Greetings fellow Foxies,
 In mid-October I saw a small gleaming structure like a pearl-laden pendant attached to a dead quandong twig that I thought was an empty pupal case. The pearls were eggs accompanied by a dumpy insect that I thought was a type of scale. Wrong again!
The insect was a flightless female moth, that had laid the eggs after emerging from a pupal case inside the silky and hairy frame. 

​The insect was a flightless female moth, that had laid the eggs after emerging from a pupal case inside the silky and hairy frame. I found two information sources

• This Butterfly House blog. Clouded Footman Anestia ombrophanes
• My Pestguide Bioblitz report: They are the caterpillars of a very interesting moth, Marbled Footman, Anestia ombrophanes Meyrick, 1886 or Anestia semiochrea (Butler, 1886) (Lepidoptera: Erebidae). The two species may well be the same species described about the same time by two entomologists. The species is native and widespread but rarely observed in the Southern part of Australia. The caterpillars are black with a complex pale-yellow pattern and a row of pink spots on each sides and covered in long black hairs. They feed on primitive plants such as: Lichen, Green Algae (Bracteacoccus species) and Black Algae (Gloeocapsa magma). The adult female has a length of about 1 cm. She is wingless and flightless and has a large grey body with pink spots. The female stays near her cocoon, and the male copulates with her there.

​I was aware of flightless female wasps that dragon orchid flowers mimic to fool male wasps to pollinate them in a fruitless attempt to mate. But flightless moths! Amazing.
As strange as it seems, flightless females can carry more eggs than those with wings but need to be well camouflaged to avoid predators and have a good dispersal mechanism for the many emerged young.
I took the egg mass home to take better closeup images, and discovering that the female was still alive, left it in a safe place.
When I looked again a week later, there were lots of teeny caterpillars hanging down from silken threads, presumably waiting for a wind to disperse them.
I quickly made up a buffet of various plant materials but suspect that they all crawled away. Such is life.

Greetings fellow Foxies,
 
At the end of August, Aileen and I had one of our best holidays together, at Wooleen Station in the Murchison. The holiday was particularly special as we stayed in the homestead and spent a lot of time over meals talking with owners David and Frances Pollock and other homestay guests. David and Frances are exceptional people who really inspired me to learn about this attractive, tough and interesting part of WA.
I have a good friend who worked as a rangeland adviser in the Gascoyne region, and who did rangeland vegetation monitoring but didn’t really appreciate his work or knowledge (sorry Don), until David explained the extent and ongoing nature of the degradation, the value of the now discontinued monitoring, and his inspiring vision/work.
There is just too much to summarise in an article, so I am listing some of my learning and experiential  highlights and urge you to learn more through the Australian Story podcasts, David’s exceptionally well researched and well written book “The Wooleen Way”, and their website .
 
Wooleen is totally different to Foxes Lair (although I did find some laterite), but I was amazed to similar principles and processes in a landscape where European activity has negatively altered the natural balance.
 
A few really interesting things
 

• On the drive up to Wooleen I kept noticing how the bush on one side of the road was prolific and looked like it had been burnt on the other. David explained that this is due to water starvation on the downside from being redirected on the upside by the road. Slopes up there are so low, the area looks flat. I see the same thing on a MUCH smaller scale in Foxes Lair from water running off our soils because of water repellence and almost no soil disturbance due to extinction of burrowing animals.
• Vegetation was once very different with large amounts of perennial grasses, saltbushes, bluebushes and other edible shrubs that have been eaten out to leave unpalatable species, annuals and much more bare ground.
• Many of these shrubs are very long lived. 100-year-old knee high bushes!  (I wonder how old the gnarled Kunzea baxteri shrubs in cracks on top of Yilliminning Rock are?). Once these go it takes a very long time for them to re-establish.
• No doubt, the local Wajarri people did controlled burning to freshen up grass growth, but fire is much less important than in agricultural areas for regeneration.
• The major issue there is sustained grazing pressure of perennial plants with drinking water availability and dingo predation being the major factor limiting overgrazing before the advent of the present stations.
• I was amazed to learn that kangaroos and feral goats make up 60% of the grazing pressure in that region and continues even when livestock are removed or greatly reduced. Assisting drought-stricken pastoralists on shrublands to retain livestock by supplying feed increases long term degradation as they and the masses of roos/goats continue to eat stressed shrubs until they die.
• By allowing the dingo (the natural predator) back onto his property, David has cleaned out all foxes and goats and brought roo numbers back to a normal level. As dingos only have a small effect on cattle it is a win win. Redirect money from controlling them into robust and maintained dingo fences to keep them out of agricultural areas. Read his book – this is highly contentious but brilliant. Unfortunately, dingos don’t get all the cats but must be reducing their numbers.
• Station owners have to get the bulk of their income from grazing !!!! (illegal to just have tourism) This is just one of the amazingly destructive edicts by the pastoralist dominated Pastoral Board that has resisted government efforts to reform them. I smell a lot of political clout there that will only go when that generation passes.

 
Below is a list of special experiences and learnings that made this a special holiday for this geology/soils/nature loving geek and his (relatively) normal wife, and links to Google Photos albums of favourite images.
 

• There is something special about staying in a station homestead and being able to learn so much over leisurely meals.

