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Free froggy colouring book to download
Follow the Southern Bell Frog’s journey, from tiny egg, to tadpole, to a young frog, in this beautiful colouring book. Yours to download for free!
Inspiration from chooks
Chooks are irrepressible, despite the uncertainty of their lives. They give me inspiration. Here's a nature journal spread of our backyard flock that I completed last night. In case you're interested in doing some nature journaling yourself, here are the steps I used...
Finding joy and calm
The earth seems to be shifting under our feet. Nothing seems certain, and it's easy to let our anxieties and fears grow. That is, if we focus on human affairs only. Because out there, in nature, the world is going on. Lives are born and lives end. Trees that are...
Rain returns to Beechmont – woohoo!
Rain has emphatically returned to Beechmont in the last few days. Overnight we received 167 mm! I don't like to complain about the lack of rain here, since we still tend to receive far more rain than many drought-ravaged places in Australia. But I guess it's all...
How we saved summer
A message of hope from the future. If you like this, please share!
Just a nice tree meme to brighten your day
Please feel free to share!
A message from a Queensland koala
I’ve been thinking about what I’d like to do for wildlife conservation if I was still working for the government. And because I think that changing human behavior is absolutely essential for wildlife conservation… and because I’ve noticed this year that people seem to like cartoons… this is what I came up with. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Beechmont Nature Journal 24th December 2019
The Queensland Lacebark Tree Brachychiton discolor Along a path strewn with brown fire-killed leaves; dried, drought-killed leaves, and scattered with charcoal and ash – I find this: Opulent pink flowers, freshly tumbled, two hundred or more. While above me springs...
Terrific things from Tassie
This year’s conference bag design for the Ecological Society of Australia is revealed.
Reasons to be cheerful
I’m finding it a bit hard to be cheerful these days. Heat, smoke, prolonged drought and more fires. Frustration at the lack of action on climate change, while its effects are becoming more and more obvious. My beloved Lamington National Park is still closed, so I can’t go and lose myself in its leafy depths. But life continues, in all its beauty. When I take the time to look about, and look closely, I find many reasons to be cheerful.
Flame tree, Jacaranda and Silky Oak, are flowering wildly, against the smoke
Flame trees, jacarandas and silky oaks, are flowering wildly, against the smoke. Two months since we nearly lost our house in the Binna Burra bushfire, and fires continue to burn all around us. Our lives are saturated with smoke.
Impressions of Barambah
I visited the Barambah Environmental Education Centre (about 50 km west of Gympie, Queensland) back in August. I ran a nature journaling workshop for the staff, and did some field work for a series of illustrations for a little book about the centre. Here are some...
Tales of Science
Blackbutt beasties, and forest portrait number two
Many beautiful beasties live in wet sclerophyll forest, including those that dwell or nest in the hollows of venerable old trees. Gliding possums that eat leaves, blossoms or trees sap; owls, tree-creepers and parrots; bats, snakes and antechinuses¹. As I started...
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...
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...
The toadfish, the toe-cutter, and the great swimming head
I once met a man who could hypnotize toadfish. He would stand ankle-deep, on the mudflats of Bramble Bay, with his heels together like Dorothy. And the little common toadfish would swim into the 'V' created, and become still. Not many people like toadfish, but...
Nature journaling
Impressions of Barambah
I visited the Barambah Environmental Education Centre (about 50 km west of Gympie, Queensland) back in August. I ran a nature journaling workshop for the staff, and did some field work for a series of illustrations for a little book about the centre. Here are some...
Beechmont Nature Journal 22nd September 2019
In this cartoon, spring has come to Beechmont, while Binna Burra has become like Shangri-la: mysterious and inaccessible.
Beechmont Nature Journal 14th September 2019
A cartoon about last weekend’s unprecedented fire at Binna Burra. It’s wobbly because that’s how I feel right now. But all around our house the birds are singing and I heard a koala bellow just before I posted this. So life goes on, and I’m hopeful for the future.
Ideas sheet for nature journaling
In the spirit of sharing something handwritten and messy, and to give you more ideas for your nature journaling adventures, here’s an ‘Ideas sheet’ I created a few months ago. It was only meant to be a ‘draft’ that I was going to work up into something ‘nice’. But I ran out of time, started giving it out at workshops, and people seem to like it. Maybe they find it helpful because it’s messy? I don’t know, but I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Beechmont Nature Journal 20th July 2019
Recent nature journaling adventures in Beechmont. Plus an exciting announcement!
Return of the bellbirds?
Bellbirds are cute, they make beautiful chiming noises, but they also kill trees. And now they’re back at Binna Burra, after a long absence. What will happen next?
Forest portraits
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Cartoons
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Wildlife illustration
Topknots at Tullawallal
We usually only glimpse the topknot pigeons flying high and fast overhead, a steady workmanlike beat of strong grey wings and a flash of pink beak. But last week they were in the treetops at Tullawallal. It’s the highest point of the forest near Binna Burra, crowned...
Rose-crowned fruit dove – nature study
I'm still 'getting to know the neighbours' in Beechmont. I mean the plant and animal neighbours! And I suspect this might take a lifetime, what with the amazing and beautiful diversity up here, and the extensive Lamington National Park right on out doorstep. This is...
Hunter Valley happenings
Hello and Happy New Year! I hope your 2018 will be full of good things. This post is about some good things that happened to me last year thanks to the Ecological Society of Australia. The first was a commission to create a conference bag design for EcoTas2017, the...
Meet the rainforest neighbours
Nearly 3 weeks ago I planned to draw A plant a day for a week. Part meditation, part nature journaling, part learning new species. Well, life got in the way, as it does. I didn't draw a plant every day. I didn't always stick to my own rules. Sometimes I got frustrated...
A plant a day
What would happen if the first thing people did every day was contemplate nature? Well I know there are certain things that might need to be done first, like visiting the bathroom, getting dressed, having a caffeine hit, etc. (What’s your morning ritual?). But what...
Tallowwood forest
30 September 2017 The dark green teeth of the prickly rasp ferns wave upwards in the warm northerly breeze, up from the dry crunchy litter of curled eucalypt leaves, and the twigs that spring and snap when you walk. A pile of kindling, ready for the merest drifting...