New video about our local woodlands

Please have a look at this wonderful video, published by PadburyMedia on Youtube.  It is an overview of why Perth's banksia woodlands are so important, and why they should be protected from the relentless clearing for urban development that has occurred over the last decade.  

Many of the plants and animals in the video are ones that we commonly see on our bushwalks around Ellenbrook.  See how many you recognise...

Did you get them all?  Here is a short list of some of those flora and fauna.
Click on the links for more information about each one.

Menzies Banksia (Banksia menziesii)
Candlestick Banksia (Banksia attenuata)
Holly-leafed Banksia (Banksia ilicifolia)
Carnaby's Black-Cockatoo (Calyptorhynchus latirostris)
Red-tailed Black-Cockatoo (Calyptorhynchus banksii)
Red and Green Kangaroo Paw (Anigozanthos manglesii)
Bobtail (Tiliqua rugosa)
Western Bearded Dragon (Pogona minor)
Tawny Frogmouth (Podargus strigoides)
Western Spinebill (Acanthorhynchus superciliosus)

A day of flowers and trees

Last week, my friend M. and I decided to go exploring in some banksia woodland to the north of Charlotte's Vineyard in Ellenbrook.  This is an area I have visited many times, but there's always something new and interesting to see.  The weather couldn't have been better for a winter walk - clear blue skies, warm sunshine; no sign of the rain typical for this time of the year.

Our first find was an adult Bobtail (Tiliqua rugosa) out sunning itself.  It's not uncommon to spot baby bobtails making the best of the sometimes-patchy winter sunshine, but adults are not usually out and about in winter because they take longer to warm up.  A cold slow adult is a dead adult if there are predators around.  This adult scooted away as quickly as it could, while still appearing nonchalant.  We had time to take a few photos before bobbie was under cover.

Bobtail (Tiliqua rugosa) in the sun

Once we were in the banksia woodland proper, we found that the Acacias (wattle) were flowering.  Acacias in this part of the world are either small woody trees, or delicate open shrubby affairs, and in this case it was the latter.  Masses of small yellow pom-pom flowers of Acacia pulchella and Acacia sessilis dotted the grey-green landscape. 

Acacia pulchella (commonly called Prickly Moses) in flower

A close-up of Acacia pulchella pom-poms

The Acacias weren't the only flowers around.  As we picked our way through the trees, down the hill towards the wetlands, we saw small soft-leaved Hibbertias growing in shrubby clumps, their yellow flowers almost the same shade and intensity as the Acacia blooms.  We found Hibbertia subvaginata and Hibbertia hypericoides in flower.  It seems that yellow is the colour of August!

Hibbertia subvaginata growing in a small clump (one plant)

Close-up of Hibbertia subvaginata flowers and leaves

Onward to the wetlands!  It was dry enough underfoot to wonder why on earth these are called wetlands, a question M. put to me during our meandering.  Shouldn't there be ponds, lakes or a creek somewhere? 
 
The area retains its typical wetland vegetation of Stout Paperbark (Melaleuca preissiana) and Swamp Sheoak (Casuarina obesa) trees, with various sedges and other water-appreciating understorey plants, despite not having had a decent winter's rain in thirty years.  It will be interesting to see what it looks like in fifty years' time.  The substrate is quick-draining sand, so even after a night of heavy downpours, we would have to get up early to see any water lying on the surface.

Wetland edge with Stout Paperbarks and Swamp Sheoaks, sedges and Hibbertias

One particularly spectacular individual of Stout Paperbark was featured in an earlier blog - see The Grandmother Tree.

About a kilometre further into the bushland, we found an area where some of the paperbarks had died.  These are the big twisty trees in the centre and right of the photo below; they were Stout Paperbarks (Melaleuca preissiana).  The whole patch seemed to be suffering, perhaps from the lack of rain.  However, I was heartened to see that Holly-leaved Banksia (Banksia ilicifolia) were growing there, so this may be just a case of natural succession.

