Pay back – bug style

Recently, among my garden branches, lopping tall tips with extended lopping shears. I thought a few prickly leaves had dropped down my back. I was wrong. Venom suddenly flooded my back with stinging fire. Disturbed tree dwelling spiders had attacked me leaving 5 fiery lumps across my back. Lavender oil put the fire out, but […]

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Garden Holiday

Many people swap homes for holidays and one year we did this. We swapped for a bush holiday, and a large brown snake swapped the bush for holiday at our place: Returning from our holiday we could hear the phone ringing. It was a neighbour who told me “Before you unpack check your garden. A […]

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Eltham Copper Butterfly

The ”’Eltham Copper Butterfly”’ ”Paralucia pyrodiscus lucida” is restricted to a few scattered areas in central and western Victoria, It was discovered in 1938 at Eltham, and a marked reduction in the abundance of the the butterfly was noted during the 1950’s until, eventually, the sub-species was feared to have become extinct.  In 1987 the discovery […]

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Banyule Flora and Fauna

Banyule is home to a wide range of native wildlife including: 224 species of native birds 23 kinds of reptiles 22 mammal species 12 types of frogs 9 species of native fish and an enormous number of invertebrates Some species such as the Noisy Miner, Australian Magpie, Red Wattlebird and the Common Brushtail Possum have […]

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Eltham Lower Park

Prior to the extension of European people into the lands of the Nillum-bik in the late 1830s the Wurundjeri people had been meeting for thousands of years at the junction of the Diamond Creek with the Yarra River, in the area now known as Eltham Lower Park. The first European settlers were squatters or leaseholders. […]

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