Spotlight on Species Wombat Forest Night Walk Dec

What an exciting and amazing night spotlight walk lead by Brad Blake, Upper Campaspe Landcare Network Threatened Species officer. We found 9 greater gliders on the 1km transect and numerous other possums and birds. It was just an amazing and exciting night as we saw so much. The terrain was very steep and somewhat challenging but the rewards were high.

Ringtail possum Mum with baby on the back.
So many possums in the area, ringtails and brushtails. We saw so many it was a really good night for possum spotting.
This brushtail possum was not the least concerned by the audience.
Of course the highlight of the night was the number of Greater Gliders we saw. Some were high up in the canopy but others sat and posed to have their picture taken.
Greater glider

It was so exciting to see the gliders so well.

Finally on the way back to the cars we found a giant (by local standards) Eastern Pobblebonk frog just sitting on the forest floor. There must be rain on the way as it has only just emerged from under the ground so fingers crossed we get some rain in the next few days. They certainly seem to know when it is about to rain.

Eastern Pobblebonk, Limnodynastes dumerili

Until next time, keep your eyes and ear open and see what you can find in your local area at night with the aid of a spotlight.

Chasing Aurora

Last Friday night, 20th April I received an Aurora Alert. Given that we are surrounded by trees I went out to the closest spot that gave me an unhindered view of the southern horizon. I could only see a smudge by eye, it was drowned out the glow of Melbourne I thought, but on closer inspection it was there on the right hand side of frame, just below the horizon but the distinct trace of the Aurora Australis.

Melbourne to the left and Aurora Australis to the right.
With Mt Macedon to the left and the white glow of Woodend in front of the mountain with the white glow in the woodsmoke. Melbourne lights up the whole left hand sky, the orange glow of Gisborne below the dotted trail of the plane but to the right behind the trees the soft glow of the Aurora Australis. Click the image of a larger view.

Bugs, Birds and Blessed rain

It has been a long couple of weeks in so many ways, but were are back again. A bit of a catch up this week, so some highlights for the last month to catch you all up.
I really love the Sweet Bursaria, Bursaria spinosa , it brings back childhood memories from the family farm. It flowers here in early autumn most years which is later that in many other areas. I really have no idea why that is, but for the insects it is a great resource. It has lots of fine, needle sharp spines which offer great protection for small birds as a refuge from predators. It is one of those tough native plants that never seems to need water and it seems to love harsh places where other plants struggle. One of my favorites really.

After a really long dry spell we finally had some real rain. It was as if the bush was just hanging on waiting for the moisture. In the end we got 60mm for the rain event. The rains triggered a mayfly emergence, millions of these small insects emerged and in the late afternoons for a few days formed wonderful swirling clouds as they sought out a mate. I find the swirling insect clouds mesmerizing, the way they swirl and twist, dissipate and reform is like an aerial ballet, engaging and relaxing to watch. It is such a short lived event but one I really love to see every season. I hope you also enjoy seeing it as much as I did.

Finally apologies for being offline for a while, we struggled with the technology here for, computers and internet were just not happy, but this all seems to be fixed now so will look forward to getting your weekly updates back on track. So let us know what you think and I will see you again next week with more of my insights on nature.

Nature, perfect one day, unpredictable the next

The great joy of my job is that Nature is so unpredictable. Its not just us humans that get it wrong but sometimes animals and insects are in the wrong place at the right time or the right place at the wrong time too. Robert Burns poem To A Mouse puts it so well.
The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!

The Koala, these gum leaf munching machines are pretty laid back normally. They tend to be seen napping the days away comfortable in the fork of a tree. Not a lot happens in a average Koala’s day, but then life in the trees can have its moments. The poor male in this weeks clip was trying to nap, as Koala’s do and the sudden arrival of the strong winds certainly took him by surprise. He was suddenly in a forest washing machine, lashed by branches and foliage, even as his limb shook and swayed in the gale. He certainly had a tight grip with those sharp long claws.

I was keen to record the Lunar Eclipse. After all they are not that common and I had great plans for how I was going to show it. Well dense cloud put paid to that, I stayed up ever hopeful, after all if you don’t do the time, you will never get the shots you want. It was freezing cold, windy to boot and oh so much cloud. In the end I admit I gave up at about 3am having not seen the moon for about 4hrs and it had well passed totality. Next time perhaps.

