Excursion Report: Roly Chapman Bushland Reserve – Day Excursion, Sat 21st June, 2025

Leader and report: Barry Jahnke

Roly Chapman was a member of the Queensland Naturalists’ Club and this Bushland Reserve was named after him by the Brisbane City Council. From 1959 to 1987, Roly was a teacher at the nearby Upper Mount Gravatt State School and he used this bush as part of his outdoor teaching space. Before we set off to see what this Reserve preserves, we hadan interesting talk from Roly’s son, Chris, about his experiences of living nearby in his boyhood days. Chris is also a retired teacher who used such sites to educate his secondary students.

The uncleared parts of the Reserve are dominated by Eucalypt forest and the small Mimosa Creek, a tributary of Bulimba Creek, flows through the forest. Thirteen members and two visitors spent several hours along the tracks and into the adjacent vegetation. It was not long after setting out that Koala scats were found and during the excursion six individuals were found and photographed. In the trees there was also a small colony of Black and Grey-headed Flying-foxes and a Black Wallaby was sighted near the creek.

Twenty-one species of birds were recorded. There was a range of species but none smaller than the Scaly-breasted Lorikeet. Some on the list included Straw-necked Ibis, Australian Wood Duck, Eastern Whipbird and Spangled Drongo.

The chewed leaves of the Soap Tree (Alphitonia excelsa) were very conspicuous and a closer examination found larvae of the sawfly Philomastix xanthophylax.  Leaves of some other plants supported lerps and the Casuarinas bore both male and female retreats of the Casuarina Gall Cylindrococcus spiniferus.

A nest of a species of Domed Spiny Ant (Polyrachis sp.) was seen and high in a gumtree we spotted an abandoned nest of the Papernest Wasp, Ropalidia romandi.

The shrub Bootlace Bark (Wickstroemia indica) and the tree, Turpentine (Syncarpia glomulifera subsp. glomulifera) were in fruit; however, it was the bright red 3cm diameter fruit of a shrub near the Reserve’s southern boundary which caught our attention. The shrubs were obviously planted as they were Phaleria clerodendron which does not occur naturally this far south in Queensland. However, our attention was then drawn over the boundary fence to a very pleasant neighbouring garden of Australian and foreign rainforest and similar plants. The collection included Fan Palms (Licuala ramsayi).

The iNaturalist observations from the day can be found here: iNaturalist Roly Chapman Reserve