Brisbane's urban growth

When Edd and I moved into our suburban street 2.5 years ago, our block of townhouse units was one of only a couple along the street.  However, in the past year it has seemed like every month a house is sold and then a notice goes up saying 'planning development proposed: 6 units', or suchlike.  Brisbane is growing at a seemingly astronomical rate (Melbourne has the accolade of being Australia's current fastest growing city, but all State capital cities here are growing rapidly). Since last month we now have a crane on the horizon at the end of our street for the first time, matching the many we see in the city.

For a while now I have been meaning to take some photos of the doomed houses making way for progress.  Before and after shots.  Well, it seems Google beat me to it!  I was browsing the web and noticed that the Google street view on Google maps* of our street was more recent than I remembered, and then I found the timeline feature!! Wow.  At present there are only three time points, but already the difference in the street is striking.  These are the houses adjacent to ours, from exactly the same viewpoint over six years...

*NB to get this timeline option, it seems that it only works if you look at Google maps in Google Chrome browser, then when you go into street view you will get the timeline option.

In December 2007:

In November 2009:

In December 2013:

Isn't that amazing!  What an incredible documentation of social history and environmental change Google street view is giving us.  As a Geographer I think its truly awesome.

So, besides the groups of units on a block where one house would have stood six years ago, what else is changing about our local environment?  These photos really show it all: Firstly, fewer trees.  Sadly developers just cut down some beautiful large ones opposite our house where the possums liked to play; actually they were the trees pictured in the top right corner of these images!  Second: more concrete and smaller verges (notice no pavement in the early picture, this is something we found quite surprising about our area when we first moved in, and actually rather pleasant, made it feel quite rural).  Third: more parked cars - these are becoming such a pain in recent months, down both sides of the street now.  The street is also getting noticeably busier, the second picture shows the kids playing in the street, and it is still possible to walk down our street in the road and not worry too much about cars coming (which we got used to doing with the lack of verges!) but now we do find we have to move out of the road more often.

There you see it, social history as it happens!  Thanks Google.

A bush photography class

Last weekend I was a very keen participant in a photography workshop, held in my local bushland of Mount Gravatt as part of the Peaks to Points festival by the local environment group at Mount Gravatt, part of the Bulimba Creek Catchment.  It was a beautiful Queensland morning, so I set off on Juanita, my trusty bicycle, forgetting that there is a big hill up to Fox Gully where the workshop was held!  Arriving a little warm and dishevelled, I settled into a comfy chair in a tent under the shady trees to listen to the marvellous 'amateur photography expert' Alan Moore.

Alan imparted his great knowledge and experience of taking photographs of the bush in a highly enthusiastic and engaging rapid fire hour.  As a very keen amateur who has never had any instruction or been brave enough to move off the auto functions, this was something of a revelation!  A big thing for me was to learn more about depth of field, which I now know is tied to the camera's aperture. Manipulating the depth of field using the aperture can give some great effects and ultimately much better photos, such as that nice fuzzy background to portraits, so the eye is really drawn to the subject.  This works in combination with focal length and focus.  Equally, you can use the aperture settings to ensure you get as much as possible in focus, by using a large depth of field.  The confusing thing is that a large depth of field equates to a small aperture (e.g. f/22), and a small depth of field (more restricted focus) equates to a large aperture (e.g. f/4.5)!  Here are a couple of examples of photos I tool at the workshop with a small aperture, set at aperture value F8.0, which has meant that the picture has stayed focused on both the close up of the tree and the path disappearing into the distance.  I used 'Av' mode on my camera to set the aperture, so that the camera would automatically adjust the other settings like shutter speed.

In this photo of the Pied Butcherbird Cracticus nigrogularis I did the opposite, and increased the aperture to F5.7 (shallower depth of field) at a larger focal length (i.e. zoom).  I was brave and used the Manual settings! Although not perfect I'm pretty pleased with the result (a tripod would have helped with the slower shutter speed) .  I'm very excited to try out more of my new found knowledge and camera settings.
 

The Pied Butcherbird is probably the most beautiful singer of all the Australian birds, You can hear a beautiful example of the song below, as I often do when I wake up in the morning.

A koala at the top of the mountain

Another beautiful Sunday evening, so it was hard to resist another stroll up Mount Gravatt.  So far we have only spotted Koalas in two areas of the mountain, in the area between Gertrude Petty place to just below Federation Lookout, both of which are near the base of the mountain.  We have not heard of Koalas appearing near the top and haven't seen any up there ourselves, despite always keeping our eyes peeled.  The top of the mountain has a car park, picnic sites, a restaurant and the lookout, so we assumed the Koalas preferred the more tranquil lower parts of the mountain.