Dead Stout Paperbarks (Melaleuca preissiana) with new growth of Holly-leaved Banksia (Banksia ilicifolia)

My friend M. found a Swamp Banksia (Banksia littoralis) in flower, and took some photos of the flower cones.  Guess what colour they are?  She remarked that these and many other plants in the area are food for Carnaby's Cockatoo.  (Later, we even heard and saw some cockatoos flying around in the distance; so they do use the area.)  We admired the beautiful foliage of this tree and its neighbours, glimmering silver and dark green as the breeze ruffled the leaves. 

Swamp Banksia (Banksia littoralis) attracts birds and photographers!

The effect of silver and green ruffling is best photographed with the sun behind you.  Perhaps a photo doesn't really do it justice - video would be better!

Swamp Banksia (Banksia littoralis) in the breeze

Eventually we decided it was time to go home.  It took us an hour or so to walk to back to the car.  Of course, there were still things to look at on the way; carnivorous plants (known as sundews) which supplement the meagre soil nutrients by eating insects, weird bulbous fungi with cracked skins, and ancient cycads (Macrozamia fraseri) with their lush green fronds.

An unknown (to me) species of sundew (Drosera sp.) growing in sand

Fungi fruit, about the size of a golf ball (any mycologists out there want to identify this?)

Macrozamia fraseri, a cycad native to Perth

On arriving home, we found we had taken about a hundred photos, walked about 6km in a couple of hours, and discovered only three kangaroo ticks on our persons at the end of the trip.  The walk had also given us a good appetite for a very late lunch. A worthwhile day indeed!

Planting Day

Hi everyone!  We will be having another planting day soon.  With all the wet cool weather we've had lately, it's a perfect time to be putting another batch of local native plants into the ground.

Tentative Date: 30 July 2012 (Monday)
Location: Moulton Wetland Park, off Brookmount Drive, Charlotte's Vineyard, Ellenbrook
Time: probably from 9:30am onwards (to be confirmed)

We will be planting baby wetland trees and shrubs next to the lake.  Participants need to bring a trowel.  

Details will be confirmed as we get closer to the date.

turtle frogs waiting for the winter rains

I recently found this wonderful video about Turtle Frogs (Myobatrachus gouldii).  These frogs are one of our beautiful iconic species, relatively common on the Swan Coastal Plain in good quality banksia woodland around Perth.  They're not something most people would see though, because these unusual amphibians spend a lot of their lives in sand burrows.  Unusual, because they are brown, they eat termites, and they hatch from eggs as tiny frogs rather than tadpoles.

The video outlines research conducted by Nicola Mitchell with The University of Western Australia, and is titled "The Sex Life of the Turtle Frog". 



It's amazing to think that there are frogs sitting patiently in their little burrows, and have been waiting since late spring for the winter rains... Who would have thought that there would be so much going on under our bushwalking feet?

Carnaby's Cockatoo stars in documentary

Next week, the ABC is screening a new documentary about Carnaby's Cockatoo. Here are the details (courtesy of the ABC, and the many people who forwarded emails about it to me!)

The Wild Ones: On a Wing and a Prayer

"On a Wing and a Prayer follows the incredible life cycle of the Carnaby's Cockatoo through the engaging story of one small cockatoo family. Capturing a remarkable, never before filmed journey of life and hope for one of Australia's most loved but critically endangered birds. This film has been made by Perth-based company Seadog International. 

"Only found in the south-west of Western Australia a tiny pocket of birds remains and these are permanently under threat. Some are still being smuggled for private collections. Others are illegally shot. Together with land clearing, loss of native food habitat and injury from man-made structures, the Carnaby's cockatoo is plummeting towards extinction.

"Species recovery is an uphill struggle. While it is thought they pair for life, the birds are lucky if they raise one chick a season. The odds are against them and hope for their future lies in the hands of the local community, and one man in particular, DEC Senior Wildlife Investigator Rich Dawson.

"This year Rick is determined to protect one small family of Carnaby's cockatoos at a 'high risk' nesting site. With their species numbers halved over the last forty years, it is vital for the survival of their kind that they breed and Rick will do whatever it takes to make it happen."

