Greetings fellow Foxies.

Aileen and I had an evening picnic at the main picnic area last night, which happened to be the right time to see a colony of bag moth caterpillars emerging from their silken bag to feed at night. They travel in long lines and are known as processionary caterpillars.

See on the left caterpillars emerging from the bag and beginning to climb to the top where they will form a line to march to some tasty leaves. They are known for having urticating (love that word) hairs.

To find the moth bag, look for it in a manna wattle shrub that adjoins the east facing part of the car park.

You will know that it is the correct one if you also see broken twigs and scraped bark on the trunk, and if you are lucky, blood, flesh and clothing fragments that mark where your intrepid correspondent fell out of the tree during the photo shoot. If you are really lucky you may also see traces of laughter tears in the dust left by my devoted wife.

The things I do for my readers!

Greetings fellow Foxies,

                                       If you cast your eyes upwards in Foxes lair, you will see lovely red Mistletoe flowers.

Ah Mistletoe, the flower of love, dedicated to the goddess Athena, and placed above doors at Christmas and where people who meet there must kiss. If you have a hankering for osculation, arrange to meet the intended person below a Mistletoe infected jam tree that adjoins the top of the loop that contains the Granite Walk picnic tables.

Now that you are fired up I mention that Mistletoe is a stem hemiparasite that can kill its host, and the name literally means ‘dung-on-a-twig’. This because Mistletoe produces a berry that is eaten by the Mistletoe bird, which in turn straddles branches to deposit  its dropping containing the seed on the branch. When the seed germinates, the seedling produces a connection like a vegetative placenta that enables it to tap into the host’s sap.
Dodder laurel is also a stem parasite, but is a holoparasite.

Mistletoe berries are a bush tucker that are sweet but so sticky that they the flesh can't be separated from the seed; this helps the seeds to stick on branches after passing through whatever eats them.
This fabulous blog shows that mistletoes are an integral part of the bush. Their fruit is food for several birds and animals, and they do not necessarily kill their host.

Greetings fellow Foxies,

                                     Every year tadpoles appear after water enters the Claypit, and then die each summer as it dries out. As the only permanent water is at least 500 metres away, I wondered where they came from.
Last week I wandered around the Claypit to see how the tadpoles were coping as it dried. I was amazed when I picked up a dead branch that was partly buried in the mud to see water engorged 2cm frogs hibernating in their own muddy cells. Note the film over some frog’s eyes. Feeling guilty at exposing them I covered them up with a palm log and mud to keep out ants. Please don’t disturb the muddy monument!
I was keen to return at night to look for swimming frogs so Aileen and I went for an evening picnic.
Wonderful ! Life is good watching the new moon rise with a fine woman, a steak sandwich and a glass of Chateau Cardboard.
We then drove down to Beavers Dam and pointed the car lights at the dam. Sure enough, there were frogs in the water. they are Humming Frogs Neobatrachis pelobatoides.

I happened to go past the claypit yesterday and saw the very last puddle filled with doomed tadpoles and froglets. Nature is indifferent to the individual, and they have now gone to the great pond in the sky. However as the claypit has rarely had water until March, a multitude of earlier taddies have made the grade. The frog chorus when the rains return should be deafening.