After the storm - monitoring signs of life

I spent a couple of hours walking around the path, taking photos at our monitoring sites. We usually take the photos in October, so the bushland is much dryer now than usual, but even so, it looks dramatically different.

Signs of life are returning to the bushland  - this Banksia is putting out new shoots. Notice the damage to the bark from the hail stones! Most Jarrah trees are shooting as well.

The Rainbow Lorikeets are back as noisily as ever. I heard a few wattle birds and some honey eaters, but the bushland is still very quiet.

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After the storm

We came to the bushland today to look for the endangered Graceful Sun Moth. However, the storm on Monday evening has had a tremendous impact on the bushland. The upper canopy of the bushland has been stripped off the trees. Most Banksias and Casuarinas have very few leaves left. The Jarrahs have a few more leaves, but many of those leaves are damaged, so the canopy looks a little like it might after a fire. The middle storey shrubs have partly disappeared, giving the bushland a very open look. The ground covers, grasses, and sedges have been pulverised. Many of the Jacksonia serecia look dead. The sedges and lomandras are not too bad. The only green in the bushland comes from the somewhat shortened leaves of the grass trees.

The banksias have been hit really hard. Most of their leaves have gone.

The bark of the Banksias bears the marks of the hail stones which left orange scars on the grey bark.

The bushland is almost silent. Few birds can be heard, or seen. Even the Rainbow Lorrikeets have gone. I heard a few Robins in amongst the canopy of one of the Eucalypts that seemed to have escaped much of the damage.

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Will we find it again?

John, Dorothy, and I continued our survey of Graceful Sun Moths in the bushland. It was a bit windy, and quite hot. Despite walking very carefully and vigilantly, we did not spot any moths. We did come across a Flinders Ranges wattle to remove before it comes into flower (not long !)

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Sun Moth search successful - at last

We have been searching for this elusive creature for the past five years! Last Sunday Vicki's sharp eyes saw one flitter from one sedge to another. We got a net over it, but it got away before I could take a photo. We will look again next weekend. At least we know where to look now.

Also last weekend I borrowed Dorothy's Garmin Etrex GPS unit to see if I can connect it to my Macintosh (OSX Snow Leopard). Whilst Garmin has now introduced support for USB connections to Macintosh computers, I have not been able to connect to the older serial cable models. I had bought a cable via eBay, connected it to my Keyspan serial to USB converter, and finally found software (LoadMyTracks) that will download from the Etrex. It worked perfectly!

x	Click here to 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.

Week 1 of sun-moth search

Dorothy and I spent two hours looking for lomandra and associated sun moths on Sunday - found lots of Lomandra. No sun moths.
Went to the Cottesloe Sculpture by the Sea afterwards - found a couple of sculptures that I liked.

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Cleaning up

John and I did some cleaning up along the front verge - there is so much rubbish dumped by people parking there, and blowing off vehicles going to the rubbish transfer station. Then we went to Dorothy's area to remove remnants of veldgrass.

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Rainbows everywhere!

The bushland was alive with the distinctive sound of Rainbow Bee Eaters - a throaty excited chatter as they whizzed through the air chasing various flying insects. They were everywhere!

Whilst weeding veldgrass in the bushland I visited an area we planted out in 2006. It was nice to see so much surviving despite the fact that we never water our plantings - about 10% survive long-term, but they are the best ones that do survive - which is what we need for this bushland to be resilient to climate change.

Click here to 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.