For more information, please check out the ABC website - The Wild Ones: On a Wing and A Prayer.

This documentary will be telecast on Tuesday 13 March on ABC-TV1 at 8.30pm. 

If you miss the telecast, you can still watch the documentary as it will be available for about two weeks on ABC iview - http://www.abc.net.au/tv/iview


 

Clean Up Australia Day 2012

Congratulations to the wonderful volunteers across Australia who participated in the annual Clean Up Australia Day, and collected an absolute mountain of litter - over 16,000 tonnes from more than 7000 sites!  


I am sad to say that, as much as our neighbourhood needs to again have the litter hauled out of our local parks and green spaces, the Ellenbrook Bushland Group did not participate in Clean Up Australia Day on March 4th.  After our clean up efforts over the last three years, I have decided that March is too dangerously hot during the day to be picking up rubbish.  I am wary of the risk of heatstroke or hyperthermia, particularly in the retirees and very young who make up the majority of our volunteers.  And I couldn't face asking volunteers to start earlier, to avoid the heat, on their precious Sunday morning, in the middle of a long weekend.  So I didn't....

For those of you not familiar with Perth, here is a snapshot from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (www.bom.gov.au) showing the weather forecasts for major cities for tomorrow (Tuesday 6th March).   Is this typical for this time of the year?  It is for Perth. 

from the Bureau of Meteorology - compare those temperatures!

We will probably organise some local clean up activities later in the year, when the weather is cooler. September and October is a much more pleasant time to be working outdoors, particularly in areas where rubbish seems to collect; along retaining walls and fences, and in shrubs along pathways and roadsides, where shade is scarce or non-existent.  

Have a look at previous diary entries to see what we've done in the past during those months, such as the Big Spring Clean Up and our Wildflower Photography Safari.  Stay cool!

exciting new projects

Yesterday I met with Denise, and her assistant Zoe, from The Greening Project, to talk about planting trees and shrubs in Ellenbrook.  The Greening Project aims to connect local community volunteers with schools to grow tree seedlings and plant them at selected landcare sites.  (View The Greening Project website here.)

We went for a drive around the suburb looking at some local parks and bushland areas. We saw a lot of beautiful native trees, Carnaby's Cockatoo habitat, and public open space used by local residents for exercise and recreation.  Many of the bushland places are intact and healthy.  But there are some patches that definitely need some baby plants to fill in gaps in the understorey.   

Moulton Wetland Park needs some understorey shrubs

Imagine groups of schoolchildren learning about their local environment and getting their hands dirty with some wholesome outdoor activities, under the guidance of their teachers and trained field officers.  Seniors and anyone else in our neighbourhood could get involved in growing seedlings for appropriate landcare sites in our area.  These activities could have ongoing positive effects in our young people; instilling of a sense of stewardship, an understanding of natural processes, creating an interest in our local flora and fauna, meeting kind and responsible people and being put in contact with good role models.   

I am really looking forward to being involved in this kind of project!  I will post more details as they come to hand.

the bane of bushwalkers

It's a couple of months since I've been for a walk in our local bushland.  Yet, I don't feel compelled to visit my favourite places for a few more weeks.  It's not the heat - that can be largely avoided by walking early in the morning or just on dusk.  

The problem is that I'm a "tick magnet".  Walking, for me, is an off-the-beaten-track exercise, and this puts me into contact at this time of the year with, literally, thousands of tiny invertebrates that want to suck my blood.  Little vampires, in effect.  At the end of each bushwalk, I need to decontaminate my clothes and body of these freeloaders, before I end up with scores of unbearably itchy and weeping sores.

Read on if you dare!

Most people will be familiar with ticks, but there are so many myths and inconsistencies in what people think about them.  

