The Mt Gravatt State High School Pollinator Link® garden is a thriving habitat for wildlife and building links with the community.
Twenty-one volunteers from Griffith Mates and local streets joined students and family members.
Results: 50 hours of Bushcare including 40 natives planted to stabilise embankments and attract more butterflies. Weeding and mulching completed the work.
Female Leafcutters roll the cut the pieces of leaf between their legs then fly off to find a suitable hollow to make their nest. The leaf pieces are shaped into a cigar shape ready to be packed with pollen and nectar ready for egg laying. The eggs hatch in spring ready to go to work pollinating our gardens and forests.
Australia has over 2,000 species of solitary native bees. Solitary bees do not form live in a hive or produce honey however they are the most effective pollinators for our backyard vegetable gardens.
Female Blue Banded and Teddy Bear bees make nests in the ground which they fill with pollen and nectar, lay their eggs then seal. When the egg hatch in spring the young bees feed on the stored food before burrowing out and getting to work pollinating our vegetable gardens.
Step 1: Make the mud. Garden soil, add water then stir with lots of laughter.
Bee Homes completed, the Nature Rangers worked on building nest boxes to provide homes for birds. Clearing trees for building houses means that there is a lack of nest hollows for birds and other species like Squirrel Gliders Petaurus norfolcensis.
First step in box construction is learning to use a hammer correctly. It is less about size and strength and more about letting the weight of the hammer to do the work.
Blunting nails
Everyone had a go at using a hammer and quickly got the hang of letting the hammer do the work. “That is much easier.”
Another tip we shared is to blunt nail heads when nailing timber that splits easily.
Jigs simplify construction
Jigs prepared at Carina Mens Shed are used to simplify assembly.
Finished nest boxes ready for installation
New homes ready for installation. The Downfall Creek team will arrange installation of the new homes for our homeless urban birds.
Benno and I spent Thursday morning restoring another section of Fox Gully Wildlife Corridor.
Laughing Kookaburras Dacelo novaeguineae love to join us at Bushcare, typically finding a handy perch where they are ready to swoop on any tasty snack like this legless lizard.
Some of the wildlife avoided the attentions of our Kookaburra visitor. We found a female Common Net-casting Spider Deinopis ravidus. Net-casting spiders have a fascinating technique for catching lunch. They don’t make a permanent web but sit with a net between their front legs ready to to catch ants, beetles or spiders.
Bark Cockroach Laxta sp.
Bark Cockroachs Laxta sp. provide valuable recycling services composting leaf litter and improving soil.
Gully access steps
Steep sides make gully restoration complex so the first step is building access steps. Working from the bottom clearing weeds facing uphill is much safer and faster. Logs or recycled hardwood can then be installed to provide a safe work place and manage erosion.
“We power on, trying to sense the walls beside us, ears and eyes straining for anyone coming from the other direction. It’s like holding your breath with your eyes.”
Cycling through a tunnel on the rail trail near Matarraña, Spain. Scary, but exciting, according to Con O’Brien, author of The Ebro Drift blog.
The Matarraña trail is just one of thousands of rail trails all over the world. Rail tracks no longer in use are pulled up, railbeds resurfaced, bridges and tunnels checked for safety. In some places old station buildings are converted to cafes or guesthouses. Railway gradient is perfect for cyclists and walkers, the countryside is interesting, and whether for long journeys or short sections, the trails provide great opportunities to exercise and travel at the same time.
Rail trails are international tourism magnets.
Railway track just visible through the wildflowers on The High Line, NYC
A beautiful day for a walk in the bush. I joined Professor Darryl Jones, Griffith University and members of Karawatha Protection Society for a field trip to explore the Fauna Movement Solutions linking Kuraby Forest and Karawatha Forest across Compton Road.
The discipline of Movement Ecology only developed around 2002 so building this innovative wildlife bridge in 2005 was a bold step. At the time traffic on the two lane Compton Road was rapidly increasing with a consequent increase in road kill. The Brisbane City Council decision to widen the road to four lanes was both a threat and an opportunity if the partnership of Karawatha Protection Society and Griffith University could change the existing thinking from protect wildlife by keeping it off the road to making the road ‘transparent’ to wildlife.
Micro-bats use wildlife bridge
In his presentation Darryl Jones highlighted the importance of community groups in driving change even when the science is clear. What makes this project courageous is the fact that the science of Movement Ecology was only just evolving and researchers have since found many unexpected results.
Small birds are one surprising user of the wildlife bridge. Small birds will normally not cross a wide gap in the forest canopy so being limited to an island habitat they are vulnerable local extinction events like bushfire. The other surprise is the behaviour of micro-bats. The concrete arch sections have become unexpected Shelter with micro-bats making homes in the gaps in arch sections. Each night the bats emerge to forage in the surrounding forests. Monitoring with ultrasonic (anabat) recorders shows no activity above the road (white), significant activity about 100 metres from the road (yellow) however the wildlife bridge itself was a hotspot (bright red) for micro-bat activity transiting from forest to forest.
New Illaweena Street wildlife bridge
As part of the Logan [Motorway] Enhancement Project Transurban Queensland is building sophisticated fauna movement solutions including a new wildlife bridge across Illaweena Street which will reduce the road kill on that increasingly busy road and allow for future expansion to four lanes. Combined with underpasses and rope bridges this will create excellent fauna movement solutions linking Kuraby through Karawatha Forest to habitat at Parkinson.
The Downfall Team host a number of school holiday Nature Ranger activities. Jake Slinger and I represented Pollinator Link® building Bee Homes with the Nature Rangers.
Working with the Nature Rangers was great fun.
I introduced them to some of the 2,000 species of solitary native bees and the different types of nests the female creates in hollows, in the ground or by carpenter bees chewing into soft timber.
The Rangers then dived into assembling their individual Bee Homes using bamboo for Leaf-cutter Bees and Lantana for carpenter bees.
Amazing artists decorating Bee Homes
What really blew me away was the artwork they created. We provided a “How to draw a bee” guide from ArtforKidsHub.com, multi-coloured Sharpies and the Rangers went to work producing amazing artwork to decorated their Bee Homes.
By: Michael Fox
