Maybe I just like the name....

Gompholobium is in flower at the moment - Gompholobium ecostatum (or dwarf wedge pea) to be precise. It's a name with a lovely sound to it, and one that I never tire of hearing.

Gompholobium stands out due to it'spectacular flower, and its relatively large size when compared to the rest of the plant. This year seems to have brought out more Gompholobium than usual, as it's not an especially common plant. And what's interesting about the plants that we have at Wirra Birra is that the flowers take on a variety of colours, even in close proximity to one another.

The yellow form.....





... and the orange/yellow form.




One of the plans for next year is to collect seed from both forms of the plant, and see if they breed true to type.

Cute Little Critters

Each year Wirra Birra participates in a survey of Southern Brown Bandicoots, run by the very dedicated volunteers at the Sturt Upper Reaches Landcare Group.

The survey takes the form of a number of hair funnels containing an attractive (though ultimately unreachable) bait, with the funnels deployed along a line at approximately 2o metre intervals. The critters are attracted by the scent of the bait, enter the funnel, and leave their hairs behind on the sticky inner surface.

Here's what a funnel looks like - you can read more about them at Fauntech, along with other of their wildlife research equipment.

And here's what we're looking for......















This year we deployed two survey lines (18 funnels in all) and found definite bandicoot hairs in five, with traces of other species in another three. The experiences of other of our neighbours were mixed, with some properties with previous records of Southern Brown Bandicoot , this year reporting none. Foxes seem the likely culprit.

It's good to know that the little guys are still hanging on, and through studies like this we'll have some objective evidence as to whether they might just possibly be making a comeback.

Global Financial Crisis - another opportunity?

In a previous post I voiced the opinion that the recent high oil prices could be seen as an incentive, or an opportunity to do something to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels - and to do something to reduce our carbon footprint. Naturally this point was completely lost on our visionary Federal Government, who couldn't see beyond the populist appeal of the proposed Fuel Watch scheme.

How long ago that seems.

Oil that was near $150 a barrel, is now trading for less than $70, and the focus of the media has shifted on to the Global Financial Crisis.

But, I'll argue that this new crisis presents another sort of opportunity for us to do something to reduce our collective carbon footprint. The impact of a widespread recession is likely to be to reduce carbon generation anyway, but the real opportunity is for the likes of our government to show leadership and to help weather the recession through some intelligent investment in the future.

Rather than just throwing billions of dollars at individuals in (yet another) populist move to seed the electorate with cash, why not look to the (much) longer term, and to infrastructure investments that go directly to our 2050 carbon reduction targets? If we want to invest in infrastructure, why invest in yet more roads to carry yet more carbon-producing cars. Instead, now is the time to think of low-carbon infrastructure investment like public transport, hybrid vehicles, geothermal energy etc.

It's not the time to be contemplating rolling back some of the hard-won gains, like delaying the 2010 start to carbon trading in Australia, as has been suggested by the Climate Deniers in the Federal Opposition.

Strong leadership is needed to pursue these paths and, unfortunately, I'm preparing myself to be disappointed.

Orchids, Orchids everywhere

It's been a good year for Orchids here at Wirra Birra - to my untrained eye at least. This has been the first year that I've taken the time to seek out these tiny botanical wonders, and what a feast it's been. Seeing some of these little guys for the first time has been a wonderful experience, and slowing down (something I'm not the best at doing) seems to be the key to finding them.....

I'll post a complete list of those I've stumbled across over the past few months, but for now, here are three species that I photographed earlier this week - all of them in close proximity to the house.

Blue Spotted Sun Orchid (Thelymitra ixioides)

Common Pink Sun Orchid (Thelymitra rubra)






Pink Fingers (Caladenia carnea)

Bushland Blitzkrieg!!

Tomorrow promises to be a big day. With no other social or work commitments, its going to be a full day's work out in the scrub. Problem weeds right now are erica, and broom - both in flower, as well as the fumitory that's threatening to over-run the creek.

As the topsoil is still a little damp (despite a very dry September) I reckon we can get away still with hand-pulling all but the largest broom and erica, though will need to restort to herbicide for most of the fumitory.

Monadenia orchid (another escapee from South Africa) is also popping its head up at the present. Another bushcarer shared a tip this week - that modadenia can be sprayed with a small funnel attachment to a spray bottle. Just pop the funnel over the nasty South African interloper, and squeeze the trigger. It gives the weed a nasty jolt of glyphosate, without any undesired spray drift elsewhere. Worth a go, I reckon!

Silent Achievers

I spent a couple of pleasant hours tonight, meeting with some like-minded landholders from our catchment area. Nothing major to report, apart from the news that the dreaded Texas Needle Grass is moving in to our neighbourhood. I think the genie is well and truly out of the bottle, but no-one seems willing to call this one yet.

Meantime, it's great to be reminded of the silent efforts of many others across the Hills, all looking after their own little patches of bush. Not all of them are blessed with the same quality of scrub that we have, and many of them aren't nearly as fit and able as me. What keeps them going, as far as I can tell, is a genuine love of the bush, and a desire to actually make a difference.

A big bouquet too, to the folks at the AMLRNRMB who co-ordinate these little programs, and bring people together. Well done guys!

I'm not at all sure that we're winning just yet. But that's not going to stop me trying.

Sixty Years of Regrowth

In a previous post I referred to some aerial photos I had of our beaut little property going back to 1949. I obtained these through the great folks at Mapland and their historical search service. There's even an interactive search now that you can run yourself to locate old photos. And it's good value for money too, if you can find the right photos.

Here's what Wirra Birra looked like in 1949, presumably just after the woodcutters had been in for a bit of pillaging. (you can click the map to enlarge it)


And here's what it looks like around 2002 (again, click to enlarge)




We seem to have been very lucky, in that the stringbarks were felled for their timber, but the stumps left to re-shoot. While it's evident that things were a real mess back in the 40's, with the property denuded, and criss-crossed with snig tracks, things seem to have been left to regenerate naturally.

And for that we're extremely thankful.

Back in the 40's there wasn't the same weed pressure on a cleared bit of ground, and most of the native plants could re-establish themselves, without too much competition from the ferals. Today it would be a vastly different story. One of my longer term projects is to take some GPS co-ordinates off the 1949 map, and see if I can locate some of the cleared features or tracks, on the ground. My thesis is that some of the weed outbreaks we do have (notably the erica) will correlate to the areas that were hit hardest.

But that's for another day.