February 2019

Well, we are still in Australia, and have survived hailstorms, torrential rain and 43 degree C heatwaves.  As I write this, the weather has calmed down to a balmy 24 degrees which makes the wildlife-watching much more comfortable.  While in the Australian Botanic Gardens, I photographed some butterflies that looked very similar to the painted lady butterflies we get in the UK and Europe.  When I investigated, I found that it was an Australian painted lady – a different species to the UK one.  However, when I compared the photograph to a photograph of the UK species, there was hardly any difference between the two.  There were small differences but it is not uncommon to get small differences between individuals of the same species.  The scientific names are different – Vanessa cardui for the UK species and Vanessa kershawi for the Australian species. 

Painted Lady UK/Europe version

Painted Lady, Australian version

This suggests that they are different species and not populations of the same species geographically separated, but it is puzzling how two separate species came to look the same.  There is a concept called ‘convergent evolution’ where widely separated species evolve similar characteristics due to a common threat.  For example, there are poison frogs in Madagascar as well as in South America; they are completely unrelated and have evolved different poisons as well as bright colours to warn off potential predators – same ecological pressure with similar solutions.  But the pattern on butterflies’ wings doesn’t seem like the same sort of thing, it looks more like a way of attracting a mate than responding to threats.  When I get back to a reliable internet service, I intend to email some butterfly experts to see whether painted lady butterflies were at some stage introduced to Australia, and who the Kershaw mentioned in the scientific name of the Australian version was.  Watch this space.

Wildlife watching can be a frustrating business – some days you see hardly anything new, sometimes you see hardly anything, and sometimes you are just plain lucky.   We had a very lucky day while staying at Fish Creek in the South-east of Victoria state.  We decided to visit a nearby nature reserve which had good reviews but on the path through the reserve saw little but a few snakes that shot away before we could get a good look at them.  At the end of the path was the steel skeleton of a new bird hide that was to replace one that had been deliberately burned down (it seems vandalism is a global phenomenon) where we met a fellow bird-watcher.  There were not many birds about but when I focussed on one of the ducks on the lake he asked if I had taken its photo as he thought it could be a freckled duck – a real rarity.  The ducks were a long way away so I changed to a longer lens to try and get the closest shot, but the light was against us and it wasn't clear from the camera screen what the duck was.  As he was a local, we asked if he knew anywhere else nearby where we may be able to see more species.  He told us about a trail at Waratah Bay across heathland where we may see something different, so later in the day, we went to try and find it.  We were successful, but it was a long dreary walk uphill and we were tired.  It was basically a fairly long straight fire-break and we didn't even see a kangaroo.  So, we gave up and walked back and Maya called my attention to a bug on the path and we stopped and were chatting about something and I idly glanced up at a tree where there was something that wasn't a nest and had a furriness to it. 

Koala Bear - in the wild!

I pointed it out and Maya got as excited as I was becoming and as we walked nearer to the tree, the koala turned its head to look at us.  We stared back for a good long while as it was the first koala either of us had seen in the wild and this is my fourth trip to Australia.  To cap it all, when I got back and looked at the photographs, the picture of the duck showed that it was indeed the rare freckled duck.  Yes, just plain lucky!

Freckled Duck - Bald Hill Creek Nature Reserve

January 2019

Wallaroos (Hill Kangaroo) Male and female

Wallaroo - male

As you may have guessed from the picture accompanying this column, I am writing this from Australia where I suspect it is a bit warmer than it is in Pett right now.   In Australia, my daughter-in-law puts out seeds for the birds just like we do in the UK, but the range of species that are attracted to the garden are very different.  In the UK we expect to see bluetits, great tits, goldfinches, etc., in other words the commonplace birds.  In Australia we get the commonplace birds as well, but commonplace in Australia means sulphur-crested cockatoo, king parrot and rainbow lorikeets.  The feeders are different as well – parrots’ beaks would make short work of our plastic and metal feeders, so in Australia they use small metal dishes firmly screwed to the balcony rails.  It is, of course, the commonplace that defines the country or region.  There are exotic rarities here, just as there are in the UK, it’s just that they are different rarities, but to get the character of a place you need to concentrate on the everyday common species.  When William Smith compiled his geological map of Britain in 1815, one of the clues he used to determine the underlying rock types was the type of common plants growing above, because plants are determined by the soil type and the soil type is determined by the rocks beneath.  Common plants are common because they are successful, and they are successful because they suit that particular ecological niche, in this case, the soil.

Sulphur-crested Cockatoo

..and a bit closer

Another difference in the birds here is that they are nowhere near as nervous as our UK birds.   I can sit on the balcony typing this with a sulphur-crested cockatoo literally within reach.  This allows me to study them easily and the most striking thing about the cockatoo (apart from its showy crest) is its feet.  It has quite short legs and walks with its ‘heel’ on the ground.  (Birds don’t really have heels.  The joint equivalent to our ankle is normally halfway up the bird’s leg which is why flamingos look as though they have got their knees on back to front.)  This gives them a curious waddling gait but also a stable platform when stood on one leg.  Give a cockatoo a piece of bread and it will hold it in one claw and take bites just as we would eat a sandwich.  Also, when the bird has taken a large seed or a nut it will wrap its claw round the end of its beak so that nothing escapes when the seed cracks open.  For such a big bird (they are about the same size as a buzzard!) this gives them a certain gentleness that you wouldn’t imagine from hearing their almost deafening raucous calls.

King Parrot Male

I visited the Australia Botanical Gardens yesterday and despite the rain, I managed to get some photos of wallaroos that live in the gardens. 

King Parrot (female) - Queen?

(The gardens cover 416 hectares which is over a thousand acres so there are plenty of wild areas for them.)  This involved wading through some long grass to get close enough to the wallaroos.  When I got home, I noticed that my socks had sprouted long wiry hairs and something was pricking my ankles.  On investigation they turned out to be grass seeds, but pulling on the wiry bristle didn’t work, I had to push the seeds through the sock to get them out.  This was because at the base of each seed there was a number of stiff backward pointing spikes that acted like barbs.  I assume that this was an adaptation whereby the seeds, which presumably evolved before socks did, worked deeper into the fur of animals so that they were dispersed further. 

Rainbow lorikeet - I wonder why it's called that?

...and still closer  - admiring its reflection in the lens

Spiky grass seeds - I will try and identify the plant next time.