Within Palmetum Park, a pair of peaceful doves pecked at the ground near the bench on which I sat making notes. I had come seeking birds and butterflies, and the doves were most obliging. Eyeing me warily, they minced across the ground with quick, neat steps, one of them muttering nearly inaudible clucks. Beyond them, grass yellows and chocolate arguses fluttered over the lawn, the butterflies’ wings splashing yellow and rust onto the backdrop of vivid green. Tall trees stood behind me, and before me, the 20-foot fronds of American oil palms arced out from stubby, thick trunks rough with dried flower clumps and the jutting leaf bases of fallen fronds.

The air lay still and faintly cool beneath the palms and other trees, a calm void rent by  the rough barks and growls of blue-winged kookaburras and the cheerful, sassy calls of rainbow lorikeets. For an hour and three-quarters, I strolled within that still, faintly cool sanctuary of lush beauty, captivated by plant shapes and colours, by butterflies fluttering erratically, and by the calls of birds I couldn’t see in dense foliage. This post is an homage to Palmetum Park, a collection of photographs taken through one brief window in time in Townsville, Australia.