trapping, and ways of luring a fox closer should you happen to come across one. 
Day, time and place yet to be decided.. 
Margate-Kaoota Tramway—8th August 2010 
Simon Grove 
his occasion attracted twenty-three adults 
and five children—a sizeable gathering of 
club members. Maybe it was the weather- 
calm, cool and sunny, or the handy location, 
or both—whatever the reason, it proved to be 
a delightful afternoon's walk. The route 
consisted of 5 34 kilometres of gentle uphill 
trackway from the Lawless Road, Margate 
start to the Kaoota finish, where a minibus 
awaited drivers to ferry them back to their 
cars at the starting-point again. Some hardy 
souls walked both ways. 
The walk commenced in damp silver 
peppermint ( Eucalyptus tenuiromis) forest 
growing on nutrient-poor mudstone; yellow 
dogwood ( Pomaderris lutea) and cutting- 
grass ( Gohnio grandis) were common 
constituents of the shrub and herb layers 
respectively (though the term 'herb' 
somehow doesn't seem right for cutting- 
grass). The forest here and elsewhere along 
the trackway showed signs of having been 
heavily logged in the past, prior to the 1967 
bushfire, which re-set the vegetation 
succession. This meant that there were few 
large trees, but quite a few 'legacy' logs. 
Further along the track, the peppermints 
became intermingled with brown stringybarks 
(E. obliquo), and as the bedrock changed to 
more fertile dolerite, the stringybarks became 
dominant, albeit with a scattering of blue 
gums (E. globulus ); yellow dogwood was 
replaced by its close relative, 'native pear' 
[Pomaderris apetala). Climbing a little higher 
brought us into wetter forest, including some 
ferny gullies where it was the stringybarks' 
turn to give way to mountain ash (E. 
regmans), with a shrub-layer including musk 
(Olearia argophylla) The final stretch of the 
walk was through cleared paddocks as we 
approached the road at Kaoota. 
For many 
Naturalists, this 
was a day for 
walking, chatting 
and enjoying the 
fresh air to the 
constant 
accompaniment of 
birdsong, rather 
than engaging in 
an exhaustive 
exploration of the 
route's natural history. Few birds were seen, 
but their calls indicated a typical complement 
of wet-forest species, including grey fantail, 
golden whistler and many honeyeaters—the 
yellowthroats being particularly noticeable by 
their calls, as is usual at this time of year. 
Broken shells of the large snail Caryodes 
dufresnii on the trackway hinted at the 
presence of the shy Bassian thrush (one was 
subsequently spotted), while scats on the 
trackway suggested the presence of devils 
and/or quolls, as well as the usual 
pademelons and Bennetts wallabies—one 
wallaby was later seen crossing the track. 
A few stalwarts, such as Kevin, Abbey and 
Lynne, were barely seen by the rest of us as 
they ventured off-track to rummage for bugs 
amongst logs, litter and rock. By the end of 
the walk, Kevin had found seven native 
species of snails and slugs plus two ferals, 
while Lynne was happy with her tally of log¬ 
dwelling beetles, which will feed into her 
doctoral research. 
Many members spent a pleasurable half hour 
dissecting a trackside log that proved to be 
packed with mudguts, a clay-like product of 
the wood's decomposition. This was 
inhabited by quite a few weird and wonderful 
mini-beasts, such as spiky grey uchidarian 
springtails, darkling beetles and two species 
Tasmanian Field Naturalists Club BULLETIN 341 January 2011 p2 
