Order Online Today

Global Connections

The big news in Australia recently, apart from Jessica Watson’s remarkable voyage and the usual politics and finances, was RAIN. Drought-breaking downpours, especially in arid inland regions, fed precious water to Lake Eyre and even into the Murray-Darling system.

Floods can be dangerous and are definitely inconvenient, isolating towns and properties, but for wildlife this is a boom time, and Steve G. Wilson takes us to an outback frontline in Longreach. Leave your gumboots and Driza-Bones in the closet and join Steve on a visual and informative journey into an arid region that knows how to use this unpredictable gift.

Read about this and more in this edition of Wildlife Australia Magazine.

By Martin Pepper

For a visiting biologist, Australian woodlands are full of intriguing discoveries, including voracious antechinuses and gliding possums.

How better for a biologist and ecologist to explore a ‘land of
mystery’ than by working with people doing research in
these fields? Add to that a strong interest and experience in
camping, tree climbing and cameras – and I couldn’t have
asked for a better match than Dr Melanie Lancaster and her
research project for the University of Adelaide...

By Martin Cohen

One of my dream destinations has been the rainforests of the McIlwraith Range on Cape York Peninsula – the far upper right corner on the map of Australia. Recently, the dream has come true not once, but twice. Does it get any better?

An ice age approximately 12,000 years ago lowered sea levels and increased connectivity between New Guinea and Cape York Peninsula across the Torres Strait islands. Now, semisurrounded by sea with a dry savannah barrier along the southern boundary, the peninsula and McIlwraith Range rainforests support a mixture of endemic and more widespread species...

By Steve G. Wilson

Plants and animals in arid regions have only rare windows of opportunity to breed and proliferate. One of those windows opened early this year in outback Queensland.

Budgerigars are 'seed nomads', following the rush of rapid plant growth and seeking out nearby hollows to breed while food is plentiful.

By John Stanisic

Its biodiversity credentials are impressive. Its name honours a globally recognised icon for Australian wildlife. Why is this reserve under threat?

The Steve Irwin Wildlife Reserve (SIWR) was set up in 2006/2007 as part of the Australian federal government’s National Reserve System. The name honours the memory of the late Crocodile Hunter and Wildlife Warrior.

However, even with its unique environmental and educational values, is currently set to face the full force of the mining juggernaut in its insatiable quest for ever more natural resources to exploit.

By Darryl Jones

Charley collected the debris, Whimpey collected the data. What a team to help conserve malleefowl and understand global populations of megapodes.

Unlike brush-turkeys, where the male is the sole mound-minder, male and female malleefowl both contribute to the mound-building effort in their harsh, arid habitat.

By Lee K. Curtis

Honeyeaters are only found in the south west Pacific, primarily Australia, across most habitats.

Honeyeaters don't eat honey but nectar, fruit and sugary insect secretions. They use their brush-tipped tongues to collect nectar and honeydew.

You can also download [400kb PDF] the Six Species Series poster on Honeyeaters.

• The Malleefowl Preservation Group
• Desert Channels Queensland
• Wet Tropics Management Authority

Editorial, CityAnimal, Trekabout Photography, Six Species, NatureWatch, Books Reviews, Winter Skies, Young and Wild, Scratchings and Rustlings, WPSQ in Action, Swamp Cartoon and our regular environmental crossword.

Subscribe to Wildlife Australia today - your subscription helps many worthwhile wildlife projects and contributes to a successful education campaign that has been an effective voice for Australian wildlife since 1963.