I love it when mushrooms pop up in my garden but now winter’s over there’ll be no more until next year. I like looking through my friend’s copy of The Magical World of Fungi by Patricia Negus [1], to ID fungi I come across. Although it may be the drawing of a fairy sitting on a mushroom on the last page which makes me love this book. A Flickr friend told me about the Perth Fungi Field Book [2] which is free to download, so I had my own ID source. I had lots of fun IDing fungi I found and not so much fun realising how difficult it can be to ID fungi.

Fungi species often appear slightly different in different regions. [2]

In August I found some very unusual mushrooms growing in the pine bark mulch of my native garden. They had pointed caps which were intricately crenulated. I’ve had mushrooms with “ordinary” caps popping up in my lawn or vegie garden, but never something quite so alien-looking. The Perth Fungi Field Book came to the rescue and identified them as edible black morels (Morchella elata), not native to Australia, thus like the weed growing behind it, messing up my “native” garden. The name confused me at first because the morels in my garden weren’t black until they started dying, but after picking one to give to my brother to eat, it turned black inside the crenulations.

In The Omnivore’s Dilemma Michael Pollan wrote about searching for black morels in a Californian pine forest the spring following a wildfire [3]. I thought my morels fruited in response to the fire a pine plantation receives prior to felling. Spores could have been caught in the bark and transferred to my garden when I put in the mulch. While the spores did arrive with the mulch, Morchella elata grows away from fires,

on non-burned soils, litter, and duff including non-burned islands in burned areas or on burned soils but then apparently no sooner than the second spring after an intense wildfire. [4]

The morel Michael Pollen searched for could have been Morchella tomentose (formerly Morchella atrotomentosa) which are

burn morels, fruiting the spring following a fire. [4]

As with many fungi, the taxonomy of the Morchellaceae family has not been worked out yet [4], so it’s all very confusing :)

My parent’s garden grows some interesting fungi too (above left). I tentatively IDed this as an Earthball (Scleroderma sp.). They burst like puffballs to release their spores and what’s left is a folded back star shape. This one never opened, just went squishy and rotted away so I’m not certain of my ID. The opened Earthball (above right) is on a bush track in Karnup. Earthballs are in the Sclerodermataceae family as are Dog Poo Fungi (Pisolithus sp.) which are common on winter walks at Star Swamp, and look exactly like dog poo.

My parents also had a massive rippling whitish-cream fungus growing at the base of a dead silky oak (Grevillea robusta). When the tree died most was felled, but 2m of trunk left. At first I thought this amazing fungus was Erupting Russula (Russula erumpens). Erupting was the perfect description for its growth, but the fungus seemed to be growing from the dead tree stump rather than stalks in the ground.

Other ID options were Fan Pax (Tapinella panuoides) or Southern Oyster Mushroom (Pleurotus australis), but I think it’s more likely Hohenbuehelia bingarra. Other Hohenbuehelia sp. have the rippling growth of this fungus. My brother wondered if it was edible, but it wasn’t listed in Recognizing Edible Field Mushrooms [5], so I didn’t think he should try it.

Whatever it was, it’s second in line, after black morels, for strangest looking fungi I found this winter. It was growing under the metal sheeting that protects the woodpile from rain. I broke the fungus a little when I put the sheeting back, but then piled the firewood up to lift the sheet higher. When my parents and brother subsequently took wood from the pile they weren’t quite so careful and next time I saw it, it was squashed.

I had log seats on my front porch that get rained on and last winter they grew what I first thought were Scarlet Bracket Fungi (Pycnoporus coccineus). But bracket fungi don’t have gills and these ones did. Therefore I was slightly baffled. It could be Eucalypt Crepidotus (Crepidotus eucalyptorum). My friend made these seats and he may have used jarrah or another eucalyptus. They are parts of the trunk sliced into seat size and carved with a checkerboard pattern on top. The Crepidotus grew in the gaps between the squares. Before the rain began this year I realised a wet log seat sitting on a wet wooden porch probably isn’t a good idea if I don’t want a rotten porch. So the log seats moved to the paving out the back. They don’t get rained on as much out there and this winter fewer and smaller Crepidotus grew.

Last winter I also found “trumpet” fungi growing in a pot plant in my garden. My name didn’t stick, they were probably Bird’s Nest Fungi (Cyathus sp.), which had lost their peridioles, the “eggs in the nest,” before I found them. Drops of water fall on the peridioles and they shoot out like cannon balls [6]. This photo of Cyathus sp. taken last winter in Canberra still has its peridioles.

