Hi I'm Ben, I like writing about: Ecology Plants Insects Ecosystems in the Anthropocene The main reason for starting this blog was to record my o...
I went to Yalukit Willam Nature Reserve. A rare example of a new nature reserve being retrofitted into suburbia Melbourne. It was previously a golf course that shut down due to (from what I can tell) not being financially viable anymore. So the council bought it and are in the process of constructing a new nature reserve. Not all is open yet, with just two areas open to the public, the Chain of…
The Musk Duck For starters it's a really cool duck. The Musk Duck or Biziura lobata , is a large aquatic duck found across southern Australia. They get their name from producing a strong odour from a gland on the rump. They have ashy, grey-brown plumage and a fan tail, that aids in their identification. They frequent deep freshwater bodies with surrounding vegetation. This is a male musk duck,…
I was washing up last night, doing the usual routine, when I hear this knock on the window. A solid thump. I immediately look up yet nothing is there. Strange. I look back at my dishes. 15 seconds pass and then I hear it again. I concluded this was far to loud for it to be my imagination now. Was someone out there? Do I check? I'm living by myself so this is odd, if not a bit worrying. Real…
I am writing this post to give an update on the Eucalyptus leucoxylon I planted on the 24/8/25. It is with sadness I announce that my guerrilla gardening attempt, planting a Euc in the night , failed. The euc is dead. And not just dead, but nowhere to be seen. I was unable to locate nor discover any real evidence of its remains. I suspect it was ripped up by a lawn mower, or removed by the council…
This is part II, providing a justification for my previous post: How many spiders are in your home? I will now attempt to prove there is some very, very small realm of legitimacy to this function. For reference, the function: f ( x ) = 0.20 m ( x + t ) + 0.35 ( w ) W h e r e t h e d o m a i n i s a l l r e a l x ≥ - t a n d r a n g e i s a l l r e a l y ≥ 0 . L e t m = t o t a l s q u a r e m e t…
Have you ever wondered how many spiders are in your home? Me too. Ever since moving into my unit I have discovered there are quite a lot of spiders crawling around (or floating as they do on their webs). The one in my shower is a female Black House Spider Badumna insignis . I call her Susan or Suz the shower spider. I was wondering about it all and thinking about what variables/factors would…
I took a regional train recently, from Melbourne to Ararat. It was interesting watching the landscape change at speed. As you traverse at 100km/hr you see the city become the suburbs, become outer suburbs, become farmland. And it's here in the outer suburbs, the conversation of farmland to suburbia is quite clear, almost procedural. Start out with farmland: Then build the roads, foundations of…
Hang on let me adjust the cables at the back of the computer. A place left largely undisturbed by humans for quite some time. Woah what is that insect crawling around on the floor? So interesting. Immediately you might be thinking, 'what sort of weirdly odd numbered, 5 antennae insect is this?' But don't fret. 1 2 You have help and yes it is another key. This invertebrate key by the CSIRO is a…
I started the bushwalk only minutes before sunset. As I entered the wildlife enclosure I was carefully watched by a mob of kangaroos. The pelicans couldn't care less however. The real reason I was here was because there was a chance I might get to encounter a small endangered marsupial, the Eastern Barred Bandicoot Perameles gunnii . I hadn't found it on my previous three visits (not that I was…
Okay... I gotta say this is possibly my most speculative, unhinged post to date. But here we go: I was in the beachy suburbs of Melbourne, where I stumbled upon a Banksia integrifolia aka Coastal Banksia dropping its flowers into the gutter, as such: In the photo above you can see the parent tree (the source of these flowers) and the nearby street drain. On the parent tree you can also make out…