Category: Uncategorized
The value of botanical gardens – are we preaching to the choir?
Chances are, if you’re a Land for Wildlife/Garden for Wildlife member, you are already well and truly aware of the value of botanical gardens. With that in mind, there is a free podcast available from ABC Radio of a fascinating chat between Richard Fidler and the curator of the Mt Coot-Tha Botanic Gardens in Brisbane,
Black-footed Rock Wallaby Workshop – 25/6/2011, all welcome!
Environmental scientists and volunteers in the forests of Gippsland in eastern Victoria are currently experiencing the first glimmers of success in their battle to bring the Brush-tailed Rock Wallaby back from the brink of extinction. You can read about this by clicking this link. Here in Alice we have our own rock wallabies, not quite
Tnorala – recreate the deep impact on your laptop!
If you’re looking for an interesting way to try and grasp the vastness of geological time and the immensity of cosmic forces that have shaped our little planet, here’s something that may be of interest. Purdue University in Indiana USA, hosts this website http://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEffects/ called Earth Impact Effects. Colloquially it is known as the Catastrophe Calculator. This is great
Beware of rodent poisons – they don’t just work on mice!
Mice are very common at the moment and poisoning might seem an effective way to control their numbers. Due to environmental side-effects from poisons however, mechanical traps are an overwhelmingly preferable solution. While a mouse-trap may occasionally catch a wayward dunnart or native mouse, the larger scale effects of poisons entering the food chain are a
World Turtle Day – Centralian Style…
OK… so it’s not the best turtle sand sculpture ever, but we’re relying on points for effort and originality as dry desert sand just doesn’t cut it for sculpting and this may be the only entrant in the competition made from a sand dune in the centre of the continent. Well, perhaps it is the
Australia – The World of Parrots
Anyone who lives in Australia will be well aware of the richness of our birdlife, and particularly the parrots. Perhaps it is something that some of us take for granted, but to have birds as colourful and brash as Galahs, Ringnecks, and Budgies, bashing around in our backyards is unusual by world standards. It’s an
World Turtle Day
G’day wildlife lovers. There are a couple of important dates coming up this week. Sunday the 22nd of May is World Biological Diversity Day, surely a worthwhile observance for us all. This day was declared by the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity and would seem to have plenty of media clout behind it. Another
Land for Wildlife Members Devise Ingenious Use for Buffel Grass
Land for Wildlife members on the far side of Roe Creek have devised a brilliant way of putting removed Buffel Grass to good use – build a bridge! As Roe Creek has been flowing quite well in recent months, the sand has softened and is proving to be something of a barrier to 2WD visits to their
Fire Season Approaches with the Cooler Weather
By now we are all fully aware of the extraordinary rainfall that The Centre has experienced this year. Along with this, the undergrowth has thickened up and is now beginning to dry out. All of this has firefighters up and down the territory bracing for a record year of fires, particularly here in The Centre.
Mexican Poppy Update
After our posting on this subject in February, Mexican Poppy’s have again reared their ugly heads in Alice Springs, this time in Laura Creek, south of Pine Gap. After rain at the beginning of April, germinating poppies were located by Land for Wildlife member Rod Cramer. The Mexican Poppy (Argemone ochroleuca) is a native of
Dog Trapping to Start Soon…
Land for Wildlife’s threat mitigation project for the Black-footed Rock Wallaby is set to start on four properties over the next few weeks. Funded by a Territory NRM Local Action Grant, the project is primarily aimed at removing feral dogs from potential wallaby habitat in the hope that the little wallabies can spread out and have
Ooldea Dunnart found on Land for Wildlife Property in Alice Springs
The large population of house mice currently in Alice Springs has been well documented of late, with supermarkets and hardware stores doing a roaring trade in mouse traps. I’ve seen several different models for sale lately, as well as hearing stories of home made devices that work just as well. All these different inventions have one thing
Fear Not! It’s a Plague Rat, not a rat plague.
Media coverage has been all over the supposed rat plague besieging Alice Springs this week. This is all very exciting but has twisted the story a bit and missed the most interesting parts. Firstly, these are not feral rats, but native rats. Feral rats are very rarely recorded in Alice Springs and are usually the
Ironwood Germination – A Once in a Lifetime Event
Ironwood (Acacia estrophiolata) is a common tree of rural blocks in Alice Springs, and many large, remnant trees also exist in urban parks and even backyards in the town. These trees are very slow growing, with large individuals perhaps reaching an age of several hundred years. They also require very specific climatic conditions for the
Tangentyerre Nursery Open Day serves up a wealth of opportunities
Tangentyerre Nursery held their open day on Saturday and Alice Springs turned on a beautiful March morning for the event. Jesse and I were there early to set up the Land for Wildlife/Garden for Wildlife stall and to be honest, there is nowhere else I would have rather been. A big family of Variegated Fairy-wrens
Wildcare Alice Springs plans to reduce the impact of discarded aluminium cans as a long-term killer of wildlife
This is a sad, but all too common story. Aluminium cans seem to have a unique ability to become death-traps for curious wildlife. The aluminium can featured in this picture is so old and faded that the branding is barely visible. A discarded aluminium can may sit in the landscape for decades before claiming a victim
Congratulations LfW members – we’re all part of the solution
This fantastic short film has appeared on Youtube.com with Professor Harry Recher discussing his fears for the future of Australia’s small bird populations. The good news is that all of the positive steps mentioned are encapsulated in the values and actions exhibited by Land for Wildlife members in their conservation efforts on their properties. Watch this
Extraordinary wet continues…
So we didn’t quite cap the record rainfall of 1974 last year but we came very close. Back in ’74 we had 782.5mm recorded for the calendar year. In 2010 we came in at 769.6mm – so close. However, it is instructive to look at the bigger picture. With rainfall stats just out for February
Peach-faced Lovebirds – the next bird pest for Alice?
Could this be the next avian invader for Alice Springs? The Peach-faced Lovebird, a popular and very attractive pet bird, is native to arid parts of the south-west of Africa around Namibia. It is a hollow nesting species and we are right in the middle of their breeding season now. There is a small flock
Succinea Snails at Ilparpa Swamp
Thanks to Red Centre malacologist Mark Carter who was happy to identify this as Succinea for us – no snails needed to be harmed. Commonly known as Amber Snails, the entire genus are air-breathing land snails.This little beauty was found down at Ilparpa Swamp during some routine water sampling. There are many species withing the Succinea