For years there’s been two bracket fungi, which may be Wood-layered Bracket Fungi (Phellinus robustus) growing on a Bald Island Marlock (Eucalyptus conferruminata) in my local park. Earlier this year someone broke off most of the larger one. I was worried that was the end of it, but the wound healed and it seems to be surviving well.

=^.^=

References

1. Negus, Patricia (2006) The Magical World of Fungi North Fremantle, WA: Cape to Cape.
2. Bougher, Neale L. (2009) Fungi of the Perth Region and Beyond: A self-managed field book Perth, WA: Western Australian Naturalists’ Club.
3. Pollan, Michael (2006) The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals New York: Penguin.
4. Gibson, Ian (2009) Morels & False Morels of the Pacific Northwest: An Introduction South Vancouver Island, BC: Pacific Northwest Key Council.
5. Hoffmann, Bougher & Wood (2005) Recognizing Edible Field Mushrooms (Gardennote no.47) Perth, WA: Dept of Agriculture.
6. Lepp, Heino (2005) Birds Nest and Cannonball Fungi Canberra, ACT: Australian National Botanic Gardens.

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This is not a sad tale because the hose wept. The hose’s function is to weep, due to the holes punctured in intervals along its length. It’s connected to the drainage hole at the bottom of my rainwater tank and on days when there’s no rain in sight, I turn it on for 20 minutes to water one of my vegie garden beds. The sad part of this tale happened this morning. I went out to turn it on, finding to my horror that it already was and had been weeping for twenty four hours! If only its sobs were louder, I would have ended those wasted tears.

I like to blame Sheeba the dog for any problem in the garden. She’s the culprit when freshly dug holes are concerned, but I don’t think she’s quite mastered turning a tap. The culprit in this instance is my brain on thesis. Zoë S. drew an anatomically correct diagram of this phenomenon. As you can see the (red) area of brain left for accomplishing tasks like turning on and off taps at the correct time is very small, thus it’s amazing such a water crisis hasn’t happened before.

A day ago there was about 1200L in the tank, now there’s 300L. The bean seeds that I bemoaned were taking so long to pop up; all have now thanks to the generous soaking. I wondered if 900L would be enough for their whole life, but I have a feeling it doesn’t work like that. The tomato seedlings I just planted in the very sunny other vegie bed got none of this soaking, which they needed – stupid weeping hose. Why do you do everything wrong!?

Last year my rainwater tank was installed at about this time. I didn’t think I’d have a tank of water til winter this year, but the unusual spring downpours filled it before summer. It would be nice if the same huge amount of rain fell this November, but I’m not counting on it. No more rainwater to drink this summer :(

And cause it hasn’t rained the pond really needs a bucket or two of non-chlorinated water right now – stupid rain, stupid hose, stupid thesis!

=^.^=

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long grass in need of mowing

daisies flowering after mowing the verge

grey butcherbird visiting the garden last year

Ms Butcher in the neighbour’s palm

while Mr Butcher looks the other way

grey butcherbird catching the sunset on the electricity line

On Saturday while catching some sun in the garden a red wattlebird (Anthochaera carnunculata) landed in the not so tall tuart. He hopped from branch to branch, then was dive-bombed by the butcherbird. I thought at first the attacker was another wattlebird cause that’s the kind of thing they do, but the butcherbird flew to the electricity line in triumph and I could see his colouring. Obviously my garden is not for sharing. The day after, on Sunday I was sitting with Sheeba in the shade of the tuart, it gives some nice shade despite being not so tall, and a red wattlebird landed on the birdbath a metre away. He could see us nearby, but he was happy to take a few sips of water and then fly off. It was pretty hot (26°C), so we weren’t going to scare him away from his drink.

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My title came from a search someone did and ended up at my blog. I’m not sure where “we” lives, but if they live in Perth, on 29 July when they did the search I thought Perth’s rain was over for the winter. I was wrong, but we did have 11 days of no rain from 26 July to 5 August. Temperatures hovered around 20°C and it felt like summer had arrived.

