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)

Carnaby's Black-Cockatoo : Endangered Species

Every day this week, I've enjoyed my early morning cuppa to the sounds of Carnaby's Black-Cockatoo.  One morning I saw a flock of about 200 big black birds floating across the sky, with the young fledglings calling to their parents - a magnificent sight.  This morning I saw groups of twos and threes for about an hour.  Two hundred might sound like a large flock ...but records of forty years ago say there were flocks of thousands, or tens of thousands, of birds. I would just love to see that.

Moulton Wetland in Ellenbrook is apparently one of their stopovers for snacks and a snooze.  The cockatoos sit up high in the Banksias and marri (Corymbia calophylla), feasting on the flowers and seeds.  They are so quiet that you wouldn't know they were there.  Sometimes a whole flock can disappear into the tree tops, reappearing after a couple of hours of feeding and resting.  Considering that these birds fly a long distance from coastal areas to the Wheatbelt and back every year, they really need these places to rest and refuel on the way.   

This photo shows what's left of the "honkey nuts" (gumnuts from Corymbia trees) after the cockatoos have removed the seeds!

Carnaby's Black-Cockatoo is an Endangered Species.   The main threat to the birds is from habitat loss, i.e. clearing of native vegetation.  We really need to look after the bushland that remains, because without it, we lose not only the plants but the animals that depend on them.

I would like to see more plantings of banksias (especially Banksia attenuata, Banksia menziesii, Banksia ilicifolia, Banksia littoralis and Banksia grandis), marri (Corymbia calophylla) and jarrah (Eucalyptus marginata) for these birds.  Other animals would benefit too.  So many hectares of healthy cockatoo food trees have been knocked down to make way for our houses and roads.  Surely it would be simple to replant even a few trees in parks and along streets?  How about a few trees in a corner of a schoolyard for environmental studies?  Or even an ornamental specimen in the front garden?

For more information about Carnaby's Black-Cockatoo, try these links:

an easy-to-read brochure about the Carnaby's Black-Cockatoo Recovery Project - here

a list of plants that the birds use for food - here

some scientific information including habitat, life cycle, threats, with maps - here

the rather confused Banksia

Such fantastic weather this weekend inspired me to go for a long-ish bushwalk. I went out with friends to look for one of Ellenbrook's best kept secrets, maybe not a secret for much longer....

The HYBRID Banksia!!! Check this out!

Why is this a hybrid? Well, it has the thin serrated-edged leaves, and yellow flower colour, of the Candlestick Banksia (Banksia attenuata). But see how the flowers are opening from the bottom of the inflorescence? The shape of the inflorescence is from the Firewood Banksia (Banksia menziesii). (Banksia attenuata has tall skinny inflorescences, like candlesticks.)

For comparison, here are photos of the two potential parents. On the left, Banksia menziesii (pink "acorn-shaped" flower, wide crimped-edge leaves), and Banksia attenuata (yellow cylindrical flower, skinny sawtooth-edged leaves), below.



Perhaps we can blame the European Honey Bee for this genetic mischief!



So, we think it's a Banksia attenuata x menziesii. Cross-pollination probably doesn't happen that often because the trees flower at different times of the year, with only a small overlap in flowering times.

It's been 18 months since we found the tree in the top photo, and today we just had to go back into the bush and see if we could find it again. I was hoping to record the location properly for future research.

Unfortunately, we ran out of time, and didn't find the tree. Better luck next time!