Warblers, whoosh, and wonder Down Under

"The greatest body of predators in this forest are heat-seeking reptiles," said our night-tour guide from Cooper Creek Wilderness Walks, Paul O'Dowd. "That means that anything warm-blooded ... glows in the dark like a burger-bar sign." It's easier to defend themselves if they stay active, so most species are nocturnal.

Mr. O'Dowd, who has lived in the tropics for more than a decade, took care to explain how our group of about 10 Americans, Germans, and Australians could illuminate different animals with our flashlights without disturbing them.

Our first stop as we walked through a clearing was to witness green ants bustling about on a large piece of fruit. "Look very carefully at the air just below the ants," O'Dowd said as he puffed his breath in their direction. The ants released a glistening spray, used to deter predators. "That's pure ascorbic acid, everybody ..., vitamin C." At his invitation, one brave tourist stuck out her tongue to taste the next spray.

O'Dowd's descriptions were briefly interrupted whenever we spotted bandicoots scooting across the ground. (The small marsupials resemble hunched rats with long noses.] But soon we arrived in the denser part of the forest, and our attention again turned to insects.

He showed us a "stick insect," whose eggs have a unique setting for development: Because the eggs resemble seeds preferred by a certain kind of ant, the ants carry them into their colony, where the temperature is perfect for a "high-security incubation chamber." Then, O'Dowd explained, "what emerges from that egg eventually is indistinguishable from an adult ant.... The baby stick insect even releases the same identification pheromones as the adult ant."

Later, it climbs up the tree, sheds its skin, and finally starts to look like a stick insect. "Pretty amazing life cycle, isn't it?" he said, with the same enthusiasm he must have exhibited as a child when he spent his free time "turning over rocks."

I was in front on our next stretch of walking, and something whizzed by my head. Puzzled, I asked if there were big moths in the forest. O'Dowd replied casually that the UFO had been a horseshoe bat. Knowing I wasn't in any danger didn't stop me from yelping and jumping to the middle of the line when I had another close encounter with flapping wings.

We had seen a tree frog, but not many other animals, when all of a sudden, O'Dowd was hushing us and backing away from a tree where a bird was perched, asleep. He didn't know that as he spoke, half of us were watching another bird, directly above his head. And then, exactly what he was trying to avoid with the first bird happened to the second: It woke up, and began flying blindly. He pointed his light up into the trees to help the bird see, and a moment later was relieved to see it land safely. "That is what I call prime bird real estate.... They select perches that come equipped with alarm systems ... a little tiny stick that pokes out into the middle of nowhere. If anything tried to move along that perch, it would shake it and wake the bird."

One of the world's oldest forests, the Daintree has been around for about 120 million years. And it is so rich in species that longtime residents like O'Dowd continue to make new discoveries. On this particular night, a tourist pointed out a luminescent creature, and O'Dowd reacted with awe.

"This is the biggest glowworm that I've ever seen, ever," he said, holding it gently. He asked us all to turn off our lights.

My hand was invisible half an inch from my face. But as our eyes adjusted, we could see the soft glow of the baby firefly (that's what a glowworm is, he explained). And all around us, we could see fungi dotting the ground like tiny, pale-green embers.

It was the looking-down version of the brilliant star view I had had the night before, standing in a field as far away from light pollution as I have ever been.

• For more information, seewww.home .aone.net.au/heritagelodge, or call the lodge at 011-61 7 40 989138.

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