If you stand still too long around here, the bush will claim you.

When you live in the country, opening the bedroom curtains in the morning can bring all sorts of surprises!

The amazing @rebeccajquah.bsky.social who I have the privilege of supervising, just got her first PhD paper published. She used eDNA to examine the diet of the world’s rarest marsupial and explores how this approach can help find new suitable habitat. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Woah, a ghastly murder scene on our property? No it’s just the annual Marri tree sap season! Also called Red Gums, Marri (Corymbia calophylla) can exude an intense blood-like sap from the main trunk. In fact the name Marri is indigenous Noongar for 🩸

Some local ag show highlights from the handsome roosters through to the goat judging! Our local show is in its 70th year and I hope it will get the community support to continue. A worrying majority of the judges and committee are very old!

And he takes the fig double crown! 7 years in the making this one.

All ready for the local agricultural show. Will there be any gold this year? I’ve previously won first place for my Strawberry and Apricot Jam but have kept getting second for my fig jam - losing to a fig and ginger jam! This years secret weapon is a white fig jam made with apple port. Wish me luck!

It’s fair to say that this succulent really is the star of the front garden right now!

Nothing is as cathartic as newly made firebreaks and a driveway fixed up from the winter erosion.

Thelymitra crinita flowering on our place today. Love these native “blue lady” orchids. Once our block was covered in them but the 7 resident kangaroos have severely reduced plant survival!

AI 'limits my creative thinking' www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Applications now open for the position of Director of Pacific Biosciences Reseach Center, at University of Hawaiʻi. PBRC fosters cutting-edge research across cellular, molecular, developmental, ecological, evolutionary, and conservation biology—with a focus on Hawaiʻi and the Pacific.

Bird folks. You have just one day left for earlybird registration for the Australasian Ornithology Conference in Perth in just 50 days time! Get in fast because I’m pleased to say it has been so popular that we will be closing registration soon. aoc.org.au/registration/

This is living. Best end to a Saturday of fuel reduction activities with the 9 year old.

This is living. Best end to a Saturday of fuel reduction activities with the 9 year old.

How the long weekend finds me

[COMMENTARY] Since 2014, Samoa’s “little dodo” has been listed as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List. But an underfunded conservation effort could still snatch this fascinating species from the extinction list, a new commentary argues. ** The views expressed are those of the author.

The spring orchard smells divine and is festooned with blossom! Pears, Apricots and Plums are giving it their all.

Mala’s favourite job is being let into the pool area to “chase” the kangaroos that lurk in the bush outside the pool fence. At 10.5 she still has plenty of cattle dog energy!

Tomorrow I’m crossing the continent on my way to Bridgetown for Grounded Australia. I’ll be giving two talks—spreading the good word on mistletoe and discussing why productive farmland is crucial for safeguarding wildlife populations groundedaustralia.com.au

A local beauty that caught my eye is this stunning member of the Proteaceae: Petrophile biloba. Occupying a narrow range in the Darling Range from north near Bindoon to south near Serpentine, it can often be seen lining roadsides in the Perth Hills.

A rainy day made for a good opportunity to make more hot sauce and use up the last of the Serrano and Tabasco 🌶️.

Spring garden is coming into its own

Another bird silently slips into extinction. In south-west Western Australia there was an endemic subspecies of Lewin’s Rail. It is poorly known and enigmatic. In our latest paper, we document all known specimens and sightings. Is it still out there? afo.birdlife.org.au/afo/index.ph...

Back to catching Italian wall lizards (Podarcis siculus) in NY!

Accomplishment of the day was getting a Taylor Swift lyric legitimately worked in to an online meeting 🎶

It’s Wattle Day! Here’s one of my faves. The Sandpaper Wattle Acacia denticulosa is one I was lucky to see in the wild before knowing they were in cultivation. They are threatened and restricted to a small number of granite outcrops in the WA wheatbelt. They have big flowers and rough leaves.

A good reminder of the vagaries of rainfall. While Perth is rejoicing in its wettest winter in decades, we in the (hills 23 km from the Perth gauge), are below the average for every month so far and 135mm in deficit to the long term average. We still need 210mm to meet our annual average.

On this day 11 years ago I achieved a bucket list dream and helped survey for the Japanese Giant Salamander near Hiroshima. Although its close relative the Chinese Giant Salamander is extremely rare and declining in the wild, the Japanese species has long been protected but is listed a Vulnerable.

One of the common understory plants of SW Western Australia, this is Banksia dallanneyi. A good source of nectar for birds, insects and the honey possum. It’s common on our block in the Perth Hills.

The weirdo of the orchid world. Bird orchids Pterostylis barbata are one of 13 orchid species on our 5 acres.

September 19 and 20, I’ll be joining a fab group of speakers at the second GROUNDED festival. Part scientific conference, part field day, part food festival. There are so many win-wins in the agriculture and environment space—come along and help celebrate them! groundedaustralia.com.au

Met a lovely new friend in the garden today. @inaturalist.bsky.social tells me it’s a Western Variable Wolf Spider (Venator immansuetus).

#conservationoptimism Experts thought the critically endangered Sumatran rhino population in southern Sumatra's Way Kambas National Park had gone extinct But now Working Dogs for Conservation has detected several signs of them in the park, @jeremyhance.bsky.social reports for @mongabay.com

Here, I suggest one lineage of Neotropical mistletoe-dependent birds has spread these parasitic plants for ~25 million years; specialising 5 X. In review at Oikos but also,simultaneous like, available for review as a preprint. Forgive the very professional formatting www.authorea.com/doi/full/10....

Winter edge burning along the driveway is always a good reminder that grasstrees are a potent firebomb in the making.

Wreath leschenaultia is an unusual and highly sought out wildflower wonder of the West Oz wheatbelt in spring.

Another great find at Mt Gibson. This is Acacia cerastes which is a Priority-listed species of wattle known from very few locations.

Neat new study out by my ex PhD and current postdoc Daniel on Green parrots nest protection!

More wildflower wonder from where you’d rather be.

It’s that magical time of year when carpets of everlastings turn the bush into snow drifts.

Hemigenea tichbonii is a Priority One (poorly known) flora species restricted to a few sites in and surrounding Mt Gibson in WA. It was formally described in 2016.

The delicate flowers of these Drosera are absolutely enchanting. This genus of plants uses sticky hairs to catch insect prey.

It’s a special experience climbing the tallest granite outcrops at Mt Gibson and seeing nothing but diverse bushland stretching to the distant horizon.

The upside down pea Leptosema daviesioides is certainly the most unusual plant we saw today.

A magnificent day spent in the beautiful Salmon Gum woodlands. Regent Parrots, Jacky Winter, Rufous Treecreepers and Redthroats. Where else would you rather be?

Excited to be starting our new collaborative project on Regent 🦜 with @teamswiftparrot.bsky.social. First stop Australian Wildlife Conservancy Mt Gibson. May the birds be with us.

We’re wildly excited to welcome Rob Davis (@pezoporus.bsky.social) as the new Editor-in-Chief of #PacificConsBio! Rob leads the #WildlifeLab at Edith Cowan University, where his team studies #birds, #reptiles, & #mammals to better understand the impacts of #fire, #feralpredators & #habitatloss

We would like to thank Professor Michael Calver as he steps down as the #PacificConsBio Editor-in-Chief after 15 years of service! From cover to cover, your work has left a lasting impression, thank you for your unbinding commitment! You’ve always had the write stuff! @CSIROpublishing.bsky.social