More wildflowers

I am still attempting to identify some of them.

Dryandra Woodland is named after the Dryandra bush, which has now been re-named as Banksia Nobilis:

On our last morning, a few of us went on a walk to the Ochre Pit. It was rather warm, so Arlene and I chickened out when we came to a steep flight of steps, knowing that we would have to climb up again. It turned out that we had misunderstood the information board at the start and walked the long way round the loop. However, there were some mistakes on this board, so it was not entirely our fault!

 When we returned to the cabin, we were very jealous to hear that Annette had been for a drive and found an elusive numbat in the bush just near the road. It had made her day, as she was able to observe it at close quarters for twenty minutes.

The numbat features on our club logo.

Dryandra flora

There was a profusion of wildflowers everywhere. This is just a small selection:

Stylidium

Creeping fringe lily

These are very tiny

Stackhousia

Beautiful colours in the bark

Quandong tree. The fruits had been eaten by Woylies
and the shells dropped underneath.

 

Empty nuts scattered on lichen.

Quandong fruit: close-up.

Painted water tank next to our cabin

Two scientific talks

Rodenticides

This was a thought-provoking talk about the dangers of so-called second generation rodenticides. First generation poisons typically have a half life of 16 days. Second generation poisons have a half life of 300 days. That means an animal can consume a bait and still walk around for a vey long time with the poison in its system. It could then be attacked and eaten by another species.

Research is needed to find out which animals are resistant to the bait. Some of these animals are eaten by humans, especially in Aboriginal communities. 

Testing can only be done on a dead animal. (Testing is done on the liver, which is not really possible when the animal is alive). The top predator in the wild is the eagle: a beautiful bird, often endangered without this other threat.

This talk, given by Michael Lohr from the consultancy group 360environmental, was a wake-up call about the indiscriminate use of rat poison in the community.

Lorna Glen

This talk was given by Michael’s wife, Cheryl Lohr. She is in charge of Lorna Glen, a conservation reserve near Mullewa. Her current research is how to deal with feral cats in an arid landscape. We know how to deal with foxes, which are the other big predator of native animals. The poison 1080 is typically dropped from the air. Cats don’t eat these baits. Cheryl measures how native species in WA  react to 1080 poison.

The difficulty for Cheryl is that they don’t know exact how many feral cats are on the property. It’s very difficult to count them before and after putting down baits. One inexact method is to look for their paw prints crossing a dusty road for 4 nights in a row. They drag a chain over the road each night to produce a clean slate for the following night. 

There are 120 wildlife cameras on the property, but the cats seem to avoid having their photo taken. The property is 250 square kilometres. There is also a huge amount of paperwork connected to animal trapping and research. After an intense trapping programme, lots of cats are eliminated, but a high rainfall event results in a successful breeding period and numbers creep up again.

These talks were given “off the cuff” by members of the DRB group, as we all sat down for a rest between our expeditions! Their son, Martin, aged about 7 or 8, then suggested that we all had our photo taken on the Flying Fox in the children’s playground:

This is me having a go.

This is Arlene, who organised everything.

More on pesticides at a forthcoming Nats Club talk:

Listed as a Priority 3 species in SW WA, the Masked Owl (Yornitj in the Wadandi language) is so little known that the WA Museum’s Handbook of WA Birds has no description of its nesting. For the past five years, Boyd and colleagues have tracked down and investigated through observation, photography, sound and food pellets a surprisingly vibrant peri-urban population around Margaret River of this large, charismatic but enigmatic forest relative of the Barn Owl. They have found that Yornitj is a specialist predator of rats in the peri-urban mix of remnant forest, agriculture and gardens of the Margaret River.
Ironically, this means that this is one of the most threatened of many wildlife species subject to debilitation and death through unrestricted sale and use of modern ‘one dose kills’ rodenticides. In response to this realisation, an Owl Friendly Margaret River campaign was mounted that is a model for community groups throughout Australia seeking a ban on Second Generation Anticoagulant Rodenticides (SGARs).

Bunnings advice on rodents here

Dryandra 2

There was never a dull moment, as something was planned for every hour, day and night - thanks to the tireless organisation of A. The DRB (Darling Range Branch of the Nats) had so many interesting members who gave little talks about their work, such as how to eradicate feral cats or which pesticides not to use. I was the only person not in the DRB, so I made a few new friends.

As soon as I arrived, the caretaker lady insisted on pointing out a tawney frogmouth’s nest with two babies in it. These birds have an enormously wide mouth and have really good camouflage to blend in with their surroundings:

Top: frogmouth on its nest with babies.
Bottom: the male in a nearby tree.

The closest walk to our cabin was to the arboretum, where clumps of various trees and shrubs had been planted and labelled.:

This was the most beautiful in full flower.
Eucalyptus rhodantha

Saturday morning’s walk was to the Old Mill Dam:

I chatted to Andrew, a 15 year old boy who knew everything about insects. He pointed out the remains of the larva from which a dragonfly would have emerged:

There were several information boards about Vincent Serventy, one of Western Australia’s most famous naturalists:

There was also this board about the elusive numbat, but I didn’t manage to see one over the entire weekend:

In the evening, everyone set off for Barna Mia. I was on my own. A load of wood arrived and the caretaker offered to get my fire going, as I pretended to be a helpless female who knew nothing about lighting fires! Last night’s cold was all forgotten, as I enjoyed my Osso Buco, reheated in the microwave, with a glass of red in front of the fire. Bliss!

