A popular tourist attraction in Cairns is the Cairns Botanic Gardens (CBG) Precinct, and every Tuesday morning through the year, a birdwatching walk is led by volunteer local bird experts from Cairns Birders. More than 50 visitors have been recorded for some of the tours, and the average on any given day is 14. Many visitors are from overseas and represent almost every continent.

In Part 5, the final in this series, I discuss entomopaths – specialised fungi that are parasitic on insects and other invertebrate food sources that insectivores, including many bird species, depend upon. Entomopathic fungi are becoming more prevalent in the environment because of climate change, and causing greater loss of insectivores’ food sources.

Barry Muir | Guest Contributor In Part 1 of this series (Muir 2024a), I dealt with climate change myths. In Part 2 (Muir 2024b) I...