For a start, lets look at "pepperticks".  Pepperticks appear in the hot months of the year, around the south west, and get their name from their appearance; a sprinkling of pepper.  They usually travel in swarming herds, or whatever a large number of ticks is called.  They are difficult to spot on clothing, and unlikely to be felt travelling across one's naked skin, due to their miniscule size.  They have six legs; when they have eaten a "blood meal", they can grow, and moult their skin to grow some more.

pepperticks - on cotton drill

These ticks are actually baby versions of the well-known "kangaroo tick" (Amblyomma triguttatum) of Western Australia.  The adult tick has eight legs, and looks superficially like a spider.  These ticks normally dine on the blood of kangaroos, hence the name.  Unfortunately, some bushwalkers smell sufficiently like kangaroos to confuse the poor hungry little things!  (Ok, I'm just being sarcastic now.)  But it does seem that, like mosquitoes, ticks will target some unlucky human individuals while ignoring others.  It's also possible that ticks avoid people who use insect repellent.

kangaroo tick, coming to get you

Kangaroo ticks seem to reach their adult size around the end of the year, just in time to lay eggs and start hatching out pepperticks for summer and autumn.  The adults are reddish-brown with yellow joints, and some have yellow marks on the back.  In winter, ticks are sluggish and not as prevalent, which is another reason for bushwalkers like me to enjoy being out in the cold.

Ticks, mites and spiders are in a class of animals called Arachnids, but whereas spiders are in a group called Araneae, ticks and mites belong to the group called Acarina.   

Each species of tick has a specific host, such as kangaroos, or in some countries, deer or cattle.  There are even species that live solely on birds, or on reptiles such as bobtails. (By the way, bobtail ticks aren't interested in people.)

Ticks have very sharp mouthparts, perfect for drilling through skin into blood capillaries lying just under the surface.  They inject a fluid to prevent coagulation.  Some species of tick carry diseases which can infect people, pets and farm animals.  For example, in the USA, "lyme disease" is spread by a tick that has a deer as host, but can bite humans.  Along the east coast of Australia, there is a species known as the "paralysis tick" (Ixodes holocyclus), which can cause paralysis and death in small mammals such as dogs and children.  Fortunately, we don't have that tick or its disease in Western Australia. 


Ticks do not "jump" down from overhanging branches.  At best, they can climb up to your head and drop down from there, which may give that impression.  Ticks do clamber around on the ground, and they do climb up low vegetation.  I recently found some dead branches sticking up about 10cm above ground level, swarming with pepperticks.  Then I noticed that about two hundred of the ticks had climbed onto the lower legs of my trousers, when I'd brushed against the branches.

time to grab a scrubbing brush or a handful of dirt

There are many ways of removing ticks once they have started feeding, but I haven't found any method to be 100% effective in all cases.  Some of the more "scientific" approaches include twisting the tick out, using tweezers.  I have tried this and it sometimes works.  

Small ticks can be picked off with fingernails.  Big ticks are problematic, especially if they have been feeding for a few hours before being discovered, and have their head burrowed into your body.   Things I would definitely not recommend are burning the tick out with a lighted match or cigarette lighter, or using toxic solvents such as kerosene - these could cause you serious injury.  (Where do people get such crazy remedies?) 

Perhaps it would be better to treat the tick as you would a splinter, and use a sharp needle to dig the mouthparts out, then clean the small wound with salty water or some antiseptic wash.  I have had to resort to this method on occasion. 

There are also lots of home remedies for tick bite, but I have tried most of them and found them lacking in desired outcomes.  I have noticed that having a hot shower aggravates the sores, and when I have a fresh bite, all the previous unhealed sores will start itching - an interesting physiological effect, but quite unpleasant.  I have tried putting on dabs of various creams on fresh bites, and slapping a sticky bandage on them to stop me scratching them, but most of my scratching is done when I'm asleep...so that doesn't work as well as it should.

Worried about ticks on your pets?  Read this brochure from the Dept of Agriculture and Food. 
And please leave your dog at home when you go bushwalking.

Anyway, another month or so and the horror (!) of peppertick season will be gone, and I can look forward to heading out bush again.


P.S. I am not responsible for any injury or damage caused by following any procedure outlined in this blog.  Your safety and health are your responsibility.