Greetings fellow Foxies,
                                     I love looking at lichens after rain, when they transform from dry scabby coatings to almost iridescent grey, green, purple, yellow, etc shapes and patterns on rocks, bark, and wood that excites my imagination.
according to Wikipedia ‘a lichen is a composite organism that arises from algae or cyanobacteria (or both) living among filaments of a fungus in a symbiotic relationship. The combined life form has properties that are very different from the properties of its component organisms.’
The algae/cyanobacteria produce sugars by photosynthesis that they share with the fungi in exchange for protection, moisture and minerals. They are very tough, occurring from desert to tundra and very old. They evolved at least 400 million years ago and live longer than most organisms.
Breaking news: all lichens also contains another fungus that coats the other 2 participants and holds them together. Everything you want to know about lichens can be found on this website.

Lichens do not affect living organisms, but rely on air, water, dust,  and minerals derived from acids that they exude into underlying rock and organic matter.

Greetings fellow Foxies,
We have a couple of common and really interesting lace web spiders in Narrogin. The name comes from the lacy nature of their very sticky webs.

The Black House Spider Badumna insignis that has a funnel-type web in every home and many cars (I have one in my external rear vision mirror), looks nasty but is really a wimp. They are very reclusive and are regularly eaten by birds and White-tailed Spiders.
The one on the left is about to feast on a donated cockroach, but only after I hid from it.

In contrast, the Social webbing Spider Phryganoporus candidus is inconspicuous, but builds an amazing communal web in summer to rear its young.
In late summer a young female establishes the web that is enlarged by her and her spiderlings that may number in the hundreds. The web contains a central living area of interconnecting tunnels that is surrounded by a communal catching web. It becomes a small city that contains the spiders, their parasites, and other beasties that feed on the debris. The dew-laden social web is an early stage.

In late spring, the sub-adult females leave the nest, and are followed later by the males. These spiders then establish solitary webs, and will eat any intruders, with the temporary exception of males for mating.
Until this autumn, I have wondered where these solitary webs were.
If you look closely on sheoak needles, you may see a miserable little web that ends in a thin conical retreat of silk and insect bits.
It took me a long time to coax one out with tasty flies and moths. They are small (about 5mm) lovely spiders that are covered with white hairs to help them cope with hot dry weather.

Greetings fellow Foxies,
Railway dam is a historic and beautiful spot to visit. Attractions include.

• A picnic area with free gas BBQs
• RV camping
• Two walk trails. The Dam Walk (white 650 metres 20 minutes), and the Archibald Park Walk (red 1200 metres 40 minutes).
• historical information
• a jet boat course
• A memorial to World War 2 immigrants who are now an integral part of Narrogin,

 The water is only slightly saline, supports healthy waterweed growth and is crystal clear. I saw a guy catching quite reasonable redfin perch once and there is also a remarkable population of long-necked tortoises. We counted 16 swimming towards us as we stood on the bridge suggesting that someone either feeds them or dumped a body in the water. Tortoises have been known to pull baby birds underwater by a leg until they drown and become more edible. Apart from that they are nice animals.
Please note that it is not good practice to feed wild animals, particularly in a small dam like this where overpopulation could lead to catastrophic deaths.

​When the first steam train travelled from Beverley to Albany in 1899, Narrogin was a hamlet with few people. However within 30 years, it was a bustling town with the largest train junction outside of Perth. Over a third of Narrogin’s population were directly dependent on railway employment, and many sports had at least one railways team. These days are long gone.
Steam locomotives require large amounts of fresh water Built in 1912, Railway Dam was the third local water source (after the Narrogin Pool, and then a dam, both of which were near the now derelict railway station). This was only for railway use, and the town remained critically short of water until a pipeline from the Wellington dam at Collie was constructed in 1954.
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As land surrounding the dam was gradually cleared for agriculture, increasing salinity led to the construction of a spaghetti-like system of drains to separate fresh and saline water flows into the dam. Drains and weirs originally started up near Graham road. A weir and a separator on the south western edge of the reserve also redirected fresh (blue), or saline (purple) water to either the dam or the disposal drain that bypasses the dam. Where they crossed the saline channel went underneath the fresh channel.

Railway dam has a resident population of water birds and occasionally has interesting visitors like spoonbills and swans. Water levels in the dam have been much lower in recent years. There were large beds of rushes around the edges that provided shelter for frogs and nesting birds, but they are a casualty of our drying climate. As an example see the rushes behind us in the 1991 family photo and 2014.
Since then and 2021 the dam has filled twice.

A memorial and associated information commemorates a remarkable time in the 1950’s when European immigrants came from displaced persons camps to Australia. In return for free transport, they were required to spend 2 years working for the government. Conditions in the camps established to the south and west of Railway Dam were hard with no running water or sewerage. My friend John Zabajnik recalled that his family was lucky as they had a sleeper floor in their tent, while most coped with bare ground.
Many of these people obtained their own house, and remained in Narrogin to become leading citizens
 The file below contains a fascinating account of the times and these resilient people.

In 1992 a jet boat course was excavated on the northern side of Railway Dam. Twice a year, water was pumped into the circuit from the dam for a time trial event. Public interest rapidly waned and it was abandoned after a couple of years.

​The course has been resurrected with an event in October 2020.

A rush-covered mildly saline area on the eastern side of the dam is a haven for tent-web and Saintt Andrews Cross spiders (both harmless) that becomes an amazing spider city panorama on dewy mornings.