Peregrine Post No. 1-2011 Mini-Beast Insert.pub

Love Me - I’m a Euc!
Gum trees (eucalypts) are the essence
of Australian flora. Every Australian resident can recognise these distinctive
plants by sight and smell. Soldiers returning by ship from the first and second
world wars are rumoured to have been
able to smell the aroma of the eucalypt
before land was visible on the horizon.
distinctive Australian look with unique
coloured green foliage, they flower for
long periods and their scent is very fresh
and pleasant. They have a huge range
of trunk colours and textures, life form
(shrubs, multi-trunked mallees to tall
trees). Those that have tall canopies require less frequent pruning than lower
hedge style plants. Different species are
adapted to all the different climates and
soils throughout Australia. Generally
they require less water to survive than
most other trees due to a number of adaptations in form and function. They can
kick back quicker than most other trees
after a drought with a fresh new canopy
of leaves.
What do people not like about them?
Well actually there are a number of
myths and misunderstandings regarding
eucalypts that are not founded on truth
or on scientific evidence.
Yellow Box Eucalyptus melliodora
They give any garden a unique and distinctively Australian appearance.
The three genera Eucalyptus (the gums),
Corymbia (the bloodwoods and Ghost
gums) and Angophora (apples) are
known collectively as 'eucalypts'. These
plants are all in the Myrtle family Myrtaceae. With over 700 species, the eucalypt dominates many Australian landscapes and is only absent (or at least
reduced in diversity) in tropical rainforests and truly arid environments.
Most eucalypts are endemic to Australia
but some occur naturally in New Guinea,
Indonesia and even the Philippines and
Taiwan.
Eucalypts are good in gardens, streets
and parks as they attract local wildlife
such as colourful lorikeets. They have a
Eucalypt Myth 1: One that has been
popular lately is that they explode into
flames for no apparent reason on hot
days. Live green leaves and wood are
hard to ignite. Some eucalypts ignite
quickly once there is an established
bushfire raging in the vicinity but they do
not ignite outside a fire front. The Black
Saturday fires were ignited by powerline
failures, arsonists and lightning. The initial plant material that ignited was grass
and dead twigs and shrub stems that are
the size of kindling. Trees of any species
can burn in an intense fire, there is no
such thing as fire retardant tree species.
Mature trees of any species can actually
be useful in preventing the spread of
fires by acting as a wind break. More
information on plants and fire safety can
be obtained from the Country Fire Authority CFA www.cfa.vic.gov.au.
Eucalypt Myth 2: They drop branches.
Trees of every species may drop
branches. Trees can be made safer by
getting a qualified arborist to assess
them once every five years and if necessary carrying out some formative pruning. They are also safe if they have nothing underneath them that can be damaged.
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N o . 1 - 2 0 11
Inside…
Love Me - I’m a Euc!
Elspeth Ferguson
Landscape Assessment Officer
Knox City Council
Not just a Christmas
Tree
Ron Smith
G4W Volunteer
Midnight Visitor
Belinda Starrs
G4W Participant
What are Gardens for
Wildlife made of?
Irene Kelly
G4W Volunteer
Responsible Pet Owner-
ship
Eastern Regional Pet
Expo
Clean Up Australia Day
Free Solar Hot Water
Information Sessions
Red Box
Eucalyptus polyanthemos
Advice From a Tree
Stand tall and proud
Sink your roots into the
earth
Be content with your
natural beauty
Go out on a limb
Drink plenty of water
Remember your roots
Enjoy the view
Love Me - I’m a Euc! ….continued from page 1….
Eucalypt Myth 3: They crack buildings.
Trees of any species can dry out the soil
and if the soil has a high fraction of reactive
clays this can damage house footings. This
effect can be minimised by not planting
trees too close to buildings, by watering the
area within 3-5 metres around the tree and
by having well designed house footings.
Eucalypt Myth 4: They cause allergic reactions. Many native trees, especially wattles,
are unfairly blamed for triggering asthma
attacks. The most common asthma trigger
is viral infection (a cold or flu). Other triggers include cigarette smoke, house dust
mite and pet exposure. Of the plant allergens, the most common is rye grass pollen,
which is largely unavoidable. Of the tree
allergens, wind pollinated species (birches,
oaks, olives, elms or she oaks) have less
obvious flowers with larger numbers of
lighter pollen cells that are easily inhaled
into the lungs. Wattles and eucalypts have
A young Silver leaf Stringybark Eucalypobvious looking flowers at eye level to attus cephalocarpa showing both juvenile
tract their main pollinators – birds and insects – but their larger, stickier pollen cells
are less wind blown and not as easily inEucalypt Myth 6: They belong in the bush
haled.
not in the suburbs. When the right species
Eucalypt Myth 5: They drop leaves. Trees is chosen for the right space they make an
of all species drop leaf litter. It can be used excellent contribution to any landscape.
as mulch or composted by mixing it with
Elspeth Ferguson
other materials that are moist, fresh and
Landscape Assessment Officer
green such as kitchen vegetable scraps.
Knox City Council
Not just a Christmas tree….
At Christmas time we have always used a small tree in a pot to decorate. In the past
these have been olive or cumquat trees. This year we had grown an Albany Woolly
Bush (Adenanthos) for this purpose. It currently only stands about a metre high but
would adequately serve what was needed. It was arranged that two of the grandkids
(aged 4 and 6) would come over to do the decorating.
To their, and our, surprise a baby praying mantis