Sunset view from my cabin.

Nothing like a log fire!

Dryandra

The two-hour drive was quite an adventure. I had input Dryandra into Google Maps and was taken to the middle of Dryandra Woodland, where there was nothing at all except forestry tracks. I had to drive back the way I came to get a mobile signal, so that I could ask Google for Dryandra Lions Holiday Village. Even before this, I had run into a problem on the gravel road. I swerved sharply to avoid an oncoming vehicle and went into a skid. I nearly ended up in the ditch, except there was no ditch, only a barbed wire fence which I avoided by some miracle and got back on the road. The Prius is definitely not an off-road vehicle! I hadn’t realised that Dryandra was such a remote place. There is no wi-fi, except in the office, and a very poor and intermittent 3G phone signal.

Our cabin is approx central, with a big water storage tank.

The Nats group was all booked in for the Barna Mia experience for Saturday night and it was fully booked. Luckily there was just one remaining spot for Friday night, so I jumped at the chance, even if it meant I should have to venture out on my own.

It was a wet night when I set off for the 15-minute drive: alarmingly along more gravel roads. I tried to follow another car, as I had no idea of the way or even seeing the signposts in the pitch dark. I got there just in time for the 6.15 pm start. A group of about 10 had gathered, some of them from nearby camping sites. We were treated to a film and then a talk from a volunteer ranger lady. She explained about all the different animals and showed slides. I have to say, as a complete novice, it was not easy to distinguish one from another! There was a huge mural covering one wall of the viewing room, an artistic depiction of all these animals in the bush. The rain was drumming on the roof all the time: this had not been on the forecast!

Barna Mia is home to five species of marsupial: bilby, boodie, woylie, quenda and mala. They live in two x 4 hectare enclosures that keep out predators. One predator is the chuditch which has white spots. We didn’t see one, but there was a brush tailed possum with lovely big eyes. He was my favourite. The predators are foxes and feral cats. The marsupials under protection are tagged so that the rangers can monitor their comings and goings. If they haven’t moved for a while, their collars are said to be in “mortality mode” i.e. they are dead. There is only one bilby in the reserve at the moment: they would like to source some more to start a breeding programme.

Pouring feed for the little creatures.

This one jumped into the feed bucket!

Possibly the possum?

Not sure what this one is!

I was nervous about finding my way home, but one woman of my age offered to sit in my car and direct me. It was 9.00 pm by this time and most people in my cabin had already gone to bed. It took me a while to get warm under my duvet. My feet were OK in bed socks, but my hands were freezing cold, like blocks of ice. It had been drizzling all the time we were walking round Barna Mia.

We also learned more about numbats: they are day time creatures: we are looking forward to seeing one. Their population got down to 100, now there are about 400 it’s thought. There is another colony near Pemberton. They are very solitary beasts apparently. They have a long sticky tongue, designed to get into termite nests. They eat thousands in a day.

Plans for the Weekend?

I often get asked this and normally I have nothing more exciting than sitting on my balcony knitting. This weekend is different though, as I’m going on a Nats trip to Dryandra. This is a bushland retreat and wildlife conservation village, about a two hour drive south of Perth. It’s going to be sunny, but the night temperatures are much lower than at home. We have to take our own bedding so I’m looking out my warmest duvet and PJ’s. I’m in a cabin for 10 - so this is not a 5-star resort!

Marri Cottage

More about Dryandra here

...and here

A high point of the trip is said to be the night viewing of all the little nocturnal animals:

a short video here

In the meantime, today’s forecast for Perth suggests a beach walk, so I’ve made my way to Cottesloe as have many others. A few brave souls are in the sea, but I’m content to look at it from the shore:

I should have brought a packed lunch, but I was forced into The Shorehouse for something more elegant:

Goldband Snapper w creamed parsnip and stir fried rainbow chard.

Suddenly it’s Spring!

We’ve had a long cold winter in Perth and it stretched long into September. Too many freezing mornings for my liking, even though I managed to escape up North from time to time. Now there’s a sudden change in the weather at last. C’s garden in Como is blooming:

We’ve never seen the wisteria so prolific. It’s threatening to knock the trellis down and has even climbed to the top of the bottle brush tree:

The nasturtiums are at their absolute best:

Rocky thinks so too:

For the first time in many months, we had Friday night dinner in the garden. On the menu was Red Emperor w. rice, spinach and peas:

… followed by apple cake and cream:



On the table were two spray bottles, one containing Aerogard against the mosquitos and the other containing cream. In a “senior moment” I picked up the wrong bottle and almost sprayed my dessert with it. That would have been a disaster, but E yelled out and saved the day!

Easy Apple Cake recipe here