The extra rain we received this spring from the La Niña system led to abundant purple wildflowers carpeting the bushland. At first, I just enjoyed the beauty they added to my daily walk. Then I found out more about them. Like so many beautiful things in the wild here, this innocuous purple flower has its dangerous side, affecting native flora, people, and animals.

The wildflower Echium plantagineum is an invasive weed introduced to Australia in the mid-nineteenth century. The plants can remain dormant for up to five years in the ground, waiting patiently for a lot of rain. Once they sprout, they grow like crazy, producing around 5,000 seeds in a year. Since the wildflower is drought-resistant, the hot, dry summer doesn’t kill it. On the contrary, it thrives, killing native wildflowers and vegetation by choking off their growth.
 
People need to keep their distance. Tiny bristles on the plant irritate the skin if handled. The pollen causes hay fever and allergies, particularly when there’s this much of it.

The most serious danger is that it’s also toxic. With a high concentration of pyrrolizidine alkaloids, it’s poisonous to horses, causing liver damage and death. Although horses don’t seek it out, they may eat it accidentally or when there’s nothing else. In the 2003 bushfires in Canberra, at least 50 horses died from eating the weed because it was the first thing to grow back on burned land, according to the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Equestrian Association.

The toxicity affects pigs as well because pigs and horses aren’t ruminants. Cattle are moderately susceptible, while sheep and goats are less susceptible. Ruminants have microorganisms in the stomach that can break down the pyrrolizidine alkaloids, but cows, sheep, and goats still suffer from extended exposure.

This deadly purple flower is called “Paterson’s Curse” in the ACT, where I live. The Paterson family lived in Cumberoona, New South Wales, and supposedly planted it in their garden in the 1880s. 
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In South Australia, it is more commonly called “Salvation Jane.” Various theories exist about the origin of the name. Some say that farmers from the north of Adelaide coined the name in the early 1900s because they valued the weed as emergency livestock fodder. It grew when nothing else would, and they may not have realized yet how toxic it was. Others have speculated that the name originated because the flower resembled the bonnets worn by the Salvation Army ladies (called Janes). I’ve also read that bee-keepers bestowed the name because it’s a salvation for bees, flowering when the honey flow decreases. (And I can attest from personal observation that bees do love it.)

Spring is nearly over, and the weed has spread everywhere, choking off trails into the bush. I’ve noticed that kangaroos have left those areas, probably because they can’t eat it. I hope it hasn’t strangled the grasses they can eat. It’s a beautiful wildflower but definitely a curse.

This gorgeous bird, sporting feathers of bright crimson and deep blue, is a frequent visitor to our yard and adores camellia blossoms.

A rosella is a type of parrot, and Robin Hill speculates in his book Australian Birds that the name derived from “Rose Hill,” because the parrots were first sighted in the Rose Hill district of Sydney. There are eight types of rosellas in Australia. They vary in appearance, but the crimson rosella that lives in Eastern Australia is among the most vibrant.  
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In contrast to the the rest of its plumage, the back of the crimson rosella has a striking pattern, as Genevieve Osborne noted in her poem “Crimson Rosella.” 

​A breeding pair nests high in a tree, in a natural cavity lined with wood chips and dust. The female crimson rosella lays five to eight eggs and incubates them. Both parents feed the nestlings after they have hatched. The young birds stay with the parents for around 35 days. 

Juvenile crimson rosellas have green feathers that they keep until they’re more than a year old. They almost look like a different bird. 

I generally see crimson rosellas in groups of two or three, foraging on the ground or in trees. They eat seeds from gum trees, grasses, and shrubs. They also eat insects and some tree blossoms and drink nectar from some flowers. They are drawn to backyards with native plants and trees.

Happy to visit our feeder, they eat parrot seed mix, peanut pieces, and fruit like blueberries, grapes, and pieces of apple, melon, and pear. I have read that crimson rosellas can even be fed by hand, but I haven’t tried that yet.

