The bird-killing tree of the Great Barrier Reef, pisonia grandis

 Black Noddy on Lady Elliot Island, Great Barrier Reef, Australia

 Removing the barbed seeds

some of the sticky seeds - note the stalks that are like grappling hooks

Black Noddy with chick in the pandanus plants on Lady Elliot Island, GBR, Australia

I like to think of non-human nature working for the best in a challenging world: beneficent, evolving with the needs of complex communities. I understand there is killing but, unlike with humans, all to a purpose: nothing wanton, little wasted.

I also thought that there was a hierarchy of power and strength so it did not cross my mind that a tree could kill a large seabird. But one can and it's not a pretty sight, especially on a tourist island in full season.

The Pisonia grandis tree is grand by any terms, especially as a survivor on a small coral cay coping with poor soil and intermittent cyclones. It manages to grow into a mighty tree over twenty metre high with wide branches and a large grey spreading trunk with tentacles like an octopus clinging to the soil. The leaves are large and bright-green and much favoured by seabirds to line their nests. The tree seems to cater for the birds with many spots available for building nests. If you compare it to the other main trees of the coral cay islands, the allocasurinas, you can see why the Black Noddys and the Bridled Terns favour this apparently perfect tree. But there is a nasty side-line to this generosity.

When the birds breeding season is in full swing with thousands of seabirds occupying every nook and cranny of the coral cay, the seeds branches of pisonia trees mature and drop to the ground.

The seeds are born on a branching structure as big as a human hand and each stalk bears many centimetre long seeds, rather like long grains of chocolate-coloured rice, but this is barbed rice. While the seeds are immature and green they are no danger.

However, once the seed branchlets dry and fall to the ground they become a deadly trap for the birds.

At this stage the seeds exude a glue that adheres to whatever touches it - perhaps the tail feathers of the many buff-banded rails that frequent these islands, or most often to the flight feathers one of the thousands of nesting seabirds that alight under the trees for shade, preening, or for meeting their mates.

When one seed adheres the whole branchlet remains with the seed and very soon the other seeds stick to further feathers: the long flight feathers and the fine downy feathers of the head and neck. Before long the bird cannot fly and the more it tries to remove the seeds, the more other seeds catch on. The bird walks around under the trees, trying for days to free itself before it collapses and dies of exhaustion, dehydration and starvation.

Of course, these birds are couples and the partner waiting on the nest for relief and food for their chick must eventually abandon the chick to survive itself.

When we saw birds in this situation on Lady Elliot Island we were distraught but were told by the staff of the marine centre that this was 'nature' at work and that only approximately 1% of the birds die and furthermore that the death of the birds helped the trees to grow as their decaying carcasses would provide nutrient for the seeds to germinate.

However, after some research I find that both these statements are not correct. This is according to current research in the Seychelles Island of Cousins where they have found that depending on the timing of the crops of seeds the death rate can be as high as 25% in some species and that the germination of the pisonia seeds is not facilitated by being within the carcass of a seabird. Nature Seychelles have now adopted a policy of removing stands of pisonia grandis from Cousin Island. Yet on Lady Elliot Island in Australia they are busy planting more.

My husband and I spent some time catching the disabled seabirds that were covered in pisonia seeds and removing them. It is not easy. The barbs and the glue are a horrible combination and it took two of us some time to remove the intertwined branchlets with their lethal seeds from the bird's bodies. However, it gave us great pleasure to set each bird free and see it disappear over the sea.

I have alerted Lady Elliot Island to the new research from the Seychelles and I have written to Birdlife in Australia to ask for their guidance on current Australian research. It appears to me that Lady Elliot Island in particular is operating under old misconceptions. 

https://seychellesseabirdgroup.wordpress.com/2013/06/02/pisonia-grandisa-grand-problem/

POW Memorial, Sandakan, Borneo.

There is a dark grove of trees on the hill

of Sandakan,

where the prisoners finished their lives,

or began to finish them

in unspeakable ways,

no gentle deaths allowed.

The powerful ones showed

such ingenuity in torture.

How to slowly crucify.

How to punish the body

with heat and starvation

before merciless death.

The men were brave,

the survivors said,

when ulcers ate their legs,

perhaps a whimper or two.

The jungle took their bodies.

Felt hats decaying in the undergrowth.

Then the death marches,

to finish them off in Ranau

under the shadow of Mount Kinabalu.

The barely-alive still hoping, somehow,

before the final shots from

men obeying orders.

This story has many variations

on war’s hills and valleys.

What are the questions

for captive and captor?

Both answers hide within us, waiting

for history’s awakening.

The Emu Eggs

We climbed the desert mountain,

bush walkers, past pride of youth.

Private journeys across the cliffs

burdened with pain of body and soul,

our backs to the vastness,

mutely we challenged the red rock.

Suddenly, the plateau, beneath the sky.

Nothing else, nothing above.

A lightness of the air, such beauty

surrounded by the expanse.

A view uncontained, layers of blue and purple.

Far below, the bed of an ancient sea.

And there now at our feet, more wonder still.

An emu’s nest, full and round bearing seven eggs.

Here distilled, the colour of tropical seas,

the high wind of the callitris.

A gift beyond expectation,

a journey transformed.

©Anne Chappel

Argonaut Sea Gift

Have you ever found a nautilus shell?

On the beach, gleaming

amongst the dark sea wrack

each whorl, curve, indentation

a perfect creation.

Strange traveller of the ocean depths,

part bird, part hero of ancient times.

Home of a fearsome protector

whose lidless eyes saw other worlds

in a journey beyond our imagination.

