There are so many better-qualified Territorians. The NT is full of absolutely brilliant people. Most of them are not very happy with the pick of a bigot. Jobs for mates politics is not just an NT problem. Nice to see so many out this morning making that point.
www.abc.net.au/news/2026-02...
Blue pincushion, Brunonia australis. A spherical cluster of sky-blue star-shaped flowers on a long green stem.
Common fringe-lily,Thysanotus tuberosus. A bright purple flower with long, conspicuous fringes on three petals, such that they look like ostrich-feather fans.
Either a Kunzea sp. or a Leptospermum sp., I don’t yet know how to tell the difference from just the flowers. A long narrow branch covered in white flowers each with five rounded petals.
Pale vanilla lily, Arthropodium milleflorum. A long, narrow stem with multiple flower buds and one very small open flower which is dropping and has whitish-purplish flowers.
This is to be an ongoing thread of wildflowers I see in 2026. IDs to the best of my ability are in the alt text. Feel free to correct me!
1st of January, Kinglake National Park, Victoria:
Precious!
Not quite, but a relative of theirs 🙂
Neither! They sit in a group alongside the nightjars, Swift's and (bizarrely) hummingbirds 🙂.
They're a very meme-able bird!
Bar-tailed godwits at Bald Hill Beach.
These are my favourite