December 2017 - Green Path

Energy-saving gadgets

While I was putting together my suggestions on Negotiating Christmas three weeks ago I came across a tech website advertising its “Top Five Energy Saving Gift Ideas Under $50” and an “Energy-efficient slow cooker.”

I didn’t include either of them on my pre-Christmas post (and I’m still not going to give them free publicity by linking to them here) because I found them somewhat problematic, but they are worth examining.

Energy-saving gadgets

Osram DOT-it Battery Operated LED Light
Know someone who is always cursing when they can’t find something in a dark cupboard or cabinet? This low-cost battery powered LED light could be the answer.

It’s a permanently installed strip light, so it’s ‘new’ only because the low power demands of LEDs will let batteries last long enough to be a sensible option. Continue reading “Energy-saving gadgets”

Young Blue-faced Honeyeaters at play

We have been enjoying the company of at least three young Blue-faced Honeyeaters, Entomyzon cyanotis, since returning from a trip to Canberra and Melbourne before Christmas. They are probably siblings and quite likely the offspring of our resident adults.

The cheek patches give away their age. As I’ve noted before, they change from a yellow-brown to a pleasant camouflage-green and then to vivid blue as the birds mature.

But these three also behave like youngsters – active, curious, sociable and rowdy. Continue reading “Young Blue-faced Honeyeaters at play”

Mangrove Ants adapt to nesting underwater

When I was wandering along the bank of Ross River near the Bowen Road bridge a few months ago, I looked down, saw a perfectly ordinary looking ants’ nest and a moment later thought, “Hey! That’s odd! That would be under water at high tide!”

The ants were perfectly at home, however, running in and out of their nest entrance. Odd indeed. Continue reading “Mangrove Ants adapt to nesting underwater”

Adventures of a Young Attenborough

Adventures of a Young Naturalist – the Zoo Quest Expeditions

David Attenborough

Two Roads, 2017

This substantial volume is a re-issue of Attenborough’s first three Zoo Quest books, recounting his expeditions to Guyana, Indonesia and Paraguay in the late 1950s, “slightly abbreviated and updated from the originals,” as he says in the Introduction.

The Zoo Quests were joint projects of the London Zoo and the BBC in which minuscule expeditions set out to collect wildlife for the Zoo with a TV cameraman recording the process. Collecting expeditions were regular operations of all zoos at the time, and I for one grew up loving Gerald Durrell’s very funny books about similar expeditions, but making one into a TV show was a novel idea Continue reading “Adventures of a Young Attenborough”

Bowerbirds at Paluma

We stopped at Birthday Creek on the way back from Paluma Dam (last-but-one post) to see if we could see two bowerbirds known to live there, and perhaps a platypus as well. We scored, I reckon, 1.5 out of 3 – no platypus, one abandoned bower, and one bowerbird in full song.

Continue reading “Bowerbirds at Paluma”