Painting the bush red!

It was a perfect day for painting the bush red - fine, no wind, no dew and not too warm or us to wear our protective suits. Vicki had organised for the contractors to mix up the chemical for us to use (I hate doing that part). John and I spent an hour or so spraying fusilade onto veldgrass patches in the bushland. We have done about one third of the area we need to do for this year - the contractors will do other parts of the bushland.

View live map Click here to download the GPX data for this map. Note, this data is an XML file - change the name to .GPX to upload to your GPS.

Rain rain rain!

Getting onto my bike this morning just as the rain came ... I almost decided to stay at home ... but thought I better go because John will be there ... John was thinking the same thing about me! Anyway, the rain stopped (for a while) and we got a lot done.
Came across an onion weed (Trachyandra divaricata.

View live map Click here to download the GPX data for this map. Note, this data is an XML file - change the name to .GPX to upload to your GPS.

They're off and running!

With the good rains and warm sunny weather in-between, the weeds are racing along - especially Freesia and Black Flag. Lachenalia are also starting to appear. John and I worked on Freesia today - we were planning to work at the southern end of the bushland, but never got there - too many Freesias along the way!
Came across this termite mound. I associate termite mounds with Australia's remote areas, and don't expect to see them in the Perth metropolitan area for some reason, even though termites are very commmon in the Perth metro area - and are a considerable problem when they start eating the wooden structure of people's houses. Here in the bushland termites play an important role in breaking down cellulose for re-use.

View live map Click here to download the GPX data for this map. Note, this data is an XML file - change the name to .GPX to upload to your GPS.

Fungii gold!

We began the morning with a committee meeting - the weather was perfect for our outdoor venue. Present were Roz, Dorothy, Vicki, John, Phil, and myself. We discussed plans for looking after the bushland over winter.


Then we headed off (a little way) to look for fungi. It didn't take Roz long to find a nice lot of mycorrhizal fungi (these are fungi that form collaborative partnerships with bushland plants).


Roz is showing John and Vicki one of the fungi lurking under leaf litter just off the path.

View live map Click here to download the GPX data for this map. Note, this data is an XML file - change the name to .GPX to upload to your GPS.

GPS Project with Shenton College

I have been approached by students at shenton college wanting to do a GPS related project in the bushland.

As part of this project I have agreed to provide information we have collected in the past. Below is a map of habitat trees in Shenton Bushland.

Habitat trees are those that are large enough to provide food and shelter for birds and animals. These are trees with a girth of more than a metre at waist height. There are lots of smaller trees coming up which we have not identified on this map.

View live map Click here to download the GPX data for this map. Note, this data is an XML file - change the name to .GPX to upload to your GPS.