April 2019 - Green Path

One final addition to the big bird list

I maintained a composite list of the birds seen in and from the garden of my previous home in Water St, Mundingburra, and the last addition to it was – all too appropriately – a pair of Pacific Black Ducks (Anas superciliosa) which flew in to land on the growing lake in the street in front of the house as the flood waters rose on Sunday Feb 3, 2019.

The story of the flood as an extreme weather event is here, and as it affected Townsville is here.

I have added the ducks to the list and declared it closed.

Unlikely friends: ants and butterflies

Hypolycaena phorbas male — Black-spotted Flash (male) perched on a green-ants’ nest

Walking back down the hill for Tegoora Rock lookout (previous post) I spotted a green-ant nest with – surprisingly – a butterfly perched on it. Living dangerously, surely? Perhaps not.

Continue reading “Unlikely friends: ants and butterflies”

Town Common after the floods

The Town Common wetlands still have a fair bit of open water, two months after our big floods, but it is back to normal levels for this time of year – if there is such a thing as “normal” in our wildly variable climate, that is.

Continue reading “Town Common after the floods”

Kookaburras in Annandale

Between the floods and the resumption of regular service on Green Path we received an email via the Contact page. The observations in it were so good that I asked permission to publish it, and here’s the result. I have used italics for my words to keep them separate; apart from that, I’ve done just a tiny bit of editing for consistency and brevity, and added links where appropriate.

Tue 19/03/2019

G’day Malcolm

My name is Ray and my wife (Judy) and I are retired and live in Annandale, backed onto the creek that runs from the Army base under the A1 and the “Richard I Bong” Bridge on Macarthur Drive. Got your email address from the Green Path website and you seemed quite experienced in birdlife. Thought you might be able to enlighten us – if you have time.

We have been visited lately by four Blue-winged and one Laughing Kookaburras (see pics attached).

kookaburras, blue-winged and laughing — The visitors (photo: Ray)

Continue reading “Kookaburras in Annandale”

Broecker: Fixing Climate

Fixing Climate
Robert Kunzig and Wallace Broecker
Profile, 2008

Fixing Climate is both interesting and useful but not in the ways that the authors intended. That’s not entirely their fault, since climate science and mitigation have changed enormously in the ten years since it was published.

The book tracks the life and work of Wallace Broecker, who was born in 1931 and was just the right age to become a pioneer and then a leader in the (then) very young field of climate history and (hence) climate change. Continue reading “Broecker: Fixing Climate”