This video has a closer look at this lovely bird in action.

Crimson rosellas are good neighbors, and I’m always happy when they visit because they eat insects and pollinate blossoms.

On our first day in our new home, a neighbor asked for help rounding up chooks, or chickens. Now, months later, I cultivated a closer acquaintance with those same three chooks when our neighbors went on holiday.
 
Keeping backyard chooks is popular in Australia, especially now with the coming of COVID-19. Although my neighbors have had their chooks for several years, many others rushed out to buy them in the early months of the pandemic, fearing shortages of supermarket eggs. Chickens were in short supply: one Tasmanian farm owner sold 100 to 200 chickens a day.
 
The hens I looked after greeted me daily with clucks, soft trills, and sounds that were almost like purring. They were easy to care for—a little feed, ample water, and occasional vegetable scraps—and they were happy. Mealworms were a special treat.
 
Freed from their coop, they foraged industriously in their enclosure. 

​There was a definite rhythm they observed: dig, dig, peck. Repeat. Here are examples of Peggy’s technique.

To my surprise, each of these ladies had her own strong personality. I always wondered where the phrase “pecking order” came from, and now I have seen it in action. First used in 1921, the term originally described the hierarchy in a flock of birds. Later, the definition expanded to include human hierarchies, often in business. While the pecking order helps hens to know how they fit within the flock, sometimes finding their place can be painful, even violent.
 
Thankfully, these chooks mostly get along at feeding time, with no clear hierarchy.

While Hazel, the largest and most adventurous, appears to be the leader, Peggy is the most irritable and likely to peck the other two. Gingernut, who is the most interested in people, is a follower. She never starts a fight but will defend herself. I knew where I stood in this hierarchy; all three felt free to peck my legs if I failed to produce the mealworms fast enough.

We all rubbed along pretty well. And I must have done something right—they rewarded me with fresh eggs near the end of my time with them.

Every year around this time, I face my ambivalence about kangaroo culling. In a kangaroo cull, a certain number of kangaroos are killed every year to keep the overall numbers down. Our nature reserves are closed at night to allow hunters to come in and shoot kangaroos. Normally, the cull starts sometime in May and lasts until they reach the quota. Last year, a record 4,035 Eastern Grey kangaroos were culled from the nature reserves in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), where I live. 

I’d hoped the kangaroos would get a break this year, after the bushfires and severe drought. I imagined that a lot of kangaroos in the ACT had already died. However, the ACT government decided to belatedly hold the cull, sparing only Tidbinbilla and Namadgi because of the recent bush fires there. The cull started this week. 

According to the ACT government, annual culls are needed to protect native grassy woodlands from the effects of too much kangaroo grazing. When the land is overgrazed by kangaroos, particularly in dry conditions, the ecosystems can’t support food and shelter for small native reptiles, insects, mammals, and ground-feeding birds. The drought exacerbated problems in the nature reserves, with too many kangaroos overgrazing land that is already significantly stressed. There’s not enough food for the kangaroos, let alone the other animals that depend on the grassy woodlands.

The number to be culled is based on what each reserve area should be able to support. This year, that number is 1,958, more than 50 percent lower than last year. Ironically, the lower number is due to COVID-19 social distancing measures. Keeping staff and contractors safe during the limited time that female kangaroos are less likely to have joeys in their pouches (up to 31 July) means that fewer kangaroos can be taken this year. Unlike some of the other Australian states, ACT does not cull kangaroos for commercial purposes, like for human consumption or pet food.

I don’t know how I feel about this. Anyone who has been reading this blog knows I’m a big softie for Australian animals, especially kangaroos. For nearly three years, I’ve seen them every day on my walks. They are like neighbors to me. On the other hand, I’m trying hard not to be the Ugly American who criticizes what they don’t understand. Kangaroo numbers can be stunning. In April 2018, I counted 109 of them in a two-mile walk in our reserve. I don’t want them to starve, suffering a slow, painful death. They have no natural predators, with the dingos gone, and many of my Australian friends consider kangaroos to be pests.

