Wildlife Australia - Summer 2004 - Practical Wildlife

Major Mtchell’s cockatoos are one of many species with a rapid rain response, nesting and fledging their young during the brief spell of good foraging while plants grow, bloom and seed.

The cockatoos need large areas of undisturbed bushland to maintain breeding populations, and they are also among the unusually large number of species in Australia which depend on tree hollows for nesting sites. Nest boxes can never replace the mature trees lost to land clearing but, as Frank Box says, ‘We ought to do something’.

 

Contents...

Rain: arid Australia's ‘on’ switch

By Steve Wilson

Earlier this year, photographer and naturalist Steve Wilson was in the arid Coopers Creek region near Windorah, enthralled by the explosion of activity triggered by recent rains. Spotting an intriguing hollow in a coolabah tree, he thought, “I’ll just have a look in there.” He climbed up to investigate and discovered that not only was the hollow occupied, the occupant was a Major Mitchell’s cockatoo, notoriously territorial about nesting sites. “We both got a shock;’ says Wilson, “but I did get a picture as well.”

 

Two dollar death

By Louise Saunders

Monofilament fruit netting, although cheap, is no bargain. It’s a death trap. Where are the warnings, and what are the alternatives?

You read a lot of labels, and sometimes even the labels don’t contain important warnings. That is happening at the moment with monofilament garden netting. It’s cheap and easily available, and Louise Saunders is on a crusade to ensure people know how cruel and dangerous it is, and to remind us that there are alternatives.

 

A blushing disclosure

By Brian Lowry

From a distance those attractive pink clusters in rainforest vegetation may look like flowers, but they're not.

Roses are red, violets are blue, grass is green and leaves are too... except then they are pink, or blue, or red. But why? The predominant colours in the rainforest are green, green and more green. The occasional glimpses of red or blue cause a moment of excitement - could it be a flower? No, how disappointing, just more leaves.

 

The bobtail blues

By Lee K Curtis

Healthy bobtails browse happily on blue and yellow flowers but when their yellow blood turns green, it’s time for a visit to The Bobtail Hilton.

A previous Wildlife Australia article set off research into a mystery disease affecting a skink that looks and apparently acts, more or less like a pine cone with a touching devotion to its partner. Despite previous theory that it could be a very virulent virus, the researchers have recently determined that the disease is, in fact, not viral - however, origins of the disease are still purely speculative.

 

Save wildlife ... or the duck jumps

By Saren Starbridge

Designing, installing and monitoring nest boxes can never replace all the valuable hollows in the old native trees we carelessly clear. But it can enhance school grounds and music festivals, help research and provide satisfying and close-up wildlife moments - such as watching a wood duckling in the natural but breathtaking process of leaving its nest.

 

It’s the pits: monitoring turtle breeding at Mon Repos

By Bleuenn Marchand

'Is it a turtle?'. 'No its a rock!'. 'Are you sure?'. 'No!'. 15 minutes later - it's a rock. Volunteers have been returning since the 1970s and so has a tagged loggerhead.

Every year, cumbersome marine reptiles crawl up out of the ocean at Mon Repos on the central Queensland coast. For decades now, volunteers have been there to meet and assist the animals in achieving the purpose of their visit. How often do reptiles elicit this level of public sympathy and support? And it looks like it is making a difference to their survival.

 

To catch a dragon

By Michael Snedic

Endangered in ACT and NSW, Critically endangered in Victoria and only recently discovered in Queensland, the grassland earless dragon is attracting research interest. Can it survive in agricultural areas as well as its native grassland habitat?

Strip-cropping conserves soils in agricultural land, and it could save endangered grassland earless dragons as well.

 

Cyber Jungle

Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland
WIRES
ORRCA
Save ADI
Hands-on for habitat
Birdwatching Australia

Also in this edition:

Editorial, Comment, Take only Pictures, City Animal, Scratchings and Rustlings, NatureWatch, Books Reviews, Summer Skies, Young and Wild, WPSQ in Action, Swamp Cartoon and our regular environmental crossword.

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