One of the most conspicuous inhabitants however - apart from the vast swarms of flies on the water surface, though they didn't bother us - is Fabian's Lizard Liolaemus fabiani, found in all the world only in the Salar de Atacama. It was only collected in 1981 and described in 1983; the name has nothing to do with the social change movement, but everything to do with Chilean herpetologist Fabián Jaksic. I imagine that prior to this it was assumed that they belonged another of the many species of Liolaemus - they could hardly have been overlooked!

I was so taken with these salt specialists that I can't help sharing several photos of them with you.

I am astounded that a lizard could be so at home in such hyper-saline conditions.

Here you get some idea of the abundance of the flies which presumably lead to the abundance
of the lizards. They keep their distance as the lizards pass by.

I am assuming that these brightly coloured individuals (above and below)
are males, but I can't find much information on the species.

Which pretty much brings us to the end of this visit to this fascinating part of one of the world's great, and most fascinating, deserts. I hope you can get there yourself one day, but meantime I trust that this can whet your appetite. And of course if you have been, I hope that this brings back good memories.

BACK ON WEDNESDAY

I could almost as well have posted this yesterday, as Raffles died on 5 July 1826, a day short of his 45th birthday.

You may well be wondering however why I would be including a posting on a British administrator and empire-builder in south-east Asia and, most famously, founder of Singapore, in a natural history blog. The fact is that, while most of the readily available on-line biographies ignore it or simply mention it in passing, he was a naturalist to his core and corresponded with and was admired by luminaries such as Sir Joseph Banks and the great botanist Robert Brown.

Bronze statue of Sir Stamford Raffles, by Thomas Woolner, formerly overlooking Singapore Harbour.
(It has since been replaced by a copy.)
Courtesy of George Landow.

It is hard to get a firm handle on the true story of Raffles - Nadia Wright for instance makes a strong case for his story and achievements having grown in stature after his death, though her article does seem to try a trifle hard to downgrade every aspect of his life. The real point seems to be however that for the most part the hagiographies were written well after his death, and obviously not by him, apparently to satisfy a Victorian desire for heroes of the Empire.

Very briefly, because it's not my primary interest today, he was sent in 1805 by the British East India Company as assistant secretary to the governor of Penang. He had already begun learning Malay, as was expected, and this and his apparent abilities led to him being appointed Lieutenant-Governor of Java after the 1811 British invasion expelled the French who had temporarily supplanted the Dutch colonial rulers during the Napoleonic Wars. His use of both force and skilful manipulation of local politics to pacify Java typified his subsequent career. He returned to England to face down accusations of financial mismanagement, and there published The History of Java; overall his return was a good move, resulting in a knighthood and the governorship of Bencoolen, a colony (albeit a somewhat obscure one) on the west coast of Sumatra. Vigorous social and economic reforms followed, and he had some influence on the eventual 1824 Dutch-English treaty which divided up the region. His own and others' researches led him to the Dutch-free island we now know as Singapore and organised a series of treaties with local authorities, giving effective control to the East India Company. He established schools and churches, and a European town. In fact he spent more time in Sumatra than Singapore, but his influence was considerable. In 1824 he returned to England, already suffering from the brain tumour that was to kill him just two years later. Meantime however he co-founded, with chemist Sir Humphry Davy (of miner's safety lamp fame), London Zoo at Regent's Park, and was the first president of the London Zoological Society.

OK, that's the sketch, and if you're interested in the details there's plenty out there (though the Wikipedia article is often confusing and generally poorly written). What about Raffles the naturalist? It was his passion, and he wasn't just a dilettante - he scientifically described species, as well as compiling vast collections to send to Britain.

Long-tailed (Crab-eating) Macaque baby Macaca fascicularis, Sabah.
Raffles named this species Simia fascicularis in 1821; it was later moved to the genus Macaca
but retains his species name.

Eastern Crimson Sunbird, Sepilok, Sabah, named Certhia (now Aethopyga)
siparaja by Raffles in 1822.
'Siparaja' apparently means an army general in Malay, applied to a related species.

[Much of what follows is based on this article, but you may have to log in to jstor to access it. It's an article by John Bastin in the Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (1990)
Vol. 63, No. 2 (259) pp. 1-25.]

When his natural history interests are mentioned, it is often asserted that they were sparked by his relationship with the US naturalist Thomas Horsfield, who he met while he was in Java. More of Horsfield anon, but we know that Raffles was systematically employing natural history specimen collectors in Penang prior to that. He had a lifelong love of gardening and (perhaps less admirably from a modern perspective) kept an extensive menagerie and aviary in Sumatra, though many of these animals were gifts from local rulers with whom he was negotiating. In a letter in 1820 he proclaimed that natural history was (apart from religion, he felt compelled to record) "perhaps the most rational and innocent enjoyment that Mind can possess on Earth". After the founding of Singapore, when he was somewhat sidelined back in Sumatra, he proclaimed in another letter that, when not engaged in administration, his time was "principally devoted to natural history".

Thomas Horsfield was a medical doctor who came to Java while Raffles was Lieutenant-Governor there, primarily to indulge his passion for natural history, especially botany. There is no doubt that while Horsfield didn't trigger Raffles' interests, he certainly influenced the younger man. In return Raffles gave Horsfield all the official support he needed, and Horsfield obtained for him a significant collection of plants, insects, animals and birds for the British East India Company Museum in London. This led to Sir Joseph Banks himself requesting Horsfield's assistance in obtaining botanical specimens; it was a mutually most beneficial relationship.

Immature Horsfield's Bushlark Mirafra javanica, near Canberra.
John Gould named the species in Australia in 1848 to honour Horsfield, who had named the genus in Java,
that species being (unsurprisingly) M. javanica. The Australian birds bore the name horsfieldii
until the 20th century, when they were subsumed to a subspecies of Horsfield's Javan bird.

