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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.

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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.

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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.