In July rain fell on only 16 days, half a month of no rain when July is Perth’s wettest month. I can’t believe I had to water some of my garden!? It was from the rainwater tank so it’s been replaced since then, but one morning I spent too long watering, missed my bus and had to wait half an hour for the next one. Despite so many fine days we still received 149.6mm of rain, only slightly below July’s average rainfall of 152.9mm. In June we received 20mm above the average, so for the two months rainfall was higher than average.

The past week the rain fell in earnest, with high winds to make for real winter weather. At 9:30 yesterday morning there was quite a bit of cloud cover over Perth, the southwest and the wheatbelt, which has been dumping the downpours on us. Today there were lots of sun showers and fine periods. When I was a kid my family called a sun shower a Monkey’s Picnic. I thought this was what everyone called them. It was only a few years ago that I discovered my family are the only people in the universe who call them that, but I still say Monkey’s Picnic whenever it rains when the sun’s shining.

JR the weatherman chats on RTRfm on Thursday mornings and in the middle of the 11 day summer interlude he said the record for a dry spell in winter was 28 days in 1902. That year had Perth’s warmest and driest August on record. We didn’t quite make the record this year and Perth is far from having rainfall deficiencies this winter, although other places are not faring so well.

For the 24-month period from August 2007 to July 2009, serious to severe rainfall deficiencies remain evident across much of southeast Australia and parts of central Australia. These regions experienced some average to above average rainfall during the final months of both 2007 and 2008, as well as through the most recent autumn. However, most months through the period were drier than the long-term mean, especially during the growing seasons. Both 2007 and 2008 were classified as positive Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) years, which is likely to have contributed partly to the low winter and spring rainfall recorded across parts of southern Australia during both these years.

The news isn’t so good for very long term rainfall patterns in the southwest of WA and other areas.

Very long-term rainfall deficiencies outside of the drought periods discussed above persist across parts of southern and eastern Australia. Most notably, rainfall has been below average across much of southwest and southeast Australia since 1997, while the Murray-Darling Basin has experienced below average rainfall since 2002.

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My house wasn’t sustainably designed. It faces east west, which you want to avoid when designing with passive solar principles in mind. The back of my house was once a verandah, but whoever enclosed it didn’t bring their brain to work that day. Glass walls facing west aren’t a good idea. Every summer afternoon my back room bakes, lightly toasting the rest of the house. It’s a nice place to pass the time on a sunny winter afternoon, but during summer the blinds are permanently closed and still my house cooks.

The solution was a hedge of woolly bushes, not against the windows, but against the back fence a couple of metres from the house. Although I should have done this five years ago, a hedge is now growing to shade my wall of windows. It’s not quite hedge-like at the moment, more a row of foot high plants, but in a few years it’ll be up to 4m high and in need of regular pruning into the hedgely shape I desire.

There is a problem with woolly bushes – their shallow root systems. My friends at Nuts about Natives have a planting of Albany woolly bushes which are all about 4m high and last winter one was uprooted in a high wind. It didn’t cause any damage because it landed among its neighbours. In the last weekend of June this winter the very high winds caused a lot of damage in Perth. The gusts of up to 72km/h uprooted two of a neighbour’s pencil pines which knocked down part of his fence. I hope this doesn’t happen with any of the woolly bushes as my new hedge grows. During the winds of that weekend my tuart was severely buffeted but the flexibility of its young trunk meant it survived without damage. As it grows taller it’s more likely to lose branches and cause damage, but I hope this won’t happen. The tuarts and other gum trees (particularly illyarrie) in the park where I walk Sheeba the dog lost a few branches that weekend.

There are two options for a woolly bush hedge: the Albany woolly bush (Adenanthos sericeus) or Adenanthos cygnorum endemic to Perth. Both grow to 4m, but the Albany woolly bush is more widely available from nurseries. It’s easier to propagate and looks “prettier.” They both have insignificant flowers, but the orange flowers of the Albany woolly bush are more noticeable. I wanted the Perth woolly bush to keep with my aim of a garden of mostly plants endemic to Perth and I got them from Lullfitz Nursery in Wanneroo.