There is no doubt that during Raffles' time back in England in 1816-17 the Horsfield collections received by Banks and described by Robert Brown were of great benefit to Raffles' reputation too in the scientific world, though Banks praised lavishly Raffles in his own right for his knowledge.

Back in Sumatra he was joined briefly by Horsfield, who was on his way to England to work for the British East India Company Museum, but Raffles' natural history partner now was Dr Joseph Arnold, who Raffles had engaged as his personal doctor, but who was also an enthusiastic botanist. (Arnold had sailed twice to Australia as ship's surgeon, the second time as the first surgeon-superintendent of a convict ship.) Tragically he died of an unspecified fever after only four months with Raffles, but before doing so was instrumental in Raffles' greatest fame to botanical fame - the discovery (in company with Raffles and his wife) of the extraordinary genus of plants which came to be named after him.

Rafflesia keithii flower, Poring, Sabah.
There are 28 species in the genus, the only member of its family. All live in south-east Asia, Indonesia
and the Philippines. They are totally parasitic, living entirely within the stem of vines of the genus Tetrastiga,
in the grape family. Uniquely in botany, at least one species has no trace of chloroplasts, the plant cell organelles which contain chlorophyll and perform photosynthesis, thus challenging our very concept of what a plant is!
The plant comprises solely fungus-like threads within the vine, with no stems, leaves or roots.
Flowers appear sporadically, but are remarkable - this species has flowers nearly a metre across and weighing up to
10kg. The blotched reddish colour and putrid scent attract blowflies, which act as pollinators.

Raffliesia keithii bud emerging from the soil, from an underground vine stem. This species is endemic to Sabah.

Arnold didn't live to describe his discovery; that honour fell to Robert Brown, who handled it very senstitively. He called the genus Rafflesia, on the basis, which was probably correct, that it is what Arnold would have done, and gave the species the name arnoldi. Unfortunately for Arnold's memory popular history tends to give credit for its discovery to Raffles alone, though he made no such claims. The Dowager Empress of Russia was so excited to read Brown's account that she sent him a diamond and topaz ring to express her enthusiasm! Decades later, shortly before his own death, Brown sent the ring to Lady Raffles, now widowed.

In time Raffles replaced Arnold with a young Scottish surgeon, Dr William Jack, who proved a very capable botanist indeed and contributed hugely to our knowledge of the plants of the area. His publications were praised at the highest levels in Britain. Tragically he died of tuberculosis after four years with Raffles, aged just 27, and to add to the tragedy two years later most of his specimens and paperwork were destroyed by fire.

Raffles' Pitcherplant Nepenthes rafflesiana, Sabah.
This was named for Raffles by William Jack, who collected the specimen in Singapore, though
it is also found in Sumatra, Borneo and some smaller islands.

Raffles also engaged two French zoologists, Pierre Diard and Alfred Duvaucel, but after a promising start things ended badly when the British regional government in Calcutta refused to honour Raffles' financial promises to them. It does not seem to reflect well on Raffles though that after an intense argument he expelled them, but seized their substantial zoological collections. One might wonder if their nationality was a factor, though his developing chronic headaches wouldn't have helped. His reputation certainly benefited from being able to send their collections to London, accompanied by a 'Descriptive Catalogue' under his name. It seems that he felt uncomfortable about the process however, as he devoted quite some space in the catalogue to justifying his seizure of the Frenchmens' specimens.

Raffles's Malhoa Rhinortha chlorophaea, Sepilok, Sabah.
Female above, male below.
This lovely cuckoo pair (which would not sit still for a photo!) was named (as Cuculus chlorophaeus)
by Raffles in Sumatra; in addition to there and Borneo it is found in peninsular Malaysia.

Things continued to go badly for him. Three of his children died, his health was suffering and he seems to have felt keenly the loss of Jack. A huge collection of his specimens from Singapore and Sumatra, up to 3,000 natural history drawings commissioned by him from Chinese artists, and many live animals, were destroyed in a shipboard fire. Stoically he replaced what he could in the 10 weeks he had before his own departure. The same resolution enabled him to spend months back in England, despite deteriorating health and increasingly ferocious headaches, unpacking and sorting 174 large cases of materials that he'd sent back over the years.

Shortly before his death he became inaugural president of the Zoological Society of London, with Thomas Horsfield as Assistant Secretary. Land was obtained at Regent's Park, and plans were well developed, but Raffles didn't live to see it open.

That's sad, but so is the fact that his considerable achievements in contributing to early understandings of south-east Asian natural history are mostly entirely overlooked now, as he is remembered simply, and simplistically, as the 'founder of Singapore'. I hope that in a small way I can contribute to rectifying that wrong.

Red-crowned Barbet Psilopogon rafflesii, Bako NP, Sarawak.
This lovely fruit-eater was named for Raffles by the French zoologist René Lesson 13 years after Raffles' death.
The Asian barbets are now placed in a separate family from both the African and South American ones.

BACK ON THURSDAY

From Canberra in winter, lovely tropical Darwin always seems attractive. And so it does today as I write this. If you are fortunate enough to be visiting there some time in the nearish future, and you're interested enough in nature to be reading this blog, you should really aim to put aside at least a couple of hours to visit East Point Reserve. Probably all the locals know it, but it's certainly not on every visitor's schedule, and those who do find their way there are probably looking for the historical aspects associated with World War 2 fortifications. Today however I'd rather try to lure you to its natural charms. Because of its recreational popularity it's easy to find, so I won't try to give you detailed directions here. It's a peninsula that represents the eastern-most point of Darwin Harbour (the west side of the harbour, well outside the city, doesn't appear on the map below).