Now stranded here, a sublime gift.

Fragile perfection borne through the blue

to death on the bright shore.

If god lives, this is his work,

no better could we do.

©Anne Chappel

No Names but Beauty

I caught a pink snapper

in the first light

pulling from the oil grey sea

a sliver of dawn,

salmon pink stripes

and blue dots,

eyes too large. The sun

spreading as blood.

Round eyes that saw

unblinking, or did not see

as I did, the last

slow waving of her

webbing on translucent fins

against the cruel air.

I did not know

there are shades between pink and pearl

iridescence, for which there are

no names but beauty.

© Anne Chappel

Along the Shore

There are new things

along the shore

where storms have carved

seaweed into dark banks

against fallen stands of sea box.

A solitary gum is dying,

broken glass shines brightly

along the thin shell line.

Beach shacks jostle for the view

sharp edged in the sun,

as buildings grow.

We read the signs

sometimes so gently given

with their own strange beauty

showing us the passing world

that our children will,

crying, try to remember.

© Anne Chappel

The Alien Immigrants

The Alien Immigrants

In their own way

almost beautiful

these ferals dancing

upon our hillside.

Delicate, so easy

to pull out, roots and all,

they shudder under the sun.

The yellow flowers blooming

far from home:

French Flax, Wild Mustard,

proper names too hard

for us to learn.

We discuss methods

of eradication.

On the fertile ground

by the roadside

We have removed them

with spray and machete,

but up here among the rocks

on our wildest slopes,

they cling with hope.

© Anne Chappel

Bushfire Management Plans

Everyone is talking bushfires in Australia at the moment as the heartrending stories emerge from Victoria. (our neighbouring state). We in South Australia consider ourselves lucky to have escaped this time. When bushfire danger conditions are predicted (the hot North Wind is the worst) we are all encouraged through the media to, “revisit our bushfire management plans”.

Some years ago we attended a CFS (Country Fire Authority) education day where we learnt about making a bushfire plan. So we now are alerted to the “go or stay” issue and how to defend your home.

Here is an example from a local authority:

Ask Yourself
* Are you ready for the bushfire season?
* Is your family and home at risk?
* Will you and your family stay and defend your home or leave early before the fire starts?

Things to Consider
* Does your family include, children, elderly or people with disabilities?
* Can you or your family physically or mentally defend your house during a bushfire?

Put together an emergency/survival kit
* with spare batteries. Candles to provide light.
* Matches or lighter. Battery radio with spare batteries.
* First aid kit. Medication.
* Fire extinguishers. Fire blankets.
* Bottled drinking water. etc

(I learnt something new from the story of a survivor in today's newspaper: leave a car in your driveway, out of the garage, as a final escape option. AND don't lose the keys)

Although we argue that we are not really in danger in our location (on the Hills Face Zone overlooking Adelaide), we still are prepared.

We have decided to be “stayers” so we have our bushfire kit ready in a spare bedroom (boots, long pants, long sleeved wool shirt, buckets, spare water hose).
We also have a generator to pump water from our rain water tanks; a system to start the sprinklers on the roof that will fill the gutters with water (no good if the power goes) and a bolt hole to hide if all else fails. We should keep buckets filled with water at various spots around the house.

They say that as the fire front approaches you stay inside, with curtains closed. Once the front has passed you can go outside and put out spot fires and watch for embers. Many houses are burnt by embers travelling before or after the fire front.

Our bolt hole is our wine cellar! It is between a huge rain water tank and the basement of the house. All walls are concrete. And we will not fall short of sustenance!

Many people die when they decide to leave at the last moment and get caught in the thick smoke, darkness and are unsure which route to follow.

The gum trees (eucalypts) are another concern. We love our trees, plant more and protect them, but in a major fire, gum trees are the fuel. So you have to remove any that are too close to the house.

These terrible fires will go down in Australian history.
Famous ones are “Black Friday” in 1939 and the “Ash Wednesday” fires of Feb 1983. Factors combined to make for extreme fire conditions.

It has happened again and I wonder what the fires of Saturday, 7th Feb, 2009, when “fire fell from the sky”, will be called.

The Heat is on in Adelaide, South Australia

This is the 6th day that the temperature in

Adelaide has been over 40 o Centigrade (104 oF). We are told we can hope for a milder cool front next Saturday when it will drop to 30 degrees. But still no rain is expected. The top of 45.7 C(114 oF) last Tuesday was some sort of record for Adelaide. People are talking about 100 year records and that would be since records began here.

It is the main topic of conversation between locals: how to cool down, how to care for your garden, pets, wild birds and animals. At over 46 degrees C birds start to perish.

Round our home on the hills overlooking Adelaide the birds have used our garden as a refuge. They hide in the shade of the larger trees, creep under our outside tables and drink copious amounts of water from the many containers that we have put out.

The shy Common Bronzewings come in close to the house and I can see their throats fluttering. Wikipedia states that: "Birds also avoid overheating by gular fluttering which is similar to panting in mammals since their thin skin has no sweat glands".

Meanwhile, I worry about going outside and disturbing them in case flying off will cause them stress. At the end of the day we put on a water sprinkler for the little birds. They come in droves: striated paradoles, honeyeaters, superb wrens, willie wagtails and thornbills.

We are the lucky ones as most people cannot water except according to the tight restriction rules of Level 3 - which means you can use a hose or dripper system for only 3 hours a week during determined hours according to your address. Our fortune is to be in a one of the few suburbs where all homes depend on bore water systems that don't yet have restrictions.

Climate change seems very real in South Australia at the moment!