My back area is paved and my dad and I removed a strip of paving against the back fence for the new garden. During the excavation I dug up a tiny plastic doll and she has taken up residence in a woolly bush. While the woolly bushes are small I’ve planted everlasting daisies (Rhodanthe chlorocephala ssp. rosea), Rottnest Island daisies (Trachymene coerulea) and Swan River daisies (Brachyscome iberidifolia) to fill the spaces with spring and summer colour. They’re annuals and self seed, so they’ll return every spring, but when the woolly bushes get to a certain height they’ll crowd them out. Snails and caterpillars find everlastings particularly tasty, so I’ve been killing them* left, right and centre. A couple of years ago I planted snakebush (Hemiandra pungens) further down the fence. Bobtail lizards (Tiliqua rugosa) love the flowers of snakebush, which I hope will entice them into my garden. Bobtails live in the empty block two doors down** and perhaps this summer they’ll visit my garden for some tasty treats of snakebush flowers and snails.

=^.^=

Notes

* I use iron chelate (EDTA complex) snail bait and Bt for caterpillars which aren’t harmful to other critters.

** I hope this block never gets developed. Apart from bobtails and assorted dumped rubbish, it has the brick fireplace of the house, when the rest was demolished, and a beautiful (and huge) stinkwood (Jacksonia sternbergiana).

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Last year I blogged about whether dingos were Australian, due to their (relatively) recent arrival in Australia from Asia. The Complete Book of Australian Mammals includes dingos (Canis lupus ssp. dingo) in the Introduced Mammals section [1]. The Introduced Species Summary Project of Columbia University also lists dingos, but describes them as “a near-native species of Australia” and details conservation measures needed to protect the species [2]. The Federal government lists the dingo as native fauna and they’re protected in National Parks, World Heritage areas, Aboriginal reserves and the ACT [3].

Indigenous Australians arrived in Australia 50,000 years ago and dingos were thought to have arrived with them [2], but it’s now believed they arrived more recently with Asian seafarers [4]. In 1983 the oldest dingo fossil was an almost complete skeleton aged about 3,000 years [1], although more recent fossil and archaeological evidence dates their arrival around 3,500 years ago [2] (improved carbon dating techniques and new fossil finds lead to amendments in the date of arrival).

Dingos never got to Tasmania because they arrived later than 14,000 years, when Bass Strait formed [1]. The lack of competition from dingos in Tasmania led to survival of thylacines (Thylacinus cynocephalus) and Tasmanian devils (Sarcophilus harrisii), but not on the mainland. European settlers proceeded to kill all the thylacines* [5] and almost all Tasmania’s Indigenous Australians [6]. Tasmanian devils are currently in danger of extinction due to facial tumour disease [7].

I love dogs, so of course I love dingos. I also love wolves (Canis lupus), but I know a wolf in Australia would be so wrong and cause enormous havoc. Along with the first Indigenous Australians, dingos wrought enormous change on the flora, fauna and landscape of Australia – a very different Australia to one we know. Both people and dingos contributed to these changes, but other factors such as Ice Ages may have also played a part. Since European settlers arrived 200 years ago we’ve probably done more damage.

Dingos occur throughout Australia, except Tasmania, although many populations include hybrid wild dogs.

Pure dingoes are common in northern, northwestern and central regions, rare in southern and north-eastern regions, and probably extinct in the south-eastern and south-western regions. [3]

There are two strains of dingo: the alpine type which is short, stocky and more fluffy, and the tropical or arid type. The larger populations of pure wild dingos in the  northern, northwestern and central regions are of the tropical or arid type. They have long legs for speed and are leaner for endurance over the vast distances they roam. They can also go without water for much longer.

While pure dingos are genetically different to domestic dogs, breeding with wild or domestic dogs produces viable offspring. Dingos are listed as a vulnerable species in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. The biggest threat to the species is hybridization with dogs, contributing to the loss of the pure dingo strain [3]. The Dingo Discovery Sanctuary and Research Centre says,

Purity is doomed in the wild, unless a safe reserve can be found for them which is free of hybrid wild dogs.

Dingos have always been considered a pest by famers due to attacks on sheep and young cattle [4]. They are killed for this reason and the longest fence in the world (8,500 km) was built from SA to Qld in an attempt to keep dingos from grazing lands in south eastern Australia [1]. I knew a horse breeder who had a dingo cross. She was a beautiful dog, but could escape from anywhere. Due to the neighbouring farmer threatening to shoot her the next time he saw her, she wore a horse bit attached to her collar to slow her down, so she would be less likely to wander near his sheep and rifle.