East Point Reserve, indicated by the red arrow, protruding into the Timor Sea.
As is evident it is well within suburbia, and not far to the north of the city of Darwin.

While it's all interesting, much of it comprises open mowed grassy areas with scattered trees, and the two elements I want to focus on today are the mangrove board walk (as far as I know, still the only such public boardwalk in mangroves in the Northern Territory!), and an extensive area of monsoon forest.

You reach the mangroves first; pull into the Lake Alexander carpark, near the start of the reserve, and there is a sign to mark the beginning of the walk, which begins through low monsoon forest and coastal scrub before entering the mangroves.

Low monsoon forest on the way to the mangroves; I'll leave an introduction to the habitat until a little
later, when we get to the more substantial area of it.

The strip of mangrove forest grows along the northern shore of the narrow peninsula which we've just walked across from the southern side. There are 11 mangrove species found here, which is not very rich by the standards of larger sites, but impressive nonetheless. The raised aluminium walkway through the tidal section - the tide can rise by more than five metres here - is impressive and makes for an excellent mangrove experience.

Part of the aluminium walkway at low tide; this wide section at the end of the walkway, with benches,
is an excellent place to sit and watch what comes by.
We did just that for quite some time from early morning one day last summer.

The view in the other direction, looking out to the sea through the trees.
The ground is covered with pneumatophores, woody root extensions which protrude from the mud
to enable respiration in a waterlogged environment.
These mangroves are mostly White-flowered Apple Mangrove Sonneratia alba, family Lyrthaceae.
This species has a huge range, from East Africa across southern Asia and Indonesia to the West Pacific.

White-flowered Apple Mangrove flower. It's important to realise that 'mangrove' isn't a taxonomic term;
it can be used for any tree which has adapted to growing in regularly inundated salt-saturated mud of the inter-tidal zone.
In fact in Australia alone there are 41 species of mangrove, representing 19 different families. Some of these
mostly comprise mangroves, others are familiar terrestrial plant families.

Red, or Stilted, Mangrove Rhizophora stylosa, family Rhizophoraceae, found widely in Australia and Indonesia.
This is the other dominant mangrove at East Point, and demonstrates another type of pneumatophore,
the stilt root, which grows down from the stem and then branches, providing both support and respiration function.

I am not going to delve any more deeply into mangrove biology here - it's a fascinating topic which deserves, and will get, its own post one day.

It was a relatively quiet morning for wildlife when we were there, but there's always something, starting as soon as we left the carpark.

The extraordinary Magpie Goose Anseranas semipalmata is common across tropical Australia
and adjacent New Guinea. It is the sole member of an entire family of waterfowl
(ie 'ducks and geese', though it is neither).

Bar-shouldered Doves Geopelia humeralis are also very common, but that's no reason not
to enjoy and share them, especially as I know that many readers come to this blog from elsewhere.
They have an endearing habit of warbling repeatedly in a falsetto voice "let's walk to schoooool".

Rainbow Bee-eaters Merops ornatus against the morning sun.
Our only bee-eater, and an impressive one. They breed in southern Australia and spend
the rest of the year in tropical Australia, New Guinea and nearby Indonesia.
However even in summer there are always some in the north as well.

Male Australasian Figbird Sphecotheres vieilloti. Yet another common northern species, actually an oriole.
This used to be called the Yellow Figbird, to distinguish it from the Green Figbird further south in eastern Australia,
but they are now regarded as races of the same species.

As we sat among the mangroves at the end of the walk a few birds came to investigate.


Northern Fantail Rhipidura rufiventris. Two fantails are among the commonest birds further south, but this tropical species, while certainly not rare, is less obvious than them.

Lemon-bellied Flycatcher Microeca flavigaster. A lovely little bird, one of the Australian robins; for that
reason, probably understandably enough, there is a move to resurrect the old name of 'flyrobin', but I'm not
quite ready for that yet.

Not many waders on the mud, but our view was pretty limited. The Common Sandpiper Actitis hypoleucos isn't that common in southern Australia, though more so in the north. This one was snacking on the abundant crabs.

Common Sandpiper with seafood breakfast.

Crabs are of course super-abundant in mangroves, living in burrows and supporting numerous predators,
including this gorgeous blue chap, which I unfortunately can't find a name for. Any help?

Another favourite mud-dweller, the wonderful mudskippers, regarded traditionally as a subfamily
of goby, though recent work suggests they actually comprise several related groups. Their key characteristic is an ability
to spend much of their time out of water, being quite active across the surface of the mud, using their adapted fins.
As long as they remain moist they can breathe through skin and mouth membranes on land,
as well as with gills in water.
Gill slits are tightly closed on land, and the cavity contains an air bubble.
I like to think of them re-enacting the first vertebrate moves ashore nearly 400 million years ago.

When you can tear yourself away from the peace of the mangrove platform, return to the carpark and drive a little further along the road into the reserve. Just past Peewee Restaurant (and I'm afraid I can't tell you anything else about it, I've always been there too early!) pull into the carpark marked Barbecue Area and cross the road to the track opposite through the monsoon forest.

Monsoon forest along the track. Monsoon forests grow in the tropics where an intense wet season is
followed by a long dry, which distinguishes them from true rainforest where it can be wet all year round.
They tend to be lower-growing and simpler in biodiversity (though by no means impoverished) than rainforests;
many trees are often deciduous in the dry.

Two special birds in particular can generally be found here. In fact you're likely to encounter Orange-footed Scrubfowl Megapodius reinwardt pretty much any time from when you enter the forest.

Orange-footed Scrubfowl scratching for food in the leaf litter on the track with its immensely powerful feet.
(Which, I must note, are not more orange than its legs.)
This is one of three Australian megapodes, which incubate eggs in a mound of decomposing litter.
This one alone is found beyond Australia, on nearby islands.