We often mistake termite nests for koalas, or hanging branches in the tall trees, and its not until we zoom in with binoculars or my camera that we can tell for sure.  Initially, this seemed like such an occasion, when Edd my partner asked 'is that a Koala?' as we neared the very top of the mountain.  However, although what Edd had been looking at was a dead branch, if he hadn't said that then I wouldn't have looked and spotted this Koala sitting very high up in a gum tree!  As we stood watching, a lady walked past with a dog off it's lead.  When I mentioned to her that the rule on the mountain was to keep dogs on a lead, as dogs are one of  the biggest threats to the survival of the endangered Koala (like the one in the tree, right there!), her response was that it is a well behaved dog and she is a local.  Nothing like the locals setting an example though, is there?!

Our Mountain

A simple view of Mount Gravatt bushland at sunset, touched by the warm glow.

Peaks to Points

My local 'peak' Mount Gravatt

Some nice little wildlife events are coming up in Brisbane in early September I thought I would publicise. I will be sure to go to the photography workshop at my local reserve Mount Gravatt! This is part of the Peaks to Points Festival to be held at reserves across south Brisbane, with activities ranging from orienteering to the wonders of worm farming!  The website also contains some nice info on the nature of the Flinders Peak to Moreton Bay corridor and there are plenty of ongoing events advertised there, if you miss this festival.  Great that something like this is happening in the city!

A lone Koala on Mount Gravatt

Well, we are getting quite proud of our Koala spotting abilities, we have a 100% record for Koala spotting on Mt Gravatt since we first spotted the Koala family back in January! We went a little walk below the Federation lookout again where we have spotted them before, and came across this lone Koala in a tall tree near a bridge, pictured below.

The Koala was very high up in the large tree pictured above next to the path, so it was hard to get a clear picture.  I don't know which member of the Koala family it was, I'm pretty sure not the mother (as her ears were not very furry and she was more brown in colour, as well as her head seemed smaller - an indiation that this Koala is a male) so maybe it was the Dad, or it could be the Joey all grown up?! Anyhow, he looked very healthy and well fed.
When I tell people I've spotted a Koala they always ask 'what tree was it in'.  Unfortunately, 'Eucalyptus' is not a satisfactory answer - Koalas are rather fussy! Well, I have to confess, I've not been in Australia long enough yet to really appreciate the differences between Eucalypts, however I thought I'd take a picture of the tree trunk and some leaves (behind the Koala) below to make some attempt to identify the tree.  Any suggestions?!

With some internet research added to my limited knowledge, I've come up with:
- some kind of Stringybark Eucalyptus
- I looked at this very handy guide to the ID of Eucalypts in the Brisbane region (I will have to print it) and narrowed it down to being most likely one of the first three in the list as they are known to be Koala food:  Swamp Mahogany Eucalyptus robusta, Red mahogany/stringybark Eucalyptus resinifera or Tallowwood Eucalyptus microcorys.  
I'm pretty sure this is a different species to the Eucalypts we have seen the Koalas on previously as the tree bark was distinctly different.  I came across more detail on local Koala food trees on the DERM website.
In my internet search I was also interested to read on the Griffith University website (whose campus is on part of the mountain) that the Mt Gravatt reserve has some rather rare Eucalypt species: Eucalyptus Baileyana and Eucalyptus Planchoniana - now there is a challenge to try and find and identify one!  They are also Stringybark, so would look quite similar to this one.    

A sunset walk on Mt Gravatt

We often go walking at sunset on Mt Gravatt, and always feel lucky to live here.

Sunset in Winter

Bush poetry of Dennis N. O'Brien

The amber glow as day begins to die

Behind a darkened hill that lies to west,

Where trees that silhouette against the sky

March on like lines of soldiers on its crest.

And where the amber meets the fading blue

And tinges it with golden streaming light,

With painted colours these last rays imbue

The western sky, before the fall of night.

Mount Gravatt Koalas

Such a long absence, I have skipped summer!  Well, it is about time I started nature blogging again, and even though I can't blog about the Australian National Botanic Garden any longer (as I am now located in Brisbane!) I have chosen my new location wisely...

I now live next to a beautiful 'urban' bushland reserve in Brisbane, called Mount Gravatt, which is also the name of the suburb.  The bushland reserve is really fantastic mountain habitat with high biodiversity as well as the best lookout over Brisbane at the summit.  We have made contact with the local Mount Gravatt Environment Group and helped out on Clean Up Australia Day a couple of weeks ago, this pic is from the Environment Group blogpost about it.

So, besides this, my partner Edd and I have had quite a few adventures on the mountain already.  However, it was only recently that we discovered the Koala family.  We had read that there were Koalas seen on the road there at Christmas, so we decided to dedicate a day in January (21st) to track them down... with great success!  My partner Edd blogged about that sighting here, and here are a couple of pictures I took:

Mum and Joey

Dad

Today we went back to try and see if we could find the Koala family again, looking in the same spot (below Federation Lookout).  Sure enough, we were very lucky and spotted Mum and Joey again - and it is Mothers' day too (in the UK)!  This time the light was much better and they were lower in the tree, so I got some much better pictures.  We feel so lucky to have Koalas living so close to us, Mt Gravatt is clearly a special place and I look forward to sharing more of my new adventures in Brisbane with you all.