Many native animals can be privately owned (from captive breeding) with a permit from the State government. In WA this does not cover pure dingos, private ownership is not allowed. The Dingo Discovery Sanctuary and Research Centre in Victoria breeds pure dingos from their colony which represents an unbroken genetic line from the neolithic canid that first crossed the domestic threshold (the DNA is tested by the UNSW). People in Victoria, NSW, NT** or the ACT can buy a dingo pup from the Sanctuary, but this entails a lot more commitment than getting a mutt from the pound or buying a pure bred domestic dog.

Dingos need their bonded humans, other pets and familiar surroundings for their lifetime. They cannot be successfully boarded out, or re-homed. Your commitment must therefore be seriously considered, and for the life of your dingo which may well be 18 years.

An easier way to have your own is to Sponsor a Dingo from the Sanctuary or make a Donation to the Australian Dingo Foundation. The Foundation is committed to ensuring conservation of the pure dingo through the Sanctuary and ongoing research. You can also donate through the WA Dingo Association.

=^.^=

Notes

* Rounsevell contends it may not have been only hunting which led to the thylacine’s extinction. An epidemic at the turn of the 20th century decimated the population of Tasmanian devils, and quolls on the mainland, and may have contributed to the thylacine’s extinction [5].

** The Sanctuary consists mostly of the alpine type (of which there are less in the wild), but dingos in the NT are of the tropical type. The Sanctuary’s breeding program keeps the two strains separate.

Credits

Reflections of a Dingo at Johnston Lakes, Goldfields, WA by Alan Carmichael. Thank you to Alan for explaining the differences between the alpine and arid dingos. I assumed arid and tropical dingos are the same strain, but if I got this wrong, it’s not Alan’s fault :P

Thank you to Dimitrije Nikic for telling me about the Dingo Discovery Sanctuary and Research Centre in Victoria. He has some amazing photos of his dingo mates at the Sanctuary.

References

1. Newsome, A.E. (1983) “Dingo” in Strahan (Ed.) The Australian Museum Complete Book of Australian Mammals: The National Photographic Index of Australian Wildlife. Sydney: Angus & Robertson. pp.483-485
2. Garrish, Amelia (2005) Dingo Canis lupus dingo in Introduced Species Summary Project. New York: Columbia University
3. Corbett, L.K. (2008) Canis lupus ssp. dingo. In: IUCN 2009. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2009.1. <http://www.iucnredlist.org/> Downloaded 2 August 2009.
4. Thomson, Peter (2008) Dingo Farmnote 133/2000. WA Department of Agriculture.
5. Rounsevell, D.E. (1983) “Thylacine” in Strahan (Ed.) The Australian Museum Complete Book of Australian Mammals: The National Photographic Index of Australian Wildlife. Sydney: Angus & Robertson. pp.81-83
6. Onsman, Andrys (2004) “Truganini’s Funeral” Island Magazine no.96, p.39-52
7. Tasmanian Dept of Primary Industries and Water (2009) Devil Facial Tumour Disease

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Last year I blogged about getting a rainwater tank and said I’d be drinking rainwater soon. I got it at the end of winter, but it filled with rain from the unusual downpours in November. I didn’t start drinking it then because my dad suggested I don’t drink the initial water, to ensure any contaminants from manufacture were washed away. Over summer I used the water on the garden and the tank filled again this winter. Now, nine months later, I’m drinking rainwater from my tank.

The first time I drank water from the tank it tasted so different to mains water from the kitchen tap. I thought it tasted purer, but that might be the only way I can think of to describe the difference. I have an old house, with ancient plumbing and I’m sure this does something to the water. In summer I don’t like drinking it straight from the tap, I refrigerate it first. In winter the cold air refrigerates it, so I don’t taste whatever it is I don’t like* (and it is the plumbing that affects the taste, not chlorine or fluoride or whatever, I’m happy to drink water straight from the tap at other houses). After drinking rainwater for a few weeks I’ve got used to whatever the difference is and it just tastes like water now, but I still love drinking it. Water is my favourite drink.

I have a number of cleaning and filtration methods to ensure the water I’m drinking is as pure as when it fell from the sky.

• Leaf Eater on the pipe coming from the gutter
• First Flush Diverter to wash the roof and gutter every time it rains and I clean the filter after rain because it gets pretty mucky
• Screen covering the opening to the tank
• Ceramic and charcoal filter in the kitchen

The tap on the tank leaks. It’s not a huge amount, but when I noticed in summer I decided to tighten the tap when the water got below the tap line. When I stopped seeing the trail of water I forgot all about fixing it and it’s still leaking. Next time the tank empties I hope I remember.