Scrubfowl mound, Darwin; for a relatively small megapode they build an enormous mound.

Pittas are an interesting group of birds, members of the ancient suboscine passerines which predominate in South America but are scarce elsewhere. There are three Australian species - the Noisy Pitta Pitta versicolor of eastern Australia, the Rainbow Pitta P. iris of the Top End and Kimberley, and the Red-bellied Pitta Erythropitta erythrogaster which breeds at the tip of Cape York Peninsula in Queensland in the wet summer, and returns to New Guinea for the rest of the year.

The Rainbow Pitta is not uncommon in monsoon forest around and even in Darwin, and East Point Reserve is a good place for them, though they are shy and can take some finding. They feed on the ground but often call from a high perch. Their call is a constant background at East Point.

Rainbow Pitta, East Point. Truly a beautiful bird.

If East Point isn't already on your 'to do' list when you go to Darwin, it should be. Try and make time for it - you won't regret it.

BACK ON MONDAY 25 JULY
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A while ago now I started another in my sporadic series on colours in nature, this one on the range of rich red-brown colours which we refer to variously as rufous, copper, chestnut and rusty among others. It was a rewarding lode to mine too, and after three instalments I decided to rest it for a while to look at other aspects of the natural world. I now want to conclude the series with two more offerings on rusty (etc) birds. As you read this I'm helping with bird surveys in the remote Great Sandy Desert of Western Australia, so this is one I prepared earlier, as they say on the cooking shows.

Radjah Shelduck Tadorna radjah, south of Darwin.
This gorgeous tropical shelduck of northern Australia, New Guinea and some nearby islands I think
well illustrates why I'm so fond of these shades.

In that first posting I limited myself to birds with Chestnut or Rufous in their name, and there were plenty of those; these last two postings will celebrate other birds of essentially the same colours, starting today with some Australian examples. Just to reiterate, the chemicals that make the Radjah Shelduck glow coppery, and make red-headed people 'red', are a class of melanins called phaeomelanins (or pheomelanins). Melanins are produced in the body, unlike some other pigments we've discussed in the past which can only be obtained in food. Combinations of various phaeomelanins and brown or black eumelanins give rise to all the shades we'll be looking at over the next two postings, plus others. Some of the birds which follow are fully bedecked in rich rusty shades, others just sport highlights. And now, let's just enjoy them.

Orange-footed Scrubfowl Megapodius reinwardt, south of Darwin. It does indeed have splendid
orange feet (and legs) but it's the rusty wings and cap we're noting today.
This small mound-builder (or megapode) incubates its eggs in huge mounds of composting leaf litter.
They are found in tropical Australia, New Guinea and into the Indonesian archipelago.

Australasian Grebe Tachybaptus novaehollandiae, Darwin.
I love the chestnut neck patch it dons during breeding.

Nankeen Night Heron Nycticorax caledonicus, Canberra. This attractive crepuscular heron is found throughout
most of Australia and through Melanesia to the Philippines.
‘Nankeen’ derives from Nankin or Nanking, a town in Kiangsu province, China, which gave its name to a widely used cheap yellowish-brown cotton cloth manufactured there, which in turn came to be used for the colour.
This soft pre-dawn light doesn't do proper justice to the intensity of the colour.

This is not the only Australian bird named for this colour association, though the word hasn't been used in any other bird name elsewhere in the world.

Nankeen Kestrel Falco cenchroides, Canberra.

Brahminy Kite Haliastur indus, Territory Wildlife Park, Darwin.
This gloriously-toned raptor of the coast and wetlands is found from sub-tropical Australia to India.

Australian Pratincole Stiltia isabella, Barkly Tablelands, Northern Territory.
I love the rich chestnut patches on the sides, which show well in flight.
This one seemed keener on the bitumen than safety might recommend.


Red-capped Plover (or Dotterel) Charadrius ruficapillus, south coast New South Wales. This very loose use of 'red' for this shade is more often encountered with regard to mammals (eg fox, deer or kangaroo).

Grey-crowned Babblers Pomatostomus temporalis, Alice Springs, central Australia.
Only race rubeculus, of northern and central Australia, has the rufous undersides.

White-browed Woodswallow Artamus superciliosus male, Canberra.
Yet another gloriously rusty bird! The woodswallows are not at all related to true swallows, though
they do hunt aerial insects. This one is nomadic across the dry inland, reaching the south-east
(including Canberra) to breed in drought years.

Zebra Finch Taeniopygia guttata, Bourke, New South Wales.
The little chestnut cheek patch is only worn by the male. A ubiquitous little bird found across inland Australia.

Which brings us to the end of my offerings for this week. I'll conclude next time with some overseas birds which share these attractive colours.

BACK ON THURSDAY 4 AUGUST
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It's turned into something of an odyssey, but here is the final episode in this series celebrating animals with colours we variously refer to as chestnut, ginger, rusty, rufous or copper among others. The series began back here and my most recent posting was the penultimate one. I won't reiterate what I said then about the chemical basis of such colours, but will proceed to introduce you to some more birds which bear them, crossing three continents in the process. As I've mentioned more than once in the course of this journey, I find the richness and subtlety of these shades most appealing indeed.

Ocellated Tapaculo Acropternis orthonyx, Refugio Paz de los Aves, northern Ecuador.
This is a relatively large and very vocal bird, but normally near impossible to see in the forest.
The patience and skill of Angel Paz in habituating it to come in for food is astonishing.