hopped out of the bush on to Oliver’s hand. He
carefully returned it to the garden. By the end of
decorating another six baby praying mantis had
hopped out of the bush. Ollie enjoyed searching for
them in the lounge room and placing them back in
the garden.
Albany Woolly Bush (Adenanthos)
During summer the female lays eggs in an egg sac
which is attached to a leaf or branch. There could be up to 400 eggs. The young praying
mantis emerge from the sac in spring but only a few survive – we were lucky!! They eat
each other and other insects for nourishment, and moult a number of times before reaching adulthood. (www.buzzle.com/articles/praying-mantis-life-cycle.html).
Ron Smith
G4W Volunteer
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A midnight visitor
15 January 2011
I went to bed around 10.30 then woke up to a ruckus at
midnight with my kids who had been outside and were
now washing their feet. My 16 year old daughter, Amber, was heading to the toilet which is off the laundry
and our dog sleeps in there. Amber walked in and saw
movement in the dog’s water bowl she did not think
anything of it, until something jumped out near her
foot, she screamed and woke my 12 year old son, Seamus. Amber turned the light on to discover it was a
small brown frog. Amber grabbed a cup and it climbed
into it and my children released it out into our fernery,
where we also have a fish pond and bird baths on the
ground amongst some native violets.
We have been trying to figure out how it came inside
the house, we think our dog Elsa, who is a Rough Collie and has long fur, may have brought it in with her as
that night she decided to lay on the wet lawn and it has
some how got stuck in her fur as Amber recalls seeing
dog fur around one the frog’s legs.
Since then, we believe it is a " Southern Brown tree"
frog.
The next night Amber went looking for it and we found
it amongst the ferns. We hope it stays!!!
4 February 2011
With Friday’s downpour we brought some of our outdoor furniture inside, with out us knowing we had a frog
seeking shelter in the wicker chairs (Elsa would not
venture out!). Later on in the evening my husband noticed something hopping under the kitchen table and
found it to be a frog, he grabbed a cup, put a little water
in it, took it to show Amber, who said it was a different
frog to the first (it had spots on it). Amber let it go in the
ferns. My son and I were asleep.
Article and photos by Belinda Starrs
G4W Participant
Have you got a story or an experience you would like to
share with other Gardens for Wildlife participants? If so,
email Angela at [email protected] or
phone 9298 8572.
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What are gardens for wildlife made of?
The sun is up. The hunt is on. We
moved across the terrain united in our
purpose. My companions quickened
their steps eager to get to their first
target. Their keenness forced me to
accelerate to catch up and I warned
them to “look but not touch”. My
grandchildren and I are embarked on
a mini beast safari in the backyard. I
rolled back the pot plant.
We were still as we watched the
butcher boys scurry into the undergrowth and the earthworms retreat to
the safety of their holes. One different
looking, striped, blackish worm to our
great satisfaction is much slower to
hide. Was it a flat worm? But we
were content just with the find and
moved on, hopeful of other quarry.
Mini beasts are fun to find and watch.
But it was “What’s that nana? and
“Why?” that prompted me to want to
find out more.
I discovered there was more to mini
beasts than just being the pest species in my veggie patch or as food for
birds that I wanted to attract. Mini
beasts have been around for over 400
million years and have adapted to occupy practically every ecological slot
from the upper reaches of the atmosphere to the driest of deserts, to the
canopies of the wettest rainforests, the
frozen Antarctic or on the deepest
ocean floor. They are integral to the
natural systems that work to clean the
air, the soil and the water.
Large facts about little creatures
Mini beasts, the invertebrates, make
up a staggering 90% and more of all
animal life on earth and vertebrates,
mammals (such as us), birds, reptiles,
frogs and fish make up the rest.
Many of the estimated 275,000 to
300,000 Australian species of land
dwelling invertebrates are found nowhere else in the world.
As 80% of all our animal and plant
species are also exclusive to Australia,
invertebrates exploited the many food
sources and niches offered by the numerous different and unique plant species that dominated our landscape.
Consequently, about a third of all foliage feeding insects in Australia depend on our native Eucalypts and Acacias.
Despite the fact they are the most successful and prolific animals on the
planet, because of the dramatic
changes in our environment, species
numbers are declining in Australia
faster than scientists can record their
existence. Australia has lost 75 per
cent of its rainforests and also has the
world's worst record of mammal extinctions.
Might is right
Mini beasts might be small but their
presence, or not, has maximum impact on wild places. They are composters, recyclers and scavengers that
eat dead animals or fruit fallen from
trees.
They include pollinators like butterflies
and bees, soil aerators such as worms
and even defoliators,
such as caterpillars
are vital as they eat
foliage, shoots and
growth on plants that
stimulate the plants to
grow.
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Southern Old Lady Moth
(Dasypodia selenophora)
Many mini beasts act as biological
control agents, controlling the numbers of pest bugs by eating them or
encouraging creatures that do. They in
turn are food for birds, large and small,
lizards, frogs and vegetation too.
Snapshots of the magic and
mayhem created by mini beasts