I did get all excited about the ants. If you have never seen Alates swarm it is a pretty amazing process, they erupt into the air from their holes in spectacular fashion, almost as if they were being flushed out of their holes by a leaf blower. I must admit I was pretty excited to see the build up to this happening and had all the gear ready to go. But they came, they tested the air and returned to their holes. Perhaps I will see it happen, I am certainly keeping watch on the ants in the evenings. Fingers crossed.

And then dumb luck, I find a Large Phasmatid, or stick insect. This is one big bug, she is a whopper, 200mm body length, and then all legs. I am trying to identify her but it is not easy. I am certain she is a she, females have short wings and cannot fly. There is no way this girl could fly with the wings she has. I found it really interesting that she only moved when the wind was blowing and the tree moving. In still conditions she just sat still, smart defense, only move when the other sicks are moving. It sure makes it hard to film as she does nothing when the tree is still, not even feeding.

Hope you enjoy this week, remember to subscribe to this blog if you want notification whenever I post. Remember this is a work in progress and I would appreciate any feedback you care to give, lets make this as good a site as we can. Cheers for this week.

A Day from Above

Something a little different this week. A Day from Above is a birds eye view of a summers day at my place in the central highlands of Victoria, Australia.

Starting with a misty foggy dawn moving through the heat of the day to sunset the flying camera explores my place and gives you an overview of the surrounding area. Shot over several days to give a representative overview of a typical summers day. From a misty foggy dawn, it soon heats up to the mid 30’s and inside the forest all is still and quiet. Late afternoon it starts to cool then ending after sunset where even in mid summer it can get quite cold in the evenings.

I hope you enjoy the overview of my place in the world and now have a better idea of a sense of place when viewing this clips from week to week.

For those interested, all the material was shot from a DJI Marvic Pro drone in 4k (thanks Micheal). I am a big fan of small drones and while they do have some limitations they are wonderfully able little devices and allow you to fly under the canopy and closer to the ground if you wish.

After much thought I decided to go with no commentary and just let the pictures talk, I hope you like it and let me know what you think.

Apologies for the delay in getting this out. We have had some tech issues that held things up but we are all sorted now.

A White Kookaburra and Cockatoos

What an exciting week it has been and it just goes to prove no matter how long you work with wildlife there are always some massive surprises to be had. That the nature world still astounds me is why I so love what I do.

I was so excited to see Snowy the White Laughing Kookaburra, even as I write I am still in awe of coming across such an amazing bird. My initial thought was that Snowy was an Albino. But after some fairly careful research and having a good look at the shots and zooming in on the eyes they look just like adult Kookaburra eyes, in that they are quite dark and they are not pink or light colored. So I think Snowy is not a Albino but has Leucism. Something I had no idea about until I looked into how Snowy is white.

So what is the difference between Albinism and Leucism?
When a bird is a true Albino, a genetic disorder causes the bird to not have the amino acid tyrosinase present in its system and so its body does not produce melanin pigments at all.
In the case of Leucism, the amino acid tyrosinase is present and so are the melanin pigments but in this inherited disorder the deposition of these pigments is blocked and so color is not transferred to the feathers, beak and skin scales in extreme cases.
So leucistic birds always have colored eyes which distinguishes them from albinos, as in the case of Snowy.

My source for this information is found at Not every white bird is an albino: sense and nonsense about colour aberrations in birds a paper by Hein van Grouw. Thank goodness for Google Scholar.

I do hope the white Laughing Kookaburra (AKA Snowy) does well and survives. Being such a standout creature will likely make its life hard and logic tells me without camouflage it will be a sitting duck for predators. Snowy lives on private land and without disturbance hopefully will live a long successful life, but only time will tell.

It is worth remembering that every animal is a individual, they all have their own personalities and characteristics. Some have obvious differences, like Snowy but anyone who has owned pets, (dogs, cats, birds or reptiles) knows that each one has its personality and is different and unique in its own way. This blog is a lot about celebrating the animal characters that live and pass though my life here. I look forward to your comments and subscribe to get reminders for every new post.

A white Kookaburra, you just never know what you will find in the natural world, do you.