Wattled Jacana Jacana jacana, near Guayaquil, Ecuador.
The jacanas form a group of eight species, found throughout the world's tropical zones,
which specialise in walking on floating leaves by means of hugely extended toes. This one is found throughout
most of South America east of the Andes, plus this isolated near-coastal population in Ecuador.
This species gave its Tupi name, from Brazil, to the entire group.

Grey-headed Sparrow Passer griseus, Entebbe, Uganda.
An Old World sparrow which has adapted to human habitations like some other family members,
including the next one.

Tree Sparrow Passer montanus, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah.
A sparrow with a huge natural range across Europe and Asia, as well as having been
introduced to North America and Australia (where it is rare and declining).
I like the fact that these two closely related species flaunt their chestnut tones in different places.

Brown Pelican Pelecanus occidentalis, Puerto Ayora, Galápagos.

Cinnamon Flycatcher Pyrrhomyias cinnamomeus, San Isidro Lodge, northern Peru.
A common and widespread little beauty of the forests.

Raffles's Malkoa Rhinortha chlorophaea female, Sepilok, Sabah.
The malkohas form a group of large non-parasitic cuckoos.

Black-throated Flowerpiercer Diglossa brunneiventris, Chivay, southern Peruvian Andes.
The flowerpiercers are a group of tanagers which use their awl-shaped bill to pierce the base
of tube-flowers to 'steal' nectar without pollinating the flower.

The next two, both kingfishers and quite similar, though in different genera and from different continents, are normally admired for their blue plumage - and quite rightly too - but their rusty undersides are an important part of the striking overall effect.

Blue-eared Kingfisher Alcedo meninting, Sepilok, Sabah.
A beautiful kingfisher found widely in southern and south-east Asia.

Malachite Kingfisher Corythornis cristatus, Lake Mburo NP, Uganda.
An exquisite little bird found across sub-Saharan Africa.

So far the species features have varying amounts of the chestnut shades, from small highlights to up to half of their bodies; other birds however are virtually wholly coloured thus.

Andean Ruddy Duck Oxyura jamaicensis (above),
and Cinnamon Teal Anas cyanoptera (below),
both males and both on Lake Titicaca, Peru.
In both species the females are much less conspicuous, in mottled browns.

In the wonderful Torrent Duck Merganetta armata however, the rusty roles are reversed, with the females wearing it.

Torrent Ducks displaying, Urabamba River, Peruvian Andes.
Males on the left, female on the right.

Rufescent Tiger-Heron Tigrisoma lineatum, Yasuní NP, Ecuadorian Amazonia.
A beautiful heron often seen along streams by visitors travelling by boat.
(And 'rufescent' is a name borne by only three bird species in the world!)

Almost the last, two superficially similar rainforest woodpeckers from opposite sides of the world - and both taken in very poor light conditions, unfortunately.

Cinnamon Woodpecker Celeus loricatus, Rio Silanche Reserve, north-western Ecuador.

Rufous Woodpecker Micropternus brachyurus, Sepilok, Sabah.
This pretty little woodpecker is found right across southern and south-east Asia.

And finally, a very handsome, and very rusty, big South American cuckoo.

Squirrel Cuckoo Piaya cayana, Manu NP, Peru; a lovely and active non-parasitic cuckoo found
from northern Mexico to Uruguay.

I hope you haven't felt I've gone on with this theme for too long, but I felt, apart from anything else, that it was a chance to meet some possibly new birds, and hopefully simply enjoy them.

I'm off again soon, on an extended holiday to tropical Australia, and will leave just a couple of offerings to tide us over until I get back in mid-September. Normal service will resume then!

BACK WITH SOMETHING QUITE DIFFERENT ON THURSDAY 18 AUGUST
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It's now 120 years since Ferdinand von Mueller, the colossus of 19th century Australian botany, died. And it's high time I paid him some tribute here!

Ferdinand Jakob Heinrich Mueller, in his role as President of the Royal Society of Victoria.
Photo courtesy of Encyclopaedia of Australian Science.

He was born in 1825 in north-western Germany and, though trained as a pharmacist, carried out botanical research at the age of 15, and took his PhD in botany at Kiel aged just 21. (It was normal to combine botany with studies involving medicine, because of the herbal aspects.) He came to Australia for his health – or perhaps that of his sister, who travelled out with him. The Australian climate was probably recommended to him by Johann Preiss, a German naturalist who arrived in Perth in 1838, became a British subject in 1841, and the following year returned to Germany to live... Later, von Mueller was to recognise Preiss's contribution to his life by naming several species for him (but beware, so did many other botanists, especially Germans).

Mueller (as he was then) gained work for a pharmacist in Adelaide, but well before that he began collecting plants, just a few hours after landing. He explored botanically the Mt Lofty and Flinders Ranges, to which he walked, a distance of nearly 300km. He became a citizen soon after arriving. He published his findings initially in German scientific journals, then in 1852 in the prestigious journal of the Linnean Society of London; this came to the attention of Sir William Hooker, Director of Kew Gardens.

Coast Mistletoe Muellerina celastroides, Myora, south coast New South Wales.
There is no genus Muellera, because the name was pre-empted by a pea genus named for Danish botanist Otto Mueller.
However there is this genus, named just before von Mueller's death by French botanist Philippe Tieghem.

Restless, despite having obtained eight hectares of land and building a cottage outside of Adelaide, he moved to Victoria to open a pharmacy on the goldfields, but before he could open its doors, was appointed by Governor Latrobe as government botanist on the recommendation of Hooker. This was the first time a colony had made a botanical appointment separate from a botanic gardens, and he held it from 1853 to 1896 when he died. His botanical explorations of his new domain began immediately, and never really stopped. Within nine days of his appointment, he set out in February (often the hottest month of the year) on a 2,400km, four month, tour of the colony, heading north through the Strathbogie and Warby Ranges to Mt Buffalo and Mt Buller in the alps, thence east to Gippsland and home via Wilsons Promontory.