Three quarters of all human food
crops are dependent on bees, flies,
wasps, moths and beetles for pollination. Consider that in Japan it
now takes 20-25 people to pollinate
100 trees in place of two bee hives.

There are new pharmaceuticals
and industrial chemicals being developed from invertebrates, e.g.
leech saliva contains the anticoagulant Hirudin, which can help
prevent heart attacks and strokes
in humans.
Mini-beast mansions


If you ever find yourself in need,
maggots can clean wounds more
efficiently than most medical treatments.
If it weren’t for the approximate
100,000 different types of organisms that feed on dead things, the
Earth would be covered in rotting
material.

Amazingly Australia’s Rufous Netcasting Spider each night must rebuild most of its retina as the receptors in its huge eyes are destroyed by the intense light of
dawn.

Though dreaded, the Bull Ant performs a similar function to earthworms in improving soil conditions
by opening the soil and improving
plant growth when they excavate
their nests.

Earwigs, fruit flies, white flies and
other assorted flies and their larvae
scavenge and break down the food
scraps in any typical compost bin,
converting them into nutrient-rich
compost that can be added to the
soil.
5

Unbelievably, the common garden
snail was deliberately introduced to
Australia to provide food for blackbirds and starlings!
Every picture tells a story
Backyard mini beasts can include beetles, spiders, insects, ants, bees,
wasps, butterflies and moths, but our
safaris were more likely to encounter
introduced pests such as cabbage
white butterflies, their caterpillars,
snails, slugs, earwigs, European
wasps and some honey bees with only
the occasional sighting of some native
blue banded bees, hoverflies, dragon
flies and some very colourful butterflies.
The more we looked the more we
found, particularly where the local native plants are thriving, where the landscape is dotted with rocks and logs
and the water saving mulch is thick
with leaf litter.
Leaf litter, it seems is essential for mini
beasts as it is home to thousands of
different plants and animals, provides
hiding places and protects them from
the icy cold and the burning sun.
There was evidence of occupation
everywhere; cicada holes and husks
throughout, great chunks taken out of
toadstools, swarms of ants composting the nectarines dropped by possums and there are mini beast mansions in the brickwork and in the leaf
litter too.
The proof is in the eating
There must be heaps of different species of spiders and their prey, cockroaches, flies, mosquitoes, moths and
insects, if the many different webs
abounding are any indication; in the
bark of the ironbark, hanging from
eaves, strung like fairy lights from tree
to tree, on windowsills and in the leaf
litter too.
I was alarmed to see my favourite
Correa under caterpillar attack, but left
it to its fate after teasing from my husband about my gardening for wildlife it survived. Caterpillars are seasonal
species so their frenzy of eating is
likely to occur only once a year.
Chemicals should never be used in a
garden for wildlife as they affect the
food chain from mini beasts to mammals.
Take heart too, that without caterpillars there would be no butterflies and
any abundance of insects can attract
wanted and dependent wildlife into the
garden. Many small bird species like
wrens, fantails, robins, whistlers and
thornbills that eat insects have been
lost to our suburbs so providing the
proper habitat encourages their return.
Consider also that nearly all bird species include some insects in their diet.
Can you see the skink heading for home in the leaf litter?
Skinks are on the move also, no
longer restricted to the stack of
pavers, they turn up in leaf litter and
many places in the garden. Along
with flowers, leaves and berries they
feast on many different species of insects and have adapted to eat introduced pests like snails. To our surprise we even discovered a skink on
the inside window ledge in the lounge
room.
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Gardens for wildlife from the bottom
up
If we want to see more species of
birds, large and small, find skinks under the rocks, butterflies fluttering by
and frogs in the ponds, work positively
to encourage local native mini beasts
to munch, bunch, breed and provide a
bountiful food source to attract a diversity of wildlife. Then look forward to
encounters with a whole new wealth of