When food and water is scarce, kangaroos venture down from the reserves into the neighborhoods, inevitably colliding with cars. Canberra has been named the top city for animal collisions for the third year in a row with 670 (96 percent) of the 698 collisions involving kangaroos. As a pedestrian, I’ve witnessed a kangaroo hit by a car, struggling on the street to rise, only to be put down when help arrived. And yet, the culls drive them down into the neighborhoods as well.

The ACT Government website notes they are researching and using fertility controls, including an infertility injection that lasts for 10 years. The website says the government hopes to move to nonlethal methods like these. However, an ACT Parks and Conservation ranger told me last season—as she arrived to conceal a blood stain on the trail a hunter had left behind the night before—that sterilization methods are so prohibitively expensive that culling will still be needed.

There is some dispute about how humane the deaths are. Hunters are licensed, and there’s a Code of Practice for non-commercial shooting that must be followed to make sure the kangaroo’s death is “sudden and humane.” Guidelines describe the type of weapons and ammunition to be used, and how the shot must be taken. The timing of the cull should minimize the chance of females having joeys in the pouch, and hunters are supposed to avoid killing them. However, if a female is killed, and there are young in the pouch, the Code requires they be killed as well by “a single forceful blow to the base of the skull.” While the RSPCA claims that non-commercial shooters aren’t required to pass a test, the ACT Government states they must pass “a challenging marksmanship accuracy test” as well as a test on the “National Code of Practice and a macropod identification test.” 

So all this I know in my head. My heart is not that objective. I’ve seen mothers caring for their joeys and juveniles playing together, zipping around after a rain and bounding right up to me. I’ve seen a large male kangaroo at dawn during the cull, fleeing the reserve for my neighborhood in an absolute panic, kicking up a spray of dirt with each frantic hop. 

In the end, who am I to decide what's best? All I know is that I’m uncomfortable and still haven’t come to terms with a yearly cull. 

Large, mostly black birds with bright yellow eyes, currawongs aren’t showy like Australian parrots, and they don’t have the swaggering personality of magpies (although they are often mistaken for them). Someone I read called currawongs the foxes of the bird world. I’d agree—particularly when I’m staring into those watchful, wily eyes. Like foxes, they have adapted well to humans and are persistent predators.
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The bird’s name comes from its call, which sounds like “curra-wong, curra-wong.” Although Australia has several types of currawongs, I’m focusing on the pied currawong, since it’s the one that lives near me. The pied currawong is black, with white under the tail and near the tips of its wings. It has a large black bill, with dark grey legs. The males and females look alike, but the juveniles are greyer and fluffier.

Pied currawongs eat almost anything—small birds, young birds, lizards, young possums, insects, berries—even roadkill. They sometimes store their prey in a makeshift larder to eat later, hanging it on a hook or storing it in a crevice or tree fork.

Both males and females gather sticks and grasses for their nest, but the female builds it in a high tree fork. The male feeds the female while she incubates the eggs and feeds the chicks after they hatch.

Currawongs are not popular birds. My next-door neighbor, for example, loathes them because they can decimate the population of smaller birds. Poet Judith Wright characterized a currawong couple as a gangster and a moll.
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However, they are voracious eaters of harmful insects and clean up carrion as well. Like magpies, currawongs are playful. This currawong comes by my office window nearly every day to play peekaboo.

Magpies and currawongs have a long history of working together. One story from the indigenous peoples of Australia says that currawongs ended a drought by flying to find a Cloud Spirit to make some rain. They brought one back, led home by the magpie’s song.

Sometimes they even sing together. 
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Although currawongs may have a terrible reputation, they are still welcome visitors to my backyard.