In November he set out again, and spent five and a half months months travelling to the Grampians in western Victoria, then followed the Murray downstream from the Darling to Albury, continuing into eastern Victoria again. More trips followed, to the alps and Gippsland again; he crossed into New South Wales, arriving at Mt Kosciuszko, Australia's highest peak, on the first day of 1855. Altogether he covered 9,000km of trackless country, mostly alone, collecting thousands of specimens, including 500 species new to the colony. In subsequent decades he made another 15 expeditions to further his already prodigious knowledge of Victoria's flora.

Alpine Gentian Chionogentias (or Gentianella) muelleri, Kosciuszko National Park, New South Wales,
above and below. More widely the group is regarded as part of the widespread Gentianella,
but in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory Chionogentias is recognised.
This beautiful alpine species was named only in 1995 by renowned Australian botanist Lawrie Adams
(famous for splitting Eucalyptus, a task unfinished at the time of his death) to honour von Mueller's alpine work.
In the same paper he introduced the genus Chionogentias to separate Australian gentians from ones
elsewhere in the world. Lawrie's work was pioneering and often attracted controversy!

He also explored the Tasmanian highlands, and for two years from 1855, when economic depression caused the retrenchment of many Victorian public servants, he took leave of absence and joined Augustus Gregory's highly significant North Australian Exploring Expedition, which covered much of the tropical north. In the process he collected 800 new plant species. On his return in 1857, he also became Director of the Melbourne Botanic Gardens. Under him the National Herbarium in Melbourne, which he had built, became the centre of Australian botanical studies; in 11 years it increased from 45,000 specimens (mostly his own, which he contributed) to 350,000. His duties also, strangely, included responsibility for the Zoological Society's animals. In 1873 he had to give up the Gardens because influential citizens wanted a 'pretty' gardens, not one arranged scientifically according to plant families, and the government, extraordinarily, dismissed him. This remained a distress to him for the rest of his life, though he retained the position of government botanist.

Yellow Kunzea Kunzea muelleri (above and massed below), Kosciuszko National Park, New South Wales.
Another alpine species commemorating von Mueller, though this one was named long ago,
by George Bentham, his collaborator on the mighty Flora Australiensis (see below).

He was made first president of Victoria's Royal Society, and was very involved in the Acclimatisation Society, now regarded as a pernicious introducer of exotic species. He first introduced Monterey Pine Pinus radiata (now by far the chief softwood plantation species in Australia) and, reputedly at least, spread blackberry on his travels, partly as a source of nutrition for gold miners! With the chemist Joseph Bosisto he experimented on the distillation of essential oils. He also propounded the conservation of forests, though primarily for timber extraction. He helped to organise the Victorian Exploring Expedition (the notoriously doomed Burke and Wills Expedition, though most of its misfortune was of its own making, not that of its organisers), the search for the missing explorer Ludwig Leichhardt, the foundation of the Royal Geographic Society of Australasia, and the scientific exploration of both Antarctica and New Guinea. He was a truly remarkable and dynamic man.

Poison Morning Glory Ipomoea muelleri Family Convulvulaceae, Windorah, south-west Queensland.
Found across much of northern and inland Australia, this scrambler was also named by Bentham
to honour his collaborator.

He was chief collaborator with English botanist George Bentham for 18 years on the 7-volume Flora Australiensis. This was a gracious act on his part, as it was a project he had much wanted to do himself, and he was of course the most eminently qualified person to do it. However he was a mere colonial, and the power of Kew was too great. He was the sole author of 1000 books and papers (including school textbooks), and 2000 new species, 1000 of which he had discovered himself, including most of the Australian alpine plants we now know. He was also reputed to write up to 3000 letters per year! Unsurprisingly, he never found time to get married, though he was twice engaged.

The King of Wurtemberg made him a Baron (whence he was entitled to be 'von Mueller'); he became Sir Ferdinand in 1879 and has it been suggested that he is probably the most decorated Australian citizen ever. He died, in harness at age 71, in 1896.

Yellow Stringybark Eucalyptus muelleriana, Kangaroo Valley, New South Wales.
Named by English-born Alfred Howitt in 1891; Howitt was a very impressive self-taught bushman
and explorer, naturalist and anthropologist.

Simple arithmetic on the figures above reveals that von Mueller named 1,000 plant species that other people supplied to him. Next time I want to introduce some of those collectors - some were professionals, others collected as they did their day jobs - who von Mueller thanked by naming plants for them.

BACK ON SUNDAY 4 SEPTEMBER
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In my last post I paid tribute, albeit an utterly inadequate one, to 19th century Australia's towering figure of botany, Ferdinand von Mueller. As discussed there he described some 2,000 species of Australian plants (browse any plant list that includes the authors and you'll see that his work was rigorous enough to stand the test of time). About half of those were from specimens he collected himself, so what of the origins of the others? Von Mueller was a very astute man, as you'll have gathered by now, and he kept a very close eye on who was collecting what, in part through his huge web of contacts both in Australia and Europe. When he came across someone providing material to his 'opposition', he made sure to induce them to supply him as well. Moreover, he ensured wherever possible that exploring expeditions took a botanist who would report to him, and made contacts with anyone else who was going to be in remote areas to enlist their aid. Today I have only room to tell the stories of a few of the numerous people who provided his specimens, but I hope it gives an idea of the breadth of their backgrounds, though in a couple of cases we know very little in fact. I have stuck too to collectors for whom he named plants (he was generous in this) and, for the sake of breaking up the text, ones that I can illustrate!

Leichhardt's Breadfruit Tree Gardenia wilhelmii, near Georgetown, north Queensland.
Named for Carl Wilhelm, an important von Mueller collector - see below.

