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A fruitful partnership between trees and birds
Many rainforest trees begin their life in the beak of a wompoo fruit dove. And wompoos find it hard to survive without rainforest. This partnership is among the latest in a long series of trysts between rainforest trees and fruit-eating birds. A fruit and its seeds...
Books: Brilliant Green by Stefano Mancuso and Alessandra Viola
Imagine if the world was invaded by aliens who were of equal intelligence to us, but just did things incredibly faster. Thanks to vastly different technology and adaptations to those of humans, these aliens were able to move faster, reproduce faster, and communicate...
The scribbly gum woodland at Freshwater
Freshwater National Park smells burnt, but it looks lush green. I can hear the sleepy chortles of lorikeets, somewhere up in the bloodwoods. It’s late afternoon, on a hot January day. Maybe they’ve had too much sun, or too much nectar, or both. Scribbly gums rise like...
Sneaky snippers avoid a sticky end.
The other night, I met Mr Curly on my way to the Indian restaurant. He was hiding under a fig-leaf by the footpath, trying to look inconspicuous. But it was the shape of the figleaf that gave him away. Or what was left of it. You see, Mr Curly eats highly poisonous...
The rainforest in the gallery: Finding nature at the APT, Part one
Have you ever sat in a rainforest, in the dark heartland of a Pacific Island? Despite the vastness of ocean that is nearby, and all around, you are surrounded by the dense shady-cool dampness of ferns, palms, buttressed roots, swinging vines. Strange noises and...
Lullabies for life
A pair of fairy wrens are in our garden - their calls are shrill, sweet and curiously penetrating. And for the first time ever, I think they might stay. This is terribly exciting. When we moved here eight years ago, we transformed a backyard of kikuyu grass into a...
Books: Wild – An elemental journey
Wild: An elemental journey flees headlong into the jungles of the Amazon, before trekking to the stark whiteness of the Canadian Arctic, plunging into the ultramarine depths of the ocean, expanding out into the stillness of the Australian deserts, and then ascending...
Christmas curlew update
Earlier in the year, I brought you the story of Rowena and Herbie, the courting stone-curlews from Mulligans Flat Woodland Sanctuary near Canberra. Their budding romance was mentioned in 'Rewilding Weeloo, the enigmatic bush stone-curlew'. Well, as a special Christmas...
The wisdom of pelicans
I was sitting on a nearly-deserted Bribie Island beach last week, with only sand, sea, and bushland all around. An osprey was hunting nearby, and a few terns drifted past. The tide was up, and we’d just been for a dip - but only as far as a shallow sand spit, only...
The kingfishers that don’t fish
Every summer, in our street, there was a loud insistent “pip-pip-pip” that rang out, at intervals, nearly all day. The Sacred Kingfishers were nesting in a large old tree near the corner. The tree is gone now, and I need to walk further to be within earshot of the...
Bimblebox Wonderland colouring book – on sale now
After many long days of designing and drawing, I'm very pleased to announce the publication of Bimblebox Wonderland. It's the first colouring book for adults based entirely on a wild Australian woodland. Order your copy here. In September I was immersed in the small...
Randy reptiles, courting koels, and other spring things
Some say seasonal transitions in the subtropics are subtle. By that, I guess they mean that we don't get snow and ice in winter. But spring in south east Queensland is far from subtle. It's a riot of bright flowers, rampant...
Tales of Science
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Nature journaling
How to draw a grassland – Part One
Matt Cameron from the New South Wales Office of Environment has commissioned me to create a colouring book about the Riverina Grasslands, which are found in south central New South Wales and northern Victoria, and are home to many specialised plant and animal species....
Nature journaling on the Great Barrier Reef
Some years ago I had the great good fortune to visit Heron Island in the Great Barrier Reef. I was tutoring a group of ecology students, and what with daily snorkeling trips, helping out in the kitchen, and assisting the students with their research projects, I didn't...
Nature journaling in the rainforest
Today's post is a short guide to nature journaling. I've been spending a bit of time in rainforest of late, doing some research for a book. So this post is illustrated with journal entries from rainforest places - mostly from Queensland but with one sneaky New...
Forest portraits
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Cartoons
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Wildlife illustration
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