Christmas Trees

Australia does not have many native conifers. Those we do have (e.g., Bunya Pines, Kauri Pines, etc) look like they would belong better back in the Cretaceous than in a lounge room smothered with baubles and fairy lights. Very few of our native species have any resemblance to the firs and spruces traditionally used as …

The New Tenants

The nest boxes I installed last January have been relatively under-used through the year, or at least I haven't noticed signs of their use. However, over the last couple of weeks, we've seen a Bush Rat (Rattus fuscipes) emerge from one one evening. And yesterday, this little fellow had moved into another. Australian Owlet-nightjars nest …

Drought has Broken

After barely receiving any rain at all for six months, we have now had constant showers for two weeks, and Pine Mountain is looking a lot greener. While the falls have not been sufficient for our creek to start flowing, our formerly dry dam has managed to accrue a shallow pool of water and the …

Feeding Frenzy

For much of the wildlife of northern Australia, Spring is usually a time of desperation (unlike how the season is viewed in temperate climates!). As it coincides with the end of the dry season, long periods without fresh plant growth means less grass to graze, fewer insects to eat and the supply of fallen seed …

Spring Fever

The nights are finally back into double digit temperatures and all of a sudden there's a buzz about the place. Last weekend, when my family was visiting, these two male Eastern Brown Snakes (Pseudonaja textilis) were engaged in a battle that lasted over half an hour. The wrestling match involved each individual twining around the other …

Year 2 in Review

We moved to Pine Mountain in July 2016 so our second-year anniversary has been and gone. I might be a couple of months late, but here, finally, is my wrap-up of year two on the property. Based on lessons learned in our first year (namely that summer planting, even in wet periods, resulted in high …

Cold as Ice

July marked our two-year anniversary at Pine Mountain, and ordinarily I'd acknowledge the occasion with my annual wrap-up of achievements made over the year. However, for some peculiar reason, NearMap has not updated its satellite images of the area since December, so I've decided to hold off the presentation of before-and-after photos until I have …

Drought Returns

The wet summer we had is but a distant memory. Three months of below-average rainfall has dried everything to a crisp, and our dam has been reduced to a puddle. Much of my time in recent weeks has been spent watering newly planted trees. Most frustratingly, the May-June period is usually my favourite time of …

The Stowaway

It's been another hectic month for me work-wise, with this weekend being my first at home in all of May, after numerous trips away. Consequently, I don't have too much to report. Despite this, there has been a couple of noteworthy wildlife observations over the past couple of weeks worth sharing. The first was by …

Autumn Harvest

With the wet summer we had, I had high hopes that many of our local plants that are infrequent fruiters would finally set seed this year. Mostly, this hasn't been the case. The environmental triggers for successful seeding for most local species are poorly known. What is clear is that steady rainfall throughout the summer …