Unfortunately, every person we meet today was a man; however von Mueller made a point of enlisting over 200 women in his vast network of collectors. He placed letter-advertisements in papers around the country, with tips for collecting and preserving specimens. Notable among these was Louisa Atkinson. Von Mueller did name plants for some of his female collectors, but sadly I can't offer an example which meets our criteria today. For an excellent account of his female collectors, see here.

Firstly the professional collectors; there was evidently a lucrative enough living for those skilled and hardy enough to ply the trade in remote corners of the world. Botanic gardens, herbaria and museums (and even some wealthy private individuals) paid good money for specimens and seeds; some even sponsored the best collectors. Von Mueller did pay some collectors to be in the field for limited periods of time, and paid expenses; to independent professional collectors he certainly paid for material provided. Some amateur collectors were rewarded with gifts, such as books and seeds. Given his background and contacts, it is unsurprising that many of his professional suppliers were Germans working in Australia.

One such was Carl Wilhem, a man of whom we know intriguingly little. He arrived in Australia in 1850, and worked for three years as Protector of Aborigines in the Port Lincoln area, in South Australia. He sent many specimens from this period to von Mueller; he was apparently a good botanist and keen collector, and came to work at the Melbourne Botanic Gardens just a year before he became acting-Director while von Mueller was off on the Gregory expedition (I'm going to assume you have read, or will read, the last posting - sorry!). After von Mueller returned Wilhelm did a lot of valuable collecting, especially in the Grampians, then returned to Dresden in 1864, where he apparently opened a seed shop.

Acacia wilhelmiana, near Temora, New South Wales.

William Bauerlen was another such, who was engaged by von Mueller to collect for him in the 1880s. He was later official botanical collector to a scientific expedition to New Guinea.

Chef's Cap Correa Correa bauerlenii, south coast New South Wales.

Another German who collected for von Mueller was Hermann Behr, a medical doctor who seems to have been much more interested in anthropology, botany and entomology. He arrived in South Australia in 1844 and lived among in Aboriginal communities, learning languages and publishing anthropological observations. He described many new insect species (mostly published in Germany), and collected large numbers of plants. He returned to Germany but later went on to California, where von Mueller sent him plants, thus introducing many Australian species to North America.

Pink Velvet Bush Lasiopetalum behrii, Caralue Bluff Conservation Reserve,
Eyre Peninsula, South Australia. Family Malvaceae (formerly Sterculiaceae).

Carl (Charles) Walter came to Australia from Germany in the 1850s and wandered the outback with a swag and his camera. He collected seeds to send back to Germany – presumably for funds – and this activity brought him to von Mueller's attention. Von Mueller was always on the alert for competent collectors, and Walter was able to add many plants to the Victorian list. He later worked for the Technological Museum at the Public Library of Victoria, compiling an annotated collection of vegetable products; he later performed the same task for von Mueller. He was an early member of the Victorian Field Naturalists' Club and later opened a wine shop in Swanston Street.

Monkey Mint-bush Prostanthera walteri, Mt Morris, East Gippsland, Victoria.
This unusual mint-bush is limited to granite hills in forests of north-east Victoria and
south-east New South Wales.
It was collected for von Mueller by Walter.

Augustus Oldfield on the other hand was an English plant and animal collector who worked from Tasmania to Sydney (he apparently walked from Melbourne to Sydney) to Western Australia and was highly valued by von Mueller, as well as by Joseph Hooker of Kew Gardens. Like Behr he had an active interest in indigenous Australian anthropology.

Pixie Bush Eremophila oldfieldii, inland from Geraldton, Western Australia.
Oldfield collected the type specimen (along with other specimens) on the Murchison River,
at a place he called Yattoo, but its location remains a mystery.

Charles Moore, originally Scottish-Irish, trained at Kew and in 1848, aged just 28, was appointed New South Wales government botanist. He ran the botanic gardens efficiently, and collected widely in New South Wales and Queensland, as well as into Melanesia. I'll leave it there, as I've talked about him in more detail previously.

Pinkwood Eucryphia moorei, Monga NP, New South Wales. A member of an ancient Gondwanan
family, with very close relations in South America. This species is limited to southern New South Wales
cool temperate rainforest. Moore collected it on either the Clyde or Shoalhaven River.

Walter Hill was appointed first director of the Brisbane Botanic Gardens in 1855 and, when Queensland became a colony in its own right in 1859, separate from New South Wales, he also took on the role of Colonial Botanist. He had previously worked at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh and Kew, then came to Australia where he went plant collecting in tropical Queensland and was the only survivor of an attack by Aboriginals in the Whitsundays, shortly before taking up the botanic gardens position. He set up a herbarium but the combination of the humid sub-tropical climate and poor quality buildings meant that specimens deteriorated rapidly (and many were eaten by termites!) so he sent most of his material off to von Mueller and to Kew. He travelled and collected widely in Queensland. He also apparently introduced mangoes, pawpaws, ginger and jacaranda to Australia, and was the first to grow Queensland macadamias commercially (in the botanic gardens).

Myrtle Bells Orchid Sarcochilus hillii, Nowra, above and below.
This exquisite little epiphytic orchid grows north from the far south of
coastal New South Wales to the Tropic of Capricorn in Queensland.
Hill collected it at Moreton Bay.

Others who supplied plants to von Mueller were not professional collectors, but collected in the course of their day job. Explorers were an obvious target, though arguably the greatest of them all, John McDouall Stuart, was too focussed on the task to be much diverted by plants. He did nonetheless send some material back to von Mueller, who received this attractive and unusual desert plant thus, and thanked Stuart by naming it for him.

