Three pleasant surprises!

I had three pleasant surprises in the bushland today!



After spending a couple of hours removing Geraldton Carnation Weeds I met Dorothy at the mound removal site, documenting recruitment of native plants in the area where Steve had removed dumps of soil.

Then, I came across an area where a whole lot of dumped concrete blocks had been removed (presumably by Nedlands Council) - thanks Vicki!

Finally, I came across this strange object slung up in a Jarrah near the Grace Vaughan House noticeboard - it looks like a bat box - a 1 metre long tube with a roughened surface and painted grey to blend with the bark of the Jarrah. The tube is open at the bottom, and appears to contain a number of lengths of carboard tubes jammed into it. I am wondering if it is one of Joe Tonga's bat boxes? Who put it there? If you know more, please tell us!

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Additional information provided by Joe Tonga:

Hi Daniel,
Yes, The long tubes are my special experimental bat homes. They are not completely my design but are Australian modified. They consist of two compartments. The bottom half has a collection of different diameter pvc pipes to allow bats to move around according to their temperature requirements. This part is more of a winter roost area. In Summer they are suppose to move up into the top half which is a 100mm pvc pipe which resembles a cave type atmosphere. The insides of this pipe is coated with a special cement render. It is also surrounded by 15 kilos of beach sand to act as a insulator to retain the heat. The micro bats require temperatures of 49 to 52 degrees c. This is what my latest research data.shows. This type of tube habitat heats up to about these temperatures.
The tubes were constructed under my supervision by the Green Corps group. The city of Nedlands paid for them. I have several of them scattered throughout the City of Nedlands bush areas.
Can you keep an eye on them and email me if you see any bats in them. I'm hoping the bats will find them sooner than the conventional timber type which takes approximately 3 years.
You can enter the above info in your blog or on your web page if you like.
cheers
Joe.