Struggle for survival (NQ Rainforest, Australia)

[Greg Beetham]

Just a couple of scanned negitaves from back in the days when my friend had the jungle property.
Everything seems to compete and live off and on everything else in the rainforest, it's also a quest for sunlight, if there is a break in the canopy due to a storm all sorts of parasitic vines and creepers spring to life and can smother a tree.
Greg
X700 MD35-70 f3.5 Metz 45 CL-3

V500img017.jpg (86.92 KiB) Viewed 3082 times

V500img024.jpg (93.77 KiB) Viewed 3082 times

V500img025.jpg (76.64 KiB) Viewed 3082 times

[aster]

Hi Greg,

It's a close call for the plants and creatures there in the jungle. There indeed is a competetion for survival and to grasp a segment of the light rays that the tall ones enjoy overhead. It's pretty to sad to hear that most flat land jungle zones have been converted to fields for agriculture to feed the human beings.

I like the close look to how the plants are fighting their way up. Good observation..

Is the jungle property or land piece still a jungle or one of those areas used up for agriculture right now?

Thanks for sharing,

Yildiz

[david antony]

Interesting series of photos Greg. We get a few vines here creeping up trees in their quest to take over. Thanks for sharing.

[Greg Beetham]

Hi Yildiz and DA and thanks, (this will be my third attempt to finish my original post, the link keeps dropping out), yes the land is still the same, Murray sold it to the Environment protection agency after the devastation of cyclone Larry so it's reverted from freehold private back to state forest. The agency wanted to preserve it as it's part of a spur from the hinterland rainforest out to the coastal range, it provides a corridor for Cassowaries to go too and fro without getting run over by cars.
Greg

The birdwatching hut and clearing, prior to many renovations.

V500img021.jpg (100.5 KiB) Viewed 3060 times

Some trees flower and seed on the trunk and limbs.

V500img018.jpg (86.66 KiB) Viewed 3060 times

[Greg Beetham]

A couple more of rainforesty stuff. I know Yildiz at least wanted to see a bit of the rainforest, I haven't had a chance to go there so far, lately, so I'm reduced to scanning some old negitaves for the time being.
Greg
X700 MD35-70
These were the mushrooms that glowed in the dark (I think)

V500img027.jpg (67.73 KiB) Viewed 3035 times

Fan Palm

V500img029.jpg (94.23 KiB) Viewed 3035 times

Typical tangle

V500img049.jpg (105.76 KiB) Viewed 3035 times

[David Kilpatrick]

Right now, more forest and less rain needed?

David

[Greg Beetham]

Yes David, down south where all the civilization is I reckon that would be the case. The monsoon is usual this time of year, it hangs accross the top end normally, North WA, Arnem land Northern Territory, Cape York Qld. and sometimes drifts south and we get a good old deluge in our area, the highways get closed for a while, Ingham gets another flood, situation normal, we're used to it pretty much, even the odd cyclone that comes in an gives some place a good scruff up isn't anything unusual, except if it hits where you are of course, our last really bad one was in 71 in Townsville I think it was, so we are probably overdue.
What was unusual was the monsoon trough kept drifting south for another couple of thousand kms and dumped on poor old Brisbane, northern NSW, even got north Victoria really good. Those areas aren't expecting a tropical monsoon to drop in and bucket down on top of the rain they'd already had before.
Greg

[Juanito200]

A neat series of photos Greg- I've never seen red mushrooms before. They scream 'highly poisonous' to me, but I could be wrong...I'd love to see them glowing in the dark, but I don't know how safe it would be to be out there at night....John

[Greg Beetham]

Thanks John, like you I certainly wouldn't entertain the idea of eating those red mushrooms, I didn't notice that they were in any danger of being eaten by anything that lived there either, actually the place is fungi heaven if you are interested in fungi, I should have made more time to go out in search of fungi and photograph a lot more of it, but walks with the binoculars bird spotting was my main interest at the time.
Greg
ps. I think the rainforest here is pretty safe, the only large animal capable of eating one is the amethystine python and they don't attack man, that I've ever heard of anyway. It's said that cassowaries are dangerous if you stumble into ones area and they have young. We had them coming up to the hut just about every day when we were there, often with young as well and never had any problems with them...sort of pretty much like a very large chook basically.
Greg

X700 MD70-210 f4 (not a very good shot they were moving too much in dim light for ISO200, but it does show what I'm talking about)

V500img034.jpg (49.97 KiB) Viewed 3009 times

And a bit more fungi

V500img030.jpg (58.15 KiB) Viewed 3009 times

[david antony]

Gets more interesting all the time Greg, very fascinating place indeed. Those red mushrooms look like they might be even poisonous to the touch.? Thanks for sharing.

[Greg Beetham]

Thanks DA, yes absolutely there was always something to see on a walk. This mound of mulchy stuff piled up around the base of a dead tree is a birds nest actually, the orange footed scrub fowl (and the scrub turkey) scratches the leaf litter up into a big mound and then lay their eggs in it for incubation.
Greg
X700 MD35-70 (hard to get a clear shot of anything in the rainforest)

V500img043.jpg (88.55 KiB) Viewed 2990 times

[Birma]

As everyone has said already, a fascinating series of pictures Greg - thanks for sharing. Great to have this view in to an environment that for me only appears on TV nature programmes . You can really see the dinosaur ancestry in that 'big chook'!

[aster]

Thank you for scanning your negatives, Greg. Much appreciated! : )

No matter how, the vegitation and the fauna are fighting against all human interference for sure.

These shots are very good for telling what goes on and how it goes on in an Australian rainforest. The glowing red mushrooms probably have some sort of chemical interchange that produces something like eletricity, much like the creatures that glow in the darkest depths of the oceans where no light can penetrate.

I love the blue 'turkey-like' bird with its offspring; what a gorgeous blending of phosphorus blues!

Interesting all the way as David Antony said early on.

Thanks very much for sharing,

Yildiz

[Greg Beetham]

Thanks very much Birma and Yildiz, much appreciated, sorry about the shoddy speckled images, the negitaves have never been out of the pockets before and I discovered that many had some sort of fine dust sprinkled all over courtesy of the photo place back when I got the film done, not much I can do about it except maybe rinse them under a tap and hang them up to dry...maybe. The dust is stuck on and won't brush off.
Sorry about the colour of the Cassowary, it's too blue and I couldn't quite get it right, reciprocity maybe? here's one that's more accurate.
Greg

ps. The Cassowary is critically important to the rainforest, it's the main distributor of the seeds of most everything, it's a symbiotic relationship, many of the tree seed pods won't even germinate until the pass through a Cassowary. And a Cassowary is about the only thing that can even eat many of them because of the toxic levels.
Ha ha Birma, dinosaur is right, I saw a row of very large three toed footprints in the wet clay near the hut early one morning and I called out to those still inside....Hey! it looks like a Theropod walked past the hut this morning

X700 MD35-70

V500img056.jpg (69.84 KiB) Viewed 2975 times

[Juanito200]

Wow Greg- that Cassowary looks like a Turkey and an Emu had a love child.... Fascinating about the seeds having to pass through the bird before being able to grow.. Neat stuff. Thanks