The Great Cocky Count 2011

On the evening of Thursday, 7 April, hundreds of volunteers will head to various sites across the South West from Geraldton to Esperance and inland to the Wheatbelt.  Their mission?  To record sightings of Carnaby's Black-Cockatoo, in the Great Cocky Count 2011.

This magnificent bird, once numbering in the tens of thousands, has suffered from the effects of land clearing, shooting and nest robbing; in the last 50 years there has been a 50% decline in the population.  Their range has been reduced by up to one third.  Carnaby's Black-Cockatoo is now an Endangered species. 

Scientists are collecting data to try to work out more precisely how many birds are around, where they roost and where they feed.  This is a vital step to help protect the species from further decline.  This is where the volunteers come in!  Many volunteers, each collecting a little bit of data, make this project much easier to accomplish.  The volunteers in the Great Cocky Count will each go to a designated roost site 30 minutes before dusk and then tally the birds that come to the site until 30 minutes after dusk.  Simple! 

Would you like to help?  Check out the Birds Australia link to see how you can get involved.

If you're local to Ellenbrook or nearby, and you'd like to come out with me to count cockatoos, please contact me on my mobile: 0421 735 731.   Or email me - ldalgliesh at hotmail dot com.

 

au clair de lune

ON Saturday 19th March, Perth was graced with one of the largest full moons to arise for quite a few years.  This event is called a supermoon, and is a natural phenomenon caused by the elliptical orbit of the moon around the earth.

Just on sunset, I had an urge to go for a walk and see this phenomenon from a good vantage point in nearby bushland.  It was an opportunity to test a few hypotheses about walking around in the bush at night, in particular, orientation and vision.   On this occasion, I wasn't interested in trying to see owls, possums, echidnas, spiders or other nocturnal animals.  Full moon is not usually a good time to go looking for animals.  Most sensible nocturnal animals don't make an appearance - it's probably too easy for predators to locate prey.

I took a waterbottle, a first aid kit, a headtorch, and a spare torch, just in case.  No need for a hat or even a camera, and that felt strange at first because I usually take them with me everywhere.  As I left suburbia and walked along a wide sandy track towards my favourite banksia woodland, the huge disc of moon, hanging above the hills to the east, lit up the landscape like a floodlight.  

I had my headtorch turned off at this stage.  After a few minutes of listening and watching, I walked off the track and into the woodland, deliberately choosing an area that was familiar.  

By daylight, this is the sort of thing one would see in such an area.  (This photo is NOT from my walk, but an example from nearby bushland, with two friends in it for scale.)

an easy walk in daylight

At first, it was so difficult to focus on the shrubs and trees around me, I felt like I was walking through grey cotton-wool.  By moonlight, I lose my sense of colour.  All was shades of grey, except for the sky which was a beautiful rich grey-blue dotted with a few bright stars.  Light grey patches of sand glimmered and became my stepping stones.  

Once in a while, I turned the headtorch on, to check if I was about to trip over a log or walk into a spider web, which in retrospect is ridiculous because these things don't bother me during the day (being relatively rare...)  I found that turning the headtorch on was detrimental to my sight for the following few minutes, so I stopped using it.

Here's what it's like being out in the bush on a moonlit night - same photo as above, doctored with imaging software.

walking in the moonlight looks like this to me - click on the photo to enlarge it

The most surprising thing was how easy it was to navigate.  When I'm out in the bush (in daylight), I use the sun for orientation - morning is east, afternoon is west, and make allowances for the slight difference in angle at noon from one season to the next.  I discovered that I can do the same with the moon.  

As well as having the lunar guide, there are stars.  On the night I was out, the Southern Cross was approximately to the south, and the constellation of Orion was approximately to the north.   To top it off, I could still hear the noise of suburbia in the distance.  How could one get lost with all those signposts on a clear night?

Walking in bushland on a moonlit night would be a great experience to share with people.

15 March - Meet and greet

On Tuesday 15 March, we're having an informal meet and greet, to share our vision and information about local bushland.   This is an opportunity to get together and talk about what we'd like to do and how we're going to do it.

where: Ellenbrook Place Office, Main Street (above the Library)

when: 7pm 

This event is open to all residents of Ellenbrook, The Vines, Henley Brook and Aveley.

Families with children are welcome. 

Please RSVP for catering purposes to Erin Money (City of Swan) on 9297 9608.  

For more information, phone Linda on 0421 735 731 or email ldalgliesh at hotmail dot com.

Connect on Facebook - ellenbrookbushlandgroup@groups.facebook.com

hope to see you there!

 

Thankyou, wonderful Clean Up Australia Day volunteers!

I would like to thank everyone who took part in our local Clean Up Australia Day events.  It was good to meet and work with you.  

It's great that people are willing to give a couple of hours to clean up local bushland and parks for the benefit of their community.  

Here's what we collected at Moulton Wetland Park on Sunday morning, 6th March 2011.  This big pile of rubbish took eight people about an hour and a half to collect.  The bushland is now looking clean and green, so much better for having many kilograms of drink cans, bottles, food containers, broken toys and clothing taken out.  What a fantastic effort!

The fruits of our labours waiting to go to the dump

But I wonder - where does all this rubbish come from, and why does it end up in our beautiful park?  And how can we prevent this social illness, instead of just treating the symptoms?  

I would love to see a day when Clean Up Australia is no longer necessary.