Desert Peppercress Diplopeltis stuartii Family Sapindaceae, Great Sandy Desert, Western Australia,
above and below.
It is unusual in its family in having such conspicuous flowers, as most members (including the familiar
Australian hop-bushes Dodonea) are wind-pollinated with small greenish flowers.

One who did contribute more heavily was another eminent desert survivor, Ernest Giles.

In 1875 he travelled west from the Flinders Ranges to Perth, then back again just south of the Tropic of Capricorn; 8000km in summer in some of the most arid country in Australia. Zoologist Hedley Finlayson in his 1952 classic The Red Centre wrote: “All who have worked in that country since Giles’ time have felt both admiration and astonishment at the splendid horsecraft, the endurance and the unwavering determination with which those explorations were carried out… The discovery, with the very scanty resources at his command, of the great system of ranges, including the Everard, Musgrave, Petermann, George Gill and Rawlinson, and much of the county between, is one the finest feats of exploration in the history of the Empire.” When his companion Gibson lost his horse, Giles gave up his own, and walked, while suffering extreme thirst and starvation. He survived, while Gibson did not; Gibson had the desert named for him. Despite all this he collected plants for von Mueller and got them back to him.

Eremophila gilesii, central Australia.

Another extraordinarily hardy desert explorer who found time and energy to collect plants in the course of his travails was Charles Sturt. I have previously told his story here, so won't reiterate, but it's worth a read.

Solanum sturtianum, Broken Hill.
Sturt collected the type specimen somewhere in central Australia, but it's not clear exactly where.

Yet another in this category was Augustus Gregory, with whom von Mueller had a special relationship, having travelled with him extensively on the North Australian Expedition of 1855. His story too I have previously told - he's not a household name, but he deserves to be.

Desert Kurrajong Brachychiton gregorii, Mereenie Loop, central Australia.
The only dryland kurrajong, this is found across the western half of inland Australia.
It is unclear whether Gregory collected it for von Mueller, or whether the botanist
himself did so on Gregory's expedition.

Senecio gregorii, Lasseter Highway, central Australia.
This one was collected by Gregory, in the course of his ultimately fruitless search for the
vanished explorer Ludwig Leichhardt, later the subject of the Patrick White novel Voss.

Ralph Tate was appointed as the inaugural chair of natural sciences at Adelaide University in 1874; primarily a geologist he also had an interest in zoology (especially molluscs) and botany. To be honest I'm unclear where he stands with regard to his place in this article - it's not obvious that he did supply von Mueller, but it's certainly more than possible. Von Mueller certainly named species for him.

Androcalva (formerly Commersonia) tatei, Heggaton Conservation Park, South Australia.
The formal authorship is "F. Muell. ex Tate"; I don't know what to make of that.
One reason I've included it here is in the hope of clarifying the situation - thank you in anticipation!

Another geologist who definitely collected for von Mueller in the course of his field work was James Stirling, who worked for the Victorian Mines Department in the second half of the 19th century, and was an active member of the Royal Society of Victoria.

Oven Everlasting (referring to the Ovens River in Victoria) Ozothamnus stirlingii, Namadgi National Park,
Australian Capital Territory.

A very different man, working in a very different place, was Pastor Friedrich Kempe, originally from Dresden, who ended up working as a missionary among the Arrernte people of central Australia, where he produced the first Arrernte grammar and vocabulary guide. The mission he founded, formerly Hermannsburg, is now the Antaria community. He corresponded with von Mueller and sent him upwards of 500 plant specimens, many of them doubtless provided by Arrernte collectors. Among them was one of the most familiar small trees of the area.

Witchetty Bush Acacia kempeana, near Alice Springs. The common name stems from the fact that
the large edible wood-boring larvae of several moth species, known collectively as Witchetty Grubs,
are collected from the roots.

And some collectors remain a complete mystery, at least to me. One such is Alex Walker, who collected the spectacular dry country pea named for him by von Mueller from the Peel Range (now known as Cocaparra Range, near the town of Griffith in southern inland New South Wales). Von Mueller himself recorded that, but I can find nothing more about him, and indeed no other reference to him (other than regularly reiterated statements that he "found" it). Again, any assistance gratefully received!

Cactus Pea Bossiaea walkeri, Nullarbor Plain.
The leafless shrub is found across southern arid Australia.

And with that I shall end this lengthy odyssey - which nonetheless deals with only a tiny fraction of the myriad people who supplied von Mueller with plants. I hope it has been of at least passing interest.

BACK ON THURSDAY 22 SEPTEMBER, WHEN I SHALL BE BACK FROM EXTENSIVE PEREGRINATIONS IN CENTRAL AND NORTHERN AUSTRALIA, AND THUS ABLE TO RESUME NORMAL WEEKLY SERVICE!
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A Perusal of Pigeons. Part 2.

A Perusal of Pigeons. Part 3, Australia.

On This Day 8 April 200 years ago: Charles Fraser arrived

Heights and Depths: Peru's Colca Valley

Have a Hakea

Uluru: at the heart of Australia

Colours in Nature: gingery shades 1

Colours in Nature: gingery shades 2 - mammals

Colours in Nature; gingery shades 3 - reptiles and invertebrates

Cobbold Gorge: a Gulf Country secret

Bako; a lovely little Bornean park

Eremophilas; the desert lovers

San Pedro de Atacama; an astonishing part of the world. Part 1, Deep Desert.

San Pedro de Atacama; an astonishing part of the world. Part 2, desert lakes

On This Day 6 July 1781: Stamford Raffles Born

East Point Reserve, Darwin

Colours in Nature; gingery shades 4 - more Australian birds

Colours in Nature; gingery shades 5 - overseas birds

Ferdinand von Mueller; botanical giant

Ferdinand von Mueller's Collectors