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Red Centre adventures, plus more nature journaling dates
Yay, I finally made it to the Northern Territory! And the Central Australian landscapes were sublime. So much colour and beauty, at every scale: from the mountains, through to the patterns of the vegetation, and right down to the individual animals, rocks and plants....
Nature Journaling for Gardeners
Nature journaling is another great way to enjoy gardens - either your own little green space, or the gardens of others. As I've written elsewhere, nature journaling is fun and relaxing, it sharpens your powers of observation, and it's a doorway to learning new things....
The Selfish Tree
“Sometimes people ask me,” said the Blue Gum*, “Don’t you mind when the termites hollow out your innards, your limbs drop, the parrots chew your skin to make new holes, the moths and beetles tunnel into your wood, and the cicadas suck your sap?” “Yes I sometimes...
Drawing birds in Adelaide
Last week I was in South Australia, visiting family and friends. I had also embarked on compiling some nature journals 'on a theme', including one on birds, and one on gardens. The garden journal I'll show you in a future post, but today's post is about the little...
Playing with watercolour pencils
Watercolour pencils are great for nature journaling, since they combine the accuracy of a pencil with the vibrant colour and flexibility of watercolour pigment. But I've found them tricky to use because the colour of the pencil applied dry to the paper can change a...
Dipping into the Murray-Darling wetlands
River Red Gums, raucous with white corellas screaming from their upper branches, their gnarled trunks splashed grey-and-cream, rise up out of a flooded wetland. The water is strewn with green wetland plants, and smeared yellow with floating pollen. Ducks and moorhens...
Happily evaporating in the mangroves
The mangrove kingfisher looked thin - its feathers were flattened against its body. It sort of drooped on the branch. Tail down, beak open, wings held away from the body. And see the wobbly end of its beak? That's not really what the bird looked like, that's me. Hands...
Wonders of Western Australia
This morning, I'm feeling a bit sad that I'm not in Freemantle, Western Australia. The opening sessions have just started at the Ecological Society of Australia's annual conference, with a buzz of ecologists: old and young; enthusiastic and weathered; well-published...
Binna Burra in the springtime
The forest is full of birdsong and insects are buzzing on high. The trees are flushing new growth: so much bright, young, green. It lights up the darkness of the rainforest. A white-browed scrubwren hops along the forest floor from twig to fallen twig. Close to me,...
A sublime scarp in a country of coal
The Blackdown Tablelands lie between Rockhampton and Emerald, in central Queensland. We stopped there on the way up to Bimblebox Nature Refuge last month, and this is what I wrote. The coal trains wind their way across the land like black chains, heavy....
Animals need trees
Many people consider themselves animal-lovers. Every day, strangers in the street exclaim at how gorgeous my two dogs are, and ask for a pat. Cat videos easily go viral on social media. Baby farm animals in petting pens are often the most popular attraction at...
Drawing on Queensland’s present to recreate New Zealand’s past
This story starts and ends with a duck. It also includes volcanoes, subtropical rainforest, an idyllic lake and a team of dedicated scientists. But let’s begin with the duck. I met the duck in Germany, in 2008. The lovely Ray, my palaeobotanist partner, was...
Tales of Science
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Nature journaling
Red Centre adventures, plus more nature journaling dates
Yay, I finally made it to the Northern Territory! And the Central Australian landscapes were sublime. So much colour and beauty, at every scale: from the mountains, through to the patterns of the vegetation, and right down to the individual animals, rocks and plants....
Nature Journaling for Gardeners
Nature journaling is another great way to enjoy gardens - either your own little green space, or the gardens of others. As I've written elsewhere, nature journaling is fun and relaxing, it sharpens your powers of observation, and it's a doorway to learning new things....
Drawing birds in Adelaide
Last week I was in South Australia, visiting family and friends. I had also embarked on compiling some nature journals 'on a theme', including one on birds, and one on gardens. The garden journal I'll show you in a future post, but today's post is about the little...
Playing with watercolour pencils
Watercolour pencils are great for nature journaling, since they combine the accuracy of a pencil with the vibrant colour and flexibility of watercolour pigment. But I've found them tricky to use because the colour of the pencil applied dry to the paper can change a...
Happily evaporating in the mangroves
The mangrove kingfisher looked thin - its feathers were flattened against its body. It sort of drooped on the branch. Tail down, beak open, wings held away from the body. And see the wobbly end of its beak? That's not really what the bird looked like, that's me. Hands...
Binna Burra in the springtime
The forest is full of birdsong and insects are buzzing on high. The trees are flushing new growth: so much bright, young, green. It lights up the darkness of the rainforest. A white-browed scrubwren hops along the forest floor from twig to fallen twig. Close to me,...
Forest portraits
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Cartoons
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Wildlife illustration
How to draw a forest (Part 1) – or seeing the wood for the trees
Look for depictions of forests in art and you won’t find many. Sure, there are plenty of landscapes with trees. But look closer and you’ll notice there are only a few trees, probably to one side of the picture, and the rest is open country. Or it is a parkland, some...
Forest bathing with lyrebirds
This week I did a little forest bathing - 'Shinrin-yoku' to the Japanese. It's the practice of immersing oneself in the forest atmosphere, and is said to reduce stress, and maybe even prevent cancer. I took my forest bath by walking to Coomera Falls, through...
Ants in the scanner – Aaaarghhh!
“There’s far too much wildlife in the suburbs” I heard a woman say the other day. She shuddered, and her face wrinkled up as if there was cat poo under her nose. I didn’t want to start an argument, so I said nothing at the time. But this same urban wildlife is...
Why are Australian swans black?
Australian swans are black, while most swans are white. Why should this be? When I was a child, growing up in Australia, the only swans I saw were black. At Lake Wendouree in Ballarat, or in the Botanic Gardens of Melbourne, the swans were slightly menacing in their...
Is a woomera like a heron’s neck?
This post is co-authored by Gordon Sanson.¹ Early dawn light is creeping across a glassy-still wetland, as wreaths of mist curl upwards. A large white egret stands still, poised ready. Nearby a man is waiting for kangaroos to venture onto the lush grass near the...
Walk like a man: Was the giant kangaroo too big to hop?
Many years ago, Franz Kafka imagined a creature that was elusive, and remained tantalizingly out of reach, so that its exact nature was never quite discerned: The animal resembles a kangaroo, but not as to the face, which is flat almost like a human face, and small...