Squally Weather

by Hilary Stripp (Southeastern Australia)

The seasons are shifting gear. 

 

Squally weather. So much rain. Sometimes hail. Wind. And then sunshine.  Repeat. Several times a day. Trees take up the water and expand. Fissures widen in their bark,  and foam runs down their trunks. The creeks at the bottom of the forest gullies reduce to puddles. Cracks open along the bush tracks as the ground dries. Dry leaves and twigs crunch  underfoot.  


Melaleucas are flowering now. The lorikeets and rosellas move on from the bottlebrushes,  screeching as they go. In the forest, wonga vine pods have set, and kingfisher escorts me out of  his territory. Goanna saunters down the tracks. Common Brown butterflies flit. Mosquitos zzz.

  

Down by the river, sulphur crested cockies snack on ripening black wattle pods. Young pelicans  tousle and huge carp leap bodily out of the water, too big to swallow, even for a pelican. A  dozen wood ducklings are now lanky teenagers almost as big as their parents.  A darter dives underneath a coot, startling it into Jesus-running across the water.  A pair of swans flies overhead, and I know that if I went paddling, I’d find the shallow nursery  inlets full of cygnets.

  

At home, the raspberries are ripening, but I haven’t had any. Blackbirds carefully hide the red morsels in their beaks. The apricot tree is popular with cockies, fruit bats, wattlebirds and me.  Small birds gather to scold a nest-robbing raven, or a butcherbird in hiding, or they go quiet as  the hobby on the aerial surveys the neighbourhood. The koel in the peach tree calls, his voice  penetrating and persistent. Beetles and sucking bugs are taking to the air and citrus trees.

  

When it rains, a few frogs call. BONK, goes the pobblebonk, also known as banjo frog. TOK says  the striped marsh frog, and Rikrikrikrikrik says the brown tree frog. I’m relieved to hear them, and yet it’s not the same as the raucous parties they used to have 20 odd years ago. I’ve been here  long enough to notice a shifting baseline. 


A scrubwren, one of the "pillowcase babies"


The pillowcase babies launched this week! Their older siblings from the last clutch visited, one  holding a white feather in her beak, enticing them out to the big wide world. The parents, Pete and Priscilla, quickly hustled them to the shelter of the tecoma thicket by the shed. 

 

First cicada wing in the driveway, and the first day hot enough for them to “sing”.  


Summertime. 

About Hilary Stripp

I live in a corner of southeastern Australia below the foothills of the Great Dividing Range, near a river that drains into the Ramsar listed Gippsland Lakes system, not far from vast ocean beaches. My 1⁄4 acre is home to many birds, frogs and reptiles. Over the years, I’ve studied Botany and Zoology, worked in conservation and disability support, been through trauma and back via biodynamic craniosacral therapy, and now sing in a local community choir as I gather myself for what’s next. I love the magic of attuned “us” moments, and seeing phenomena that have been coated in jargon in different traditions, but are really the same pattern in other language. My sit spots are in my garden (daily), by the river where it joins the Lake ( few times weekly) and in the forest (Sunday forest church).

Early Summer in Gumbaynggirr Country

by Billa Lauiti-Kolkr

Early summer in Gumbaynggirr Country feels unsettled, like the land is breathing in two seasons at once, oscillating like a hot and cold fever, trying to restore balance. 

One day the heat rises steadily taking everything in its grip—a fan-forced oven rolling through the gullies at full bore.  The next, cool spring rain drifts in soft, giving us relief; maybe we even pull our sweaters back on. It's crazy.  But then the THUNDER BEINGS take absolute charge—sudden, loud, and powerful—and wash all the confusion clean. 

The forest holds it all without complaint. The gums shimmer, the wet earth releases that deep, sweet scent, and the birds keep their own rhythm no matter what the sky is doing.

I stand in it, barefoot on country, listening for the pulse beneath the confusion—because even in this topsy-turvy weather, the land, she’s still there, speaking steadily. And if I’m quiet enough, I can feel it guiding me back into myself–grounded, connected, and deeply calm.

All is born of the Mother.

About Billa Lauiti-Kolkr

Billa is a Regenerative Change Agent, Principal Realtor and Biotect. Connect with her on The Wild School instagram

Springtime in Sydney

by Jude Hudson Barton

Springtime is coming in, and bringing with it the soft, balmy breezes that herald warmer weather. Elements of winter linger. The sky is still often overcast, but the biting winds and constant downpours have come to an end. The feeling in the air is gentle and calm. The sunlight still comes through at an angle, lighting up eucalyptus leaves in brilliant reds and greens. 