*Note: I don’t think this taste difference has any untoward health effects because I’ve been drinking water from my old pipes for five years.

=^.^=

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I just read Quarry Vision by Guy Pearse. I’m a bit slow because it’s no longer the most recent issue of Quarterly Essay. When it came out I wasn’t sure if I wanted to read it. I assumed it was more of Pearse’s results from his PhD thesis on Australia’s greenhouse mafia, otherwise known as the Australian Industry Greenhouse Network (AIGN),

an alliance representing almost all of Australia’s biggest fossil-energy producers and consumers, either directly or through their industry associations. [1] p.38

Not that I wasn’t interested in his research. He wrote High & Dry [2] a couple of years ago and I thought I’d heard all there was to tell, but I was wrong.

As I read the first few pages of Quarry Vision I thought, don’t we all know CCS is a pipedream of the coal industry and something drastic needs to be done about greenhouse gas emissions, but no government wants to. I kept reading and now I know why nothing much has changed in terms of Australia’s climate change policy. Rudd et al would like us to think otherwise, but while a different political party is in power,

the deep pockets of the Australian carbon lobby have made its members ubiquitous. [1] p.37

Since 1998 both major political parties in Australia received donations from organisations represented by AIGN. While companies are more likely to donate to the Liberal Party, Labor receives donations from all the associated unions. The Mining and Energy Division of the CFMEU annually donates large sums.

In 2007-08 its $700 000 donation was the largest external contribution made to the national secretariat of the Labor Party. [1] p.39

As with Liberal candidates, Labor candidates are recruited from the industries making up the carbon lobby. Jason Clare was elected in 2007 and subsequently joined the House of Representatives Committee on Infrastructure and Transport. He’s probably not championing public transport because he’s the

long time manager of corporate relations for Transurban, the biggest owner of Sydney and Melbourne toll roads. [1] p.40

I’ve never thought much of political parties supposed “differences,” but in the lead up to the 2007 election this somehow slipped my mind. When I was seventeen and naive I got all excited about joining the electoral roll. Then I spent the next decade going to a polling place on election day to get my name crossed off – exercising my right not to vote. It’s not illegal not to vote, it’s illegal not to get your name crossed off. I was very happy the day I moved house and “forgot” to change my address on the electoral roll and also devised a cunning strategy to the convince the Australian Electoral Commission there was someone living in my house who did not have to be on the electoral roll (he did live with me for a few months, so it wasn’t a total lie). My life was perfect until people started telling me I had to vote in 2007, otherwise the world would end. I put myself back on the electoral roll, voted, my vote made no difference to the outcome of the election (while Labor won, the Liberal candidate in my electorate won his seat. I did vote Green in the senate, but whatever). Now I’m stuck on the stupid roll again and Guy Pearse detailed for me all the ways the participants change from year to year, but the ideology never does.

In the lead up to the 2007 election I read articles in The Australian newspaper by Matthew Warren, their environment reporter. (Obviously my brain was addled in more ways than one – environment articles in the Australian newspaper!?) Now I discover Warren was a former PR person in the coal industry and after the election became CEO of the Clean Energy Council (p.42). The Clean Energy Council membership includes companies which deal in solar, wind, geothermal, hydro, bioenergy, and gas (LNG) electricity generation. This is evident on their website, but Pearse notes membership is dominated by “companies whose focus is oil or the unfettered expansion of coal mining and burning,” with “relatively small stakes in cleaner energy” (p.38), not so clearly displayed online.

The Clean Energy Council recently released the Carbon and Renewable Energy Markets Report which includes information on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS). I can’t read the report to find out what they said because I’m not a member. Last November Dr Richard Denniss from The Australia Institute brought to light the flaw in the CPRS which means as well as carbon emissions not rising above a certain level, they cannot fall below that level. In Pearse’s critique of the CPRS he focused on the huge compensation provided to industries which produce the biggest carbon emissions (p.63), including coal mining, coal fired power stations and Woodside’s LNG production (p.69). When used to generate electricity LNG emits 60% less greenhouse gases than equivalent coal fired plants [3], but how does this necessitate handing them free permits? Woodside’s LNG production in WA’s north decimates pristine wilderness and Aboriginal rock art. I always thought the point of a CPRS was to put a price on carbon emissions so less were produced, the Australian government obviously doesn’t agree (p.70) and the industries receiving the government’s handouts want even more!? (p.72)

Like his predecessor, Rudd’s government is enamoured of CCS (clean coal) and Pearse examined why it’s not a solution to climate change. That part bored me, but I guess there are a few people who haven’t got it.