A Shower of Rain, Koala and Glorious Stars

A brief respite in the summer heat and a few drops of rain raised spirits and gave the whole environment a chance to draw breath.

There is nothing like the smell of summer rain in the Australian bush. It is a heady smell of freshness and eucalyptus unique to the Australian bush, hard to describe but it raises the spirits and the whole environment seems to heave a collective sigh of relief. Although we only had some brief showers the light rain refreshed everything, humans, plants and animals alike.

We had a visit from one of our local male Koalas. His territory overlaps our place here and he is a regular visitor. Koalas can be very hard to see and find which is surprising given their size. But tucked in against a tree trunk or when they get up in the canopy they are so hard to spot. It is nice to be able to show him being so active, during the day they tend to just sit, especially in the heat of summer. At different times of the year they feed on different trees. Over the last few months I have noted they were feeding on Messmate stringybark, Eucalyptus obliqua. The Manna Gums, Eucalyptus viminalis have just started putting on new growth and so I guess he is after the fresh green foliage so this likely accounts for the shift in diet. I enjoy seeing and noting changes like this as it gives you a understanding of how all the environment is connected together, a sum of lots and lots of smaller parts and actions.

This male was nice and close to the house so was spotted as he moved about, otherwise finding a Koala is a lot like looking for a needle in a haystack, too many trees and very few animals. As far as I can tell the population here, while small, is pretty stable and sustainable. If you live in the Central Victoria there is an active monitoring project where you can log a Koala sighting and I encourage you all to do so. Macedon Ranges Koala Project It is a great way of monitoring our populations and participating in citizen science and the sight contains a wealth of local Koala information.

Finally to the stars. We had a run of clear nights here and I needed no excuse to timelapse our wonderful night skies. Each shot essentially runs for an entire night so while time consuming the results I think are spectacular. The Milky Way and Magellanic Clouds are spectacular at the moment and make it worthwhile going outside and just looking up once the sun sets on clear nights. Our altitude here, 600m (just under 2000ft) means we are often get clearer skies and great views of the stars. So enjoy our night skies of January. Until next week.

Scorching heat, Kangaroos & Echidna

Well there is only one word to describe last week and that was hot. Summer really is here now in the Central Highlands of Victoria, Australia.

The one thing you can be sure of when you get one of those windy scorching hots days is that you will find next to nothing in the heat of the day. But come late afternoon and evening the creatures start to emerge. Just about the first thing on their mind will be water, so I went down to dam, parked myself and camera and just waited quietly. It was well worth it, lots of things came in to the water but the family of Eastern Grey Kangaroos took the prize this week. They were so thirsty, and just looked at me and the camera on the far bank and went straight down to drink. They drank and drank, until the tiny grey fantail upset them that is. The sudden movement and sound turned their heads triggered the flight response and off they went. I can just imagine all that water sloshing about inside as they hopped, I wonder if it is uncomfortable? That is the sort of stuff that comes into my head while filming, odd isn’t it.

I was also lucky to find an Echidna. We seem to have several here, I have seen two individuals this week, the one I filmed and a much larger one just on dark the other night too. I hope over the next few months we will see some more Echidna antics.

Finally this week I have added a subscribe link on the blog page. So if you want an email for each new post please subscribe and also feel free to make comments too. Until next week.

Caterpillars, Butterflies and Ants.

What caught my attention this week was a lovely symbiotic relationship between caterpillars, pupae, butterflies and the ants that protect them. We are lucky enough to have several colonies of these living here.

The Supermoon on January second also had me out too, how could I resist playing with images of the moon and stars especially on summer evenings. (Ok the truth is it was cold, there were so many mosquitoes they would have eaten me alive except I was all rugged up and covered, but I still really love what I do.)

So this is what this whole project is about,  just going out with the camera and  filming week to week things here that I find interesting and bringing them to you. I truly hope you find the wonders of nature as amazing as I do.

Hello and Welcome

Hello and welcome to Insights on Nature. Well I thought I should start with video of me saying something so here it is. As you can see even after all my years behind the camera once I get in-front of it I am frankly terrified. But its done and is what it is. Have a laugh by all means, I certainly did and at least you didn’t have to see all the outtakes.