Although most of Australia’s population operates off an inverted Northern Hemisphere seasonal calendar, this land is known by the local D’harawal people to have six seasons. Each is marked by subtle shifts in weather patterns and animal behaviour, and the flowering of different plant species. We are right now on the tail end of Murrai’yunggory, the season of the fruit bats. The fruit bats come in great numbers from the north and from the west, roosting by day in enormous colonies high in the Melaleuca trees. By night, they forage for insects and fruit, most prominently from the Moreton Bay Fig trees, to feed their newborn young. In the harbours and park ponds, new life comes in the form of hatchlings for the grebes and moorhens, and cygnets for the black swans. 

Throughout the city, the scent of flowering plants are intermingled, native and non-native alike. Interspersed between the abundant native flowering gums and grevilleas, you can find jasmine, bougainvillea, and hibiscus in full efflorescence. Out in the bush, the springtime forest is characterised by explosions of gold - the wattle shrubs, the flowers of each subspecies a different shade of yellow. Here in the city, the approaching summer is most clearly announced by the jacaranda trees that line the streets, their leaves no longer visible under a canopy of vibrant purple. 

The D’harawal mark this time of year as one of ceremony, and that feels deeply resonant within this seasonal shift. The introspection and internality brought on by winter tends to allow clarity and centredness. When spring comes, it is a time for transformation, resolution, and commitment. As the warmth increases, this is alchemised into a readiness for upward growth and outward expression. The summer will be a time of testing - how will this growth will hold up under the sun and the relentless heat? For now, though, it is a time of abundance, and of celebration.


A Time of Babies

by Hilary Stripp (Southeastern Australia)

Here, it’s a time of babies. As big as their parents, their gazes follow movement, any movement. They are not cool yet. Just inquisitive. They cheep and flutter on the branches waiting for mum or dad to bring them food. Parents hunt for moths and larvae, and there’s a kind of midden of moth-wings near the tank stand. I wonder how my trees would manage without tiny birds gleaning insects from every twig and leaf. I’m besotted.

Yesterday I found a bogong moth down behind the cushion of my grandfather’s chair. They are on the move, and we log them on a tracking website so researchers can get a sense of their numbers. They are critical food for the mountain pygmy possum, and traditional feast food for the GunaiKurnai people of this region.

Some parents, like my white-browed scrub-wrens, are making renovations to nests ready for a second clutch. I’m curious to see how independent the first chicks will be by the time the second clutch leave their pillowcase nest, and whether the recently arrived cuckoos will succeed in parasitising the target nests with their own eggs.

Migratory birds of all kinds have arrived, and the neighbourhoods ring with the loud wails of koels, down to the gentler trills of smaller cuckoos. Our community held a welcome back gathering for the migratory shorebirds, with boat tours and music. In the forest, the wattles are setting pods and more cuckoos trill. Ants are busy and reptiles are out and about. Bottlebrushes are flowering and the parrots are high on nectar.

Last week, I wandered beside the river, below the Bluff where the peregrine falcon hangs out and welcome swallows catch mosquitos on the wing. A whining call led me to a fluffy young black-shouldered kite on the branch of a dead tree. A willy wagtail was flitting around, but not alarming. I watched for a while, and then turned to resume my walk, when I saw why the youngster was calling. It’s parent was in the next clearing, tearing strips from some freshly caught prey. Of course. Youngsters are quiet until the parent arrives with food.

By the sea, whale season is petering out. Humpbacks and their young, heading down the coast to Antarctica to feed, are playfully leaping and fin and fluke slapping, attracting people of all kinds, lending each other binoculars and pointing out the whales. Such shared joy.

******

About Hilary Stripp

I live in a corner of southeastern Australia below the foothills of the Great Dividing Range, near a river that drains into the Ramsar listed Gippsland Lakes system, not far from vast ocean beaches. My 1⁄4 acre is home to many birds, frogs and reptiles. Over the years, I’ve studied Botany and Zoology, worked in conservation and disability support, been through trauma and back via biodynamic craniosacral therapy, and now sing in a local community choir as I gather myself for what’s next. I love the magic of attuned “us” moments, and seeing phenomena that have been coated in jargon in different traditions, but are really the same pattern in other language. My sit spots are in my garden (daily), by the river where it joins the Lake ( few times weekly) and in the forest (Sunday forest church).