wildlife that is there if only we bother to
look.
What are gardens for wildlife made of?
Not “sugar and spice and everything
nice” but rather “leaf litter bursting with
bull ants, bugs, beetles, spiders and
worms” - that’s what gardens for wildlife are made of!
Tread lightly.
Sources:
Australian National Museum “Bugswise”
at www.australianmuseum.net.au.
Barbara Hardy Centre for Sustainable Urban Environments “Invertebrate” fact
sheets at www.unisa.edu.au/
barbarahardy.
ABC Gardening Australia “Creepy Crawlies” fact sheet, Jennie Churchill, at
www.abc.net.au/gardening.
A field guide to the fauna of Greater Melbourne, Museum Victoria and CSIRO Publishing 2006.
A fantastic book for children: Leaf Litter
– Exploring the Mysteries of a Hidden
World, Rachel Tonkin published by Angus
& Robertson.
Article and Photos by Irene Kelly
G4W Volunteer
Solar Hot Water
Free Information Sessions
In partnership with the Eastern Alliance for Greenhouse Action (EAGA), the
Green Project is now offering bulk discounts on solar hot water and heat pump
systems to residents of Knox, Boroondara, Maroondah, Monash, Whitehorse
and Yarra Ranges. These Councils have formed an Alliance to work together to
reduce their communities’ impact on climate change. After a competitive Registration of Interest process, EAGA has appointed the Green Project to provide
good value Rheem solar hot water systems to the eastern suburbs at discounted prices.
Information sessions across the eastern region will help residents understand
the range of rebates and discounts available and provide advice on the best
type of solar hot water system for your home. They will cover details about the
offer as well as explain what RECs and VEETs are and how you can cut up to
80% of your water heating costs by moving to solar hot water.
Next information session
Wednesday, 9th of March
7.30PM - 8.30PM
Ferntree Gully Community Arts Centre
1010 Burwood Highway, Ferntree Gully
For more information and to RSVP for a session near
you, please go to: www.greenproject.com.au/eaga-ses
The Peregrine Post is printed
on Recycled Paper
7
Are you a responsible pet owner?
The Knox City Council’s Responsible Pet Ownership competition rewards responsible pet owners in Knox. So if you
know of someone who does the right thing by their pet,
why not nominate them? Monthly prize of a $100 gift
voucher with monthly winners going into the draw for the
annual prize of a $250 gift voucher to use at a Knox pet
related business participating in the competition. Entries
drawn at the beginning of each month.
Nomination forms can be picked up from the Civic Centre
at 511 Burwood Highway, Wantirna South or online at
www.knox.vic.gov.au.
Clean Up Australia Day - 6 March 2011
If you are interested in participating in Clean Up Australia Day on
Sunday 6 March 2011, please visit the Clean Up Australia website
at www.cleanup.org.au for further information or contact Clean Up
Australia on 1800 282 329.
Clean Up sites have been arranged within Knox at the following locations:
Blind Creek Billabong
Sunday 6 March, 10am – 12noon
Meet at Northern end of Jacobus Walk, Ferntree Gully (Melway Ref. 64 H11)
Contact person: Fay Rimmer, Friends of Blind Creek Billabong, phone 9758 4802
Dandenong Creek
Sunday 6 March, 9.30am – 12noon
Meet at Bike Track, end of Marlborough Road, Heathmont (Melway Ref. 63 H3)
Contact: Barry Robinson, First Friends of Dandenong Creek, 9801 1628
Eastern Regional Pet Expo - Sunday 3 April 2011
Knox City Council’s annual Eastern Regional Pet Expo is on again at Knox Park Reserve
on Ferntree Gully Road in Knoxfield.
Come along and find out which pet best suits your lifestyle and what is needed to keep
them happy and contented. Visitors can speak with local Vets, dog trainers, breeders,
Animal Welfare Groups, groomers and lots more.
Or why not enter one of the many pet competitions on the day? Categories include Best
Dressed Pet, Happiest Pet, Most looks like Owner, Most Obedient Pet, Most Impressive
Trick, Best Tennis Ball Retrieve, Fastest Fetch with Owner and an Egg & Spoon Race for
pets and their owners!
Craig "Huggy" Huggins from Gold 104FM will host the day letting everyone know who
will be on stage and when.
Have you changed your address recently?
The Peregrine Post is printed
on Recycled Paper
If you have recently changed your email or postal address, please contact Angela on
8
9298 8572 or email [email protected]
to advise of any changes.