Found: a jewel in the bushland!

It is not often you encounter spiders in broad daylight in the bushland, but today we were lucky to encounter two of them.
This one is a jewel spider Astracantha minax


A little further on we came across an orb weaving spider - also boldly remaining on its web in broad daylight.

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.

Nedlands Council activities Oct 2007

We have been working hard to develop a means of communication between ourselves and Vicki, Bushcare Officer at the City of Nedlands so we each know what we have been doing in the bushland.

Vicki and I now can send each other the GPS data in GPX format - and upload it to our GPS systems.

Below is the first of the data we have received from Vicki - Geraldton Carnation Weed control activities in October and November last year.

	Nedlands Council Activities on 10th October 2007 View live map
	Nedlands Council Activities on 29th October 2007 View live map
	Nedlands Council Activities on 5th November 2007 View live map
	Nedlands Council Activities on 23rd November 2007 View live map

Mystery campsite

Unexpectedly came across a camp within the bushland - plastic bags with clothes and personal possessions hidden under a balga.

John, Dorothy, and I continued on with veldgrass pulling.


Came across another wattle that doesn't belong - Dorothy took samples to identify.

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Face to face with a spider

Continuing on from last year - John and I returned to the spot where we saw the fountain grass - and dug it all out (took the flowering heads away) - will need to come back next spring to make sure no seedlings come up.
Then we continued with veldgrass removal - came face to face with this Orb weaving spider - do you know what it is? Let me know if you do!

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XMas in the bushland

Today felt like summer! The Easterly wind promised heat later in the day. John and I set off to pull veldgrass - whieh we found plenty of. Just before finishing we came across an infestation of fountain grass Pennisetum setaceum.
We didn't have enough time to remove all of the plants - will have to come back and remove the rest - but we did remove the seed heads - which were already shedding their seeds.

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Continuing veldgrass removal

John, Bronwen, Dorothy, and Kim joined in this morning to continue our veldgrass removal program. The veldgrass is scattered through the bushland, clumps about 1 mitre apart, mostly very small, a couple of larger ones that survived the spraying in spring. Removing them now reduces likelihood of plants producing more seeds during summer after each rain.

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Veldgrass weeding over summer

Now that the winter weeding frenzy has eased off we are moving into our summer weeding pattern, mainly focusing on Veldgrass, Pelargonium, Victorian Ti Tree, and any other weeds that we notice. This pattern will continue till next Autumn when the rains come and bring up the winter weeds.
While weeding in the bushland we came across this unfamiliar wattle - well over 2 metres tall, deep green bipinate phylodes - do you know what it is? (click on link to live map below to see the location).




It is currently producing seeds - has long seed pods, black seeds.

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