The spectacular growth industry is not clean coal, but clean coal PR. [1] p.79

Because I took so long to read Quarry Vision, I had the next Quarterly Essay and I could read the correspondence [4] immediately. I was surprised at the lack of dissenting voices. Surely someone in Penny Wong’s office noticed a publication of such importance to her portfolio. If so they didn’t care about it, probably about as much as they care about climate change. Pearse provided the solution of ending coal mining and export, and the main critique from correspondents was this was about as likely to happen as CCS fixing climate change. (Some correspondents said this wouldn’t be feasible/helpful/”good”. I just think the carbon lobby wouldn’t allow it). In concluding Quarry Vision Pearse noted,

It is up to governments to make hard policy decisions like this one, not BHP Billiton or Rio Tinto. [1] p.92

Unfortunately Rudd’s government enjoys making hay while the sun shines. It’s a shame most of the people making these decisions (and donating the huge sums of money) might not be around to experience the full impact of our carbon addiction, or perhaps it’ll happen sooner rather than later and they will be.

=^.^=

Note:

If you’re wondering what relevance the photo of a jabiru (black necked stork) has to this story, the way we’re going the rise in oceans which will occur due to climate change is likely to inundate the wetlands of Kakadu and there might be a few upset residents, jabirus being one of many.

References

1. Pearse, Guy (2009) “Quarry Vision: Coal, Climate Change and the End of the Resources Boom” Quarterly Essay, no.32.
2. Pearse, Guy (2007) High & Dry: John Howard, Climate Change and the Selling of Australia’s Future. Camberwell, Vic: Penguin.
3. McNeil, Ben (2007) “An addiction that fouls the air” The Sydney Morning Herald, 16 January.
4. “Quarry Vision: Correspondence” (2009) in Stop at Nothing Quarterly Essay, no.33, pp.101-126.

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Earlier this year I blogged about the insect infestation of the young tuart in my garden.

Unfortunately the insects that have already made homes among the tuart’s leaves are causing quite a bit of damage…The problem is the sap-sucking psyllids, also known as eucalyptus lerps, because the nymph constructs a “lerp” to hide under.

In the course of my investigations as to what insect was causing all the damage I decided it was lerps, even though the lerps I’ve seen on other gum trees looked nothing like what this lorikeet is eating in my garden (see above). I figured there must be some lerps somewhere up high that I couldn’t see. This is an example of why you shouldn’t believe everything you read on a blog (or the web) because I may have been wrong :P

After reading the amazing children’s book Tuart Dwellers by Jan Ramage and Ellen Hickman (Dept. of Environment & Conservation, 2008) I realised the insect culprit causing the mass defoliation over summer might be the tuart leaf miner. The picture in Tuart Dwellers (p.27) looks more like what covered so many leaves and led to their death. There are still many leaves suffering, but healthy leaves happily photosynthesizing are outnumbering them.

Although Jan Ramage and Ellen Hickman didn’t mention lerps in Tuart Dwellers, they did get their facts right because this non-fiction picture book was fact-checked by scientists at the WA Dept of Environment & Conservation and local universities who are experts in tuarts and their associated wildlife. In April the book was shortlisted for the Children’s Book Council of Australia Eve Pownall Book of the Year Award 2009. I’m looking forward to the announcement of the winners in August during Children’s Book Week to see if one of my favourite books from last year wins.

There was (and is) various other insects attacking the leaves, but not to the extent caused by the leaf miner. Some of the other insect dwellers in my tuart are:

• male scale insects which cause galls on the leaves
• other insects which cause galls on the branches
• leaf eating beetles or weevils which eat leaves in a “shark fin” shape
• caterpillars which eat leaves in a serrated shape

The birds which have dwelled (fleetingly) in my tuart include:

• rainbow lorikeets (Trichoglossus haematodus)
• singing honeyeaters (Lichenostomus virescens)
• red wattle birds (Anthochaera carnunculata)

There are willy wagtails, magpies, ravens, mudlarks, grey butcherbirds, twenty eight parrots, galahs, and Carnaby’s black cockatoos which visit my garden or the area, but my tuart is still too small for them. There are also rainbow bee-eaters (in summer/autumn) in the reserves near my house, but I’ve never seen them outside the reserves. I’m also hoping motorbike frogs (or any other frog) will visit my pond under the tuart, one day.