• Desert tree frogs in the outside toilet at night.
•  Really interesting buildings, museum, miscellaneous artefacts. A great feature of remote dry places is that old building, machinery remains as a testament to the past. All sort so things like the hand bellows in the forge and machine for making corrugated iron for the roof. Of course, I had to visit their dump and do recommend it.
• Wooleen Lake is a unique RAMSAR listed freshwater lake that has water about every 4 years (we were lucky). Amazing bird life and I found an interesting toadstool around a cow pat there. The lake is fresh because it was only formed relatively recently (60,000 years ago) by a fault that diverted the Roderick River from its course to the Murchison River.
• David’s bus tour of the property that culminates with watching a sunset from a large granite outcrop with a glass of wine. A must do to really understand the shrublands, David’s reclamation and local aboriginal culture.
• Beautiful and many quite different wildflowers in the short growing season. Incidentally the masses of everlastings that everyone loves are partially an artefact of land degradation. In pristine country shrubs and grasses would have dominated, with masses of everlasting only emerging after fire or soil disturbance.
• Lots more like the Murchison River, Yewlands Pool etc

 
Click this link for my pics
 
https://photos.app.goo.gl/VrMy64T1fDRdhjMc9
​

​Greetings fellow Foxies,
Despite an exceptionally dry summer and autumn, we have had over 90mm of rain since mid June. If it all soaked in it would wet the soil to at least 2.5 metres. There has been relatively little runoff and I was gobsmacked, and very concerned to find dry soil within 5cm when digging side-drains on a range of soil types on walking trails to reduce erosion. These soils are massively water-repellent.

If the water largely didn’t run away, where did it go? Many of our native plants have excellent strategies for channelling water down their roots, and an experiment I did some years ago showed the importance of obstructing surface water flow to allow time for water to overcome the water repellence. The image below shows a section of water repellent soil where a racehorse goanna had been burrowing for insects in an old root channel. Note how moisture has wet the soil to depth around the root channel.

​I read this great article about the importance of woylies in the regeneration of sandalwood and native poisons. No doubt emus were also important.
​
Woylies and emus have gone from most of our reserves with the only burrowing animals being rabbits, reptiles and  echidnas. This is having a massive impact. Over time as plants die leaving bare ground and roots rot away there is less chance that new plants will replace them unless conditions change.

I commented on  irreversible changes in small reserves previously, and feel sad about the ongoing loss of nesting trees.
When entering Foxes Lair from opposite the caravan park, one can see poorer shrub and wildflower growth on the left side that hasn’t been burnt for over 50 years on the left, compared to vibrant growth on the right where an arsonist burnt about a third of the reserve.
That fire was a real revelation for me, as it triggered orchids I hadn’t previously seen and rejuvenated small bird life such as  quail that hide in dense undergrowth.
The arsonist had several goes in Foxes Lair After a small attempt I noticed a smouldering front moving through the soil under marri that burnt the water repellent organic surface layer to a depth of 3cm, and after the arsonist’s finale the fire continued to burn along underground tree roots for about 3 weeks (lesson here don’t walk through burnt country soon after a fire – your foot can plunge into underground burning root). The images below shows the difference burning made on the Valley Walk.

​What can be realistically done by volunteers and local government in small reserves?
 
Over time I have developed the following achievable strategies in Foxes Lair.

• Proper low intensity mosaic burns, with raking around big standing dead trees that are vital nesting spots. I developed a 10 plus year interval burning program for blocks in the reserve (no luck with implementation so far).
•  When pruning is required or trees fall across tracks etc. prunings are placed on bare areas to help trap water (amazing how quickly the leaves disappear).
• Dig small side drains at short intervals along trails and roads to return water to the bush more evenly.
• Spread soil from these side drains on to bare areas to introduce and retain seed and help water infiltration.
• Control weeds (so many).
• At the rate that large nesting trees are falling over, I reckon that nesting boxes will be needed one day.

I still remember being appalled at the lack of bird diversity when I travelled overland from India to Turkey a lifetime ago. Just sparrows,pigeons, crows and vultures!
​ I would hate Australia to go down that route.

Greetings fellow Foxies,
Visitors to Foxes Lair each summer could be forgiven for thinking that many understorey plants have died, but each winter they burst into life again.
 There are many plant strategies for coping with our seasonal droughts.
Each November, the marri trees drop some leaves to reduce their water use, and orchids survive as twin underground bulbs (‘orchis’ is the Greek word for testicle).
 True specialists are resurrection plants that completely dry out but, become green and active within days of rain. Examples are lichens (OK not plants) and Borya species “Pincushion plants’ on granite rocks (see Borya sphaerocephala on left).

​Many other plants partially shrivel up and change colour to ultraviolet resistant purple, red, and yellow, but remain alive in most seasons. However it takes days for them to recover after rain,  and plants will die in severe droughts.
The compact bush tucker plant Kickbush (Astroloma acervatum) is a common example

​Allocasuarinas (sheoaks and tammars) also markedly change colour as shown in the Dwarf Tammar (Allocasuarina humilis) images from near the Claypit. I noticed that there were colour differences within the plant where some branches were more water stressed than others.
Random comment – why do taxonomists use the Latin word humilis for smaller?
As a person of moderate stature, I regard this as heightist bias, and certainly feel no humility towards my larger brethren (poor souls).

​This interesting extract from a book edited by Professor Hans Lambers is a great read for those wishing to understand more about drought tolerance of our native plants.
 Have you ever wondered why Australia has no cacti and few succulents compared to other countries?
Succulent plants rely on salts in their cells to retain large amounts of water. Their evolution has not been favoured on most of our soils which have formed on very leached and weathered materials, except in saline basins where one finds salt tolerant succulents like Bluebush, Pigface, and Samphire.