Australia

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Seaweek 2023 | Australia is a marine nation….

SeaWeek-Yearly-Generic-Poster-aqfzpl From Sat. 4 March – Sun. 12 March 2023….. SeaWeek is Australia’s major national public awareness campaign to focus community awareness, provide information and encourage an appreciation of the sea. SeaWeek gives us a fantastic opportunity to promote educational issues of relevance to the marine environment. SeaWeek events are organised and run by environmental and marine educators across the country. Australia is a marine nation. We have one of the largest ocean territories in the world, and it drives our...

Wildlife News | ‘Exploding’ feral deer a very real Aussie problem

Feral deer will become Australia’s ‘next rabbit plague’ without a containment zone, experts say According to the Guardian Australia newspaper : Populations of feral deer have increased tenfold in the past two decadeswith numbers now too high to be managed by recreational hunting or other recent control measures. Numbers of the invasive species are now so large in some parts of the east coast that a new national strategy by federal and state governments proposes establishing a “containment zone” to...

Creature Feature | Kangaroo

  * Photo by Henricus Peters at Lone Pine Sanctuary  Here are some facts you might not know about kangaroo… Kangaroo joeys are the size of a jellybean * Photo by Henricus Peters at Lone Pine Sanctuary  They can’t move backwards. “Kangaroos can not walk backward. Kangaroos hopping motion is called Saltation. They hop off their feet and use their tail to balance. That combined with muscular legs make it easy for them to move forward effectively but those appendages...

Learn From Nature | Conservation News Review – December 18

  A snapshot of the last week in the environmental field * Christmas is now but a week away – read more about “Christmas Animals” Australia – giant wombats roamed the continent – https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2022/12/giant-wombats-roamed-the-continent-and-now-we-have-a-complete-description-of-its-melon/ New Zealand – Forest & Bird, New Zealand’s largest conservation organisation, is preparing to celebrate 100 years  United Kingdom – BBC Wildlife Mag is 60 years old! The magazine was instrumental in highlighting wildlife photography  Global news – Conference of Parties on biodiversity was held in...

Creature feature | Strange animals – Australian platypus

The  “platypus” is indeed a weird, strange creature but / and … it IS real…. But when Europeans first encountered the odd-looking platypus, it became the centre of scientific debate: was it real or just an elaborate hoax? The platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus) has a puzzling array of features. Not only does it have that iconic duck bill, it lays eggs like a bird or reptile but feeds milk to its young like a mammal. Males also have a pair of venomous...

Survey | Frogs of Australia

FrogID Week is Australia’s Biggest Frog Count, held annually for Australians to help record frog calls through the free FrogID app, as a measurement of frog health and distribution around the nation. It aims to monitor frog distributions over time, helping us to understand how frogs and their ecosystems are responding to a changing planet. From croaks and barks, to whistles and bleats, every frog species makes a unique sound. Using the free FrogID app, you can record the frogs...

Blood Moon – Best times to watch in New Zealand

Further to my post – https://learnfromnaturetoday.com/blood-moon-unique-lunar-event The best times to see this unique astronomy event in New Zealand according to https://www.1news.co.nz  are: “The full eclipse will begin at 11.16pm, when the red hue will be most visible, before reaching maximum eclipse at midnight. The period of total eclipse will last for 1 hour and 25 minutes, before reaching its maximum peak at 11.59pm. “  ...

Blood Moon – unique lunar event – November 8th

The next and final lunar eclipse of 2022 will occur TONIGHT November 8 and will be visible in parts of Asia, Australia, North America, parts of northern and eastern Europe, and most of South America. The first total lunar eclipse of 2022 occurred on May 15-16 and was visible in total phase from portions of the Americas, Antarctica, Europe, Africa and the East Pacific. Lunar eclipses occur when Earth is positioned between the sun and the moon, casting a shadow...

Flooding in Australia – what’s the cause?

Floods have made headlines ( again ) this past week across Australia news media…. Flood warnings in place in Australia’s eastern states, with predictions the wet weather could persist until the middle of next week   So why does it flood in Australia? “The oceans north of Australia are warmer and that causes more moisture flowing from the Indian ocean to eastern parts of Australia,” ( Agus Santoso, senior researcher at the University of New South Wales Climate Research Centre...

Easter bunny? Instead, let’s Save the Bilby!

Easter features a number of animals – see my previous post  This year the Bilby has taken over from the more traditional Easter bunny – with money raised going to the wonderful work of Save the Bilby Fund  Information about the Bilby : “There is more to ‘why save bilbies’ than the fact that they look amazing, they have adorable ears and beautiful silky soft fur. Firstly, bilby ancestors have been found as fossilised remains dating back 15 million years...