This article is a special contribution from guest author Hayley Averell. If you’ve seen these birds in your back yard add your comments below because we’d love to hear about them. They are magnificent birds. Australasia’s largest owl is found right on my doorstep, in the beautiful Hunter Valley and Lake Macquarie region of New [...]
Posts under ‘Forests’
In September the male brown antechinus will ponder the proverb ‘Carpe Diem’
When I was younger we learnt about proverbs at school. I always wondered about this one
“A bird in the hand is worth or two in the bush”. This proverb is probably rushing around the minds of male brown antechinus (Antechinus stuartii) during their September mating season. For these little carnivorous marsupials it’s now or never! It’s time for a lek!
Ecological islands on land: a first for New Zealand?
This article describes Maungatautari, a volcano that’s become a native animal refuge in a sea of dairy pasture. New Zealanders have been first at many things. They may also be the first to create ‘islands on land’. That is, ‘ecological islands’ on land, anyway.
The false water rat, habitat mosaics and real estate!
The false water rat (Xeromys moyides) doesn’t live in any old mangroves. They’re picky and look for certain qualities in the real estate they choose. They need a dry house site and safe roads taking them to their supermarkets. Competition for real estate is tough on the edge of a growing city! Find out some more about Australia’s water mouse.
Nothofagus: relics from Gondwana
If you’ve ever walked through a forest of ancient Southern Beech (Nothofagus spp.) you can be forgiven for believing that you have just stepped into another world. You often find these trees growing as rings of giant trunks, covered in hundreds of epiphytes and mosses. But don’t be fooled. The rings of trunks are just the one tree! It’s called coppicing; the tree sends out new shoots radially from the base of the original trunk, and these shoot eventually grow into clones of the parent tree forming a ring of tunks, all belonging to the one tree.
Nest boxes make new homes for sugar gliders
Australia is well known for it’s marsupials and many of them live in the trees. It can get windy, wet and cold living in a tree so a little hollow inside a tree makes a perfect den. Over 300 species of Australian vertebrates use tree hollows as a home for shelter, sleeping, nesting, and escaping predators! But where can they live in a new forest with few old trees?
The Forest Dragons (Hypsilurus spinipes) of the Border Ranges National Park
Have you ever walked through the forest and felt like you were being watched. Well if you were walking in the Border Ranges national park of New South Wales, you probably were being watched by forest dragons!
