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cate

By cate

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Pip’s picture of Rodney got me thinking …

My Mum described this year as ‘the year of butterflies’ and I agree – the la Nino rain in Australia has brought about the most amazing numbers in our insect population and everything that relies on them – I know this can’t be done in an organised garden but on our mostly native garden we can let what ever needs a feed to have one – the plants get a good pruning which can look a little alarming but they seem to enjoy – and the reward is a stunningly varied array of six legged wildlife – including mass butterflies – the number of native bee species beggars belief! – beetles species too – moths from the most minute to the giants and butterflies … oh wow!! – preying mantis, stick insects and the list goes on – lots of different spiders this year including some like the leaf curling spider have moved in – geckos, blue-tongues and water dragons – and of course the birds and insectivorous bats get a feast too

All over the continent there have been spectacular wild life ‘events’ – most places that were in prolonged drought are green – places that are normally in a natural state of desert are growing things from seeds that stay dormant waiting for these rare weather events – one of my sisters lives in Alice Springs in the ‘red centre’ – its a green centre at the moment – humid where it is usually the very driest kind of heat

we may be having rather a lot of rain (gross understatement) at the moment and it has indeed wrought havoc and some truly dreadful tragedies – but I find it very difficult to complain … at the moment we have a massive abundance of this vital resource that much of the planet is concerned about running out of – I just wish we could share it around ..

below are some pictures of Lake Eyre – the remnants of a vast inland sea in central Australia – normally just salt for as far as the eye can see with a few life forms that have adapted to the conditions – occasionally it floods – within the last couple of years it has flooded three times with no space in between for it to dry out – the resulting bird life is a mystery – thousands of kilometers inland – there are massive breeding colonies of sea birds – mot just a few stray birds – literally millions of them – I mean how do they know it’s there?? how do fish eggs survive in the salt and sand then breed up fast enough to feed them all … it’s all a mystery …

Lake Eyre in it’s ‘normal’ state

and now full of la Nino rain

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Comments

 

wow I'm amazed at the abundance of wildlife you have, we never get butterflies or anything here. Amazing about Lake Eyre, though, I didn't know it had refilled - and I find it amazing that even though there are so many negative things and loss of life associated with the rain at the moment, beautiful things can come out of it too!

26 Apr, 2011

 

Hi Pip =))

Yep - Lake Eyre has had three major 'flushes' of water in the last 12 or so months - even the poor Murray Darling scheme is flowing!! and wow is that a blessing - that poor river system was all but dead ... I just hope the 'powers that be' treat this blessing as a reprieve and not as a permanent thing because the next el Nino is going to bring the dry again (el Nino = dry and la Nino = wet as you probably know) if they keep taking out waster for irrigation the whole Murray Darling basin will be back to a sad and sorry condition in no time ...

but in the mean time - beautiful things to see indeed =))

26 Apr, 2011

 

Thats a facinating story, thank you for sharing it!

26 Apr, 2011

 

Interesting blog.. well done :o)

26 Apr, 2011

 

What a transformation ! Wonderful what some rain can do.

30 Apr, 2011

 

I'll never moan about too much rain again. Well I'll try. Its interesting that you say Lake Eyre is a vast inland dried out sea. There must have been a very different landscape here in the past and that is why I find it difficult to believe the disasters we are seeing world wide are man made. Surely this is just evolution. Thank you for sharing.

24 Oct, 2011

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