When I was at Star Swamp last week for the meeting of the Northern suburbs branch of the Wildflower Society of Western Australia I saw a Tawny Frogmouth (Podargus strigoides) sitting in a tuart. You only usually hear these night birds (which aren’t owls) or see them if you’re spotlighting with a torch. As I pulled into a parking spot my car headlights acted as a spotlight and lit up the tawny frogmouth perched in the tuart next to the carpark. I thought he would be scared away by the sudden light, but he sat there as I parked, watched him for a moment and got out of the car in the near total dark. It wasn’t quite total dark because I could still make him out. When I went inside and asked Phyllis for help with the ID she wanted to come out and see him and he was still sitting there, waiting for his dinner. One day there might be tawny frogmouths, boobook owls or barking owls (see below) in my tuart, but it’s probably a bit small for them yet.

My tuart is now five and a half years old and shooting up toward the sky. Last winter it was about 2½m tall. A year later it is about 3½m and higher than the gutter of my house.

Note:

The photo of a barking owl was taken in Darwin, NT, so it’s the northern form, which is slightly different to the barking owls in Perth. The underside of the southern form is streaked dark brown instead of the reddish brown of this photo.

Reference

Ramage, Jan & Hickman, Ellen (2008) Tuart Dwellers Perth, WA: DEC

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The rain over the past couple of days has filled the pond in my garden and it’s very close to overflowing. I planted Phlebocarya ciliata, a bog plant, in the area where the overflow will run, so it should enjoy this winter wet area. It’s in the Haemodoraceae family along with kangaroo paws. The plant structure looks similar, but it likes damp swampy ground, unlike kangaroo paws. I also got hoary twine rush (Meeboldina cana) for the water and removed one of the Villarsia from the water and planted it in the overflow area. Villarsia like boggy areas or shallow water, so it should do as well in the ground as it did in the pond.

I’m still uncertain about the identification of the three Villarsia. The plant I thought was Villarsia albiflora is not. It flowered very prettily in yellow, not white. The flowers looked similar to the first flowering Villarsia (now in the ground) but slightly bigger and the plant structure and leaves are very different. It might be Villarsia latifolia. The third Villarsia has not yet flowered, so I’m waiting impatiently (until next summer) to see whether its flowers will be the white of Villarsia albiflora.

In November when I got the Baumea preissii it had only just been broken off the main plant and re-potted and was not certain to survive. It did and it’s currently growing towards taking over the pond.

Soon after putting in the pond mosquitoes started breeding. Despite spiders building numerous webs above the water to catch all the flying insects, I thought I’d better introduce some aquatic predators. I wanted to get Western Pygmy Perch (Nannoperca vittata) which are endemic to Perth and the south west, but they were $15 each. I worried I might kill them, which could become expensive, so I got the cheaper White Cloud Mountain minnows (Tanichthys albonubes). They’re native to White Cloud Mountain in Guǎngdōng, China. The White Clouds liked their new home so much they bred excessively over summer. They quickly devoured all mosquito larvae and any other non-vertebrate that landed or hatched in the pond, as long as it was small enough for their minnow mouth. (They’re only about 3cm long.) This means the large number now living in the pond haven’t outgrown their habitat, but they’ve exhausted the animal delicacies and now have to live off algae, which won’t be running out soon.

Every now and then I pick a minnow-mouth-sized-caterpillar off one of the native plants and throw it in the pond, where a lucky White Cloud gets a treat. The Acacia truncata is covered in these tiny caterpillars. They strip a section of leaves, move on to another, and the stripped section shoots profusely so there are even more leaves. I guess the two evolved together, so I don’t pick them all off. Unfortunately the caterpillars which occasionally attack my vegies are too big for minnow mouths.

I’m hoping frogs will arrive sometime this winter. There’s lots of rocks in the water and branches leading into the water so they can get in and out easily. The minnows don’t eat frog eggs (supposedly) so there might even be tadpoles.

=^.^=

photo credits

white villarsia flower growing in south west WA by Uncle Pedro
all other photos by Clare Snow