My sister Cass and I spent a lovely morning at the Maroochy Regional Bushland Botanic Gardens, birding and nature journaling, while Uncy Dan took the kids off on their own adventure.
mrbbg
Tag: nature journaling
Lonchura punctulata
New-to-me bird! The scaly-breasted munia or spotted munia (Lonchura punctulata) is a finch known in the pet trade as nutmeg mannikin or spice finch. The species is endemic to Asia, but feral populations have established in Puerto Rico and Hispaniola, as well as parts of Australia and the US.
Here’s an interesting fact: L. punctulata frequently serves as a brood host for the parasitic pin-tailed whydah in Southern California, where both have become feral. In this setting, the munia raises the whydah’s chicks as if they were its own. This interaction is unusual since the two species do not naturally coexist in their native habitats—the whydah is from Africa—and have no evolutionary history as parasite and host. Now I want to see a pin-tailed whydah!
sit spot
At lunchtime, I followed a game trail down to the creek and sat under a huge oak tree for half an hour, in a place where humans rarely go. I wish everyone had the opportunity to do this, to sit alone in silence by a clean creek under an old tree, and just breathe (and listen, and draw, and write). Would we still fight wars, I wonder?
galling
Megastraea undosa
The largest shell I find on our local beaches is the wavy turban snail. I was alarmed to learn that this gastropod is being harvested for food in growing numbers, with no oversight and no research. Sounds like another extinction waiting to happen. And before that, a radical decrease in the size of the turbans, as they pick off the largest ones.
trail buddha
This stone buddha has been beside a local trail for quite a few years. He is hidden when the weeds are lush and re-emerges as summer ends and the grasses die back.
zoom in, zoom out
I got to wondering about the triggers for a deciduous tree’s leaves to turn brown in autumn. How does an individual leaf decide to turn? And what makes one part of a leaf turn first? I’m humming along to The Byrds as I ponder.
reflection
When they say “annual average” rainfall … what does that really mean? Average over how many years? And with weather becoming more extreme year by year, does the referred-to “average” change every year? Does the term even have meaning anymore? Enquiring minds want to know.
life cycle
I noticed a milkweed plant that was experiencing all its seasons at once. Nice!
Libellula saturata
I sat beside Century Lake and watched this bright little dragonfly return over and over to the same piece of bent grass. I decided she must want her portrait painted, so I obliged.
hashiworks 