These strange times provoke anxiety, and I’ve discovered that nature—even if it’s just what I can see from my front veranda—is indeed calming. The view forces me to slow down and appreciate the infinite leisure that Thoreau found.
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The view from my veranda encompasses the trees around us, a quiet street, the endless sky, and mountains out in the distance.

​The sky is ever-changing.

​And the birds keep me company.

I’m not the only avid bird watcher in the family.​

I revel in the splashes of color from the native bottlebrush, autumn leaves, and flowering rosemary far below.

As I wrote in a previous post, when my world narrowed to my home and its surroundings, my view became deeper rather than broader.

Along with everyone else, we’re staying at home to “flatten the curve” in this strange beginning of 2020. When my horizon shrank to my house and the little patch of ground on which it rests, I became a close observer of what surrounds me. My backyard became my Walden Pond.

My backyard is sheltered and private, an appealing facsimile of rambling nature. The previous owners enjoyed all kinds of plants and popped into a bare space anything they found eye-catching. They created a pleasing jumble of green.

They loved succulents, and so do I, all those weird and wonderful shapes. This one looks like a miniature alien from Little Shop of Horrors. 

​I retreat to the backyard, escaping from the daily news to savor the last colors of autumn. 

Or to watch the birds forage and the bees busy at work. 

Sometimes I’ll spot the occasional skink, but I’m never fast enough to catch a photo.
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The backyard also includes a decaying bird bath the birds never use and something that looks like the skeletal remains of an umbrella pulled inside-out by the wind. It’s for drying clothes outside— which everyone does here—but I haven’t the knack of it yet. My American addiction to a clothes dryer persists.

I have never been a gardener—I have a black thumb rather than a green one—so I never know what anything is called. Some things I recognize though, like a geranium, rosemary, and a lemon tree. And we may have a bay tree.

As the native wildlife here contends with drought, high temperatures, and bushfires this summer, people across Canberra have united to help. In a community effort to provide water for thirsty wildlife, Water Our Wildlife Canberra has encouraged Canberrans to place and maintain tubs of water in nature reserves and neighborhoods. Started on December 22, 2019, the group now has nearly 6,000 members and more than 500 watering stations across the Australian Capital Territory.

I’ve put out three watering stations, cleaning and filling them every few days. There’s more to consider in maintaining water stations than you’d think.
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First, where to locate them? I chose locations with no natural sources of water or other water stations nearby. The locations had to be far enough out in the bush to do some good but close enough to the road to carry the water in. I had to find flat, level ground in shaded areas, away from busy walking trails. I also looked for places with lots of fresh scat to confirm animals were congregating there.

​What kind of container? I started out with larger plastic bins and soon realized it was unrealistic to carry in enough water to maintain them. 

​I replaced the bins with deep plastic bowls. I also added smaller shallow plates for insects, small reptiles, and animals that can’t access a deep bowl, such as echidnas. Branches and rocks are crucial to a successful water station. Branches around the containers allow smaller animals to climb to the water. Branches inside let bees and other insects drink without drowning.

I often find animals waiting for me.

​Adding a sprinkler hose or buckets outside in the yard helps too.

Water Our Wildlife has a public Facebook page, frequented by positive, dedicated people. I enjoy seeing the posted pictures and reading what’s happening with the wildlife in other neighborhoods. Maybe this effort has become so popular because it’s a small but tangible thing that ordinary people can do to help in the face of bushfires and drought.

In my last post, I wrote about the effect of the fires on Australia’s wildlife. Since then, the scope of the disaster has continued to grow. An ecologist from the University of Sydney now estimates more than 800 million animals have been affected in New South Wales alone, and more than 1 billion animals across Australia since September.

After reading my last post, a college friend from the United States asked about the wildlife carers. Beyond monetary donations, he wondered if any practical supplies could be sent to them. Another friend asked what the firefighters needed. One thing I can do in this situation is research, so I reached out to my Australian friends that are involved in different charities, and here’s what I discovered.
 
Wildlife carers are in desperate need of vet supplies like bandages, wraps, medicines, and ointments. They also need hanging pouches to be sewn for all the orphaned marsupials. The fabric used to make the pouches should be 100 percent cotton or cotton flannel. Here are patterns for:

​Little care packages are being put together for the firefighters through the #SLABSFORHEROES effort. Needed items include:

For both the wildlife carers and firefighters, supplies can be mailed to:

Parcel Locker 1004339105
99 Mawson Place
Mawson ACT 2607
Australia
ATTN: Angel Ben
 
In another effort, The Rescue Collective, which distributes supplies to ​wildlife carers, needs the following:

For some of the more obscure items on the list, you can try online Australian vet suppliers like vetnpetdirect.com.au or vetproductsdirect.com.au. Or you could order online through a U.S. pet supplies company like www.petcarerx.com.

For The Rescue Collective, please mail supplies to:

Nicole Blums 
C/O The Rescue Collective
4/55 Tenby Street
Mount Gravatt 4122
Australia
 
Monetary donations are always welcome. For disaster recovery, try the Australian Red Cross. To help the firefighters, donate to either the New South Wales Rural Fire Service  or the Victorian bushfire relief effort. Donations to care for native animals can go to The Rescue Collective and NSW Wildlife Information, Rescue, and Education Service, Inc. (WIRES).
 
I am humbled by and thankful for the care and support shown to Australia from people all over the world. 

The images on the news and social media have been relentless: kangaroos fleeing the bush fires, badly burned koalas, cockatoos falling from the skies, and countless orphaned joeys.

In a bush fire season that started unimaginably early, the devastation has been tremendous. BBC News provides a good summary of how these fires have unfolded so far. The losses are staggering.

Scientists from the University of Sydney estimated that 480 million animals have been killed in New South Wales alone since September. These animals were killed directly by the fire or later due to loss of food and habitat. Thirty percent of koala habitat is gone. And the fires are likely to keep burning for months more.

Many people know about koalas and kangaroos, but countless other species are suffering, including lesser-known animals like the dunnart, long-nosed potoroo, and the antechinus.

Even before these fires, Australia’s track record for preserving animal species was grim. Australian Geographic’s comprehensive study found that 100 species of animals and plants have become extinct in Australia since European settlers arrived in 1788, the worst record on any continent over the same time period.

Wrapping my mind around all this loss can be depressing, immobilizing. But I am inspired by the Australians around me. They aren’t giving up on their wildlife. What they do best as individuals is band together for the sake of the greater good and the community. And, like the volunteer firefighters here, they never ever stop.

Many, many efforts to help animals have been launched across the country. Below are just a few in my local area that I’ve been aware of or involved in.

Most inspiring and rewarding to me has been Water Our Wildlife Canberra, a local effort encouraging people to just start putting out water for the wildlife around us—whether it’s a small backyard basin of water for the birds and bees or a wading pool for kangaroos in the neighborhood nature reserve—every little bit makes a difference. Interest and participation are both growing by leaps and bounds daily. There is even talk of turning it into a national program.

A group called Sydney Dingo Rescue was caring for 40 dingoes when it was forced to evacuate to a temporary location north of Canberra two weeks ago. They were running low on supplies, so local charities (including the ACT Pet Crisis Fund, which I work with) have pitched in to provide newspapers for bedding, materials for temporary enclosures, squeaky dog toys, dog food, and chews.
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The Animal Rescue Craft Guild has put the call out for sewers, knitters, and crocheters to make wraps, nests, joey pouches. and blankets for injured bats, birds, orphaned marsupials, and other wildlife. 

The Rescue Collective collects supplies for animal carers, and people have donated everything from formula for marsupial babies to animal first aid materials to jerrycans of water and plastic basins.

​If you’re wondering how you can help Australia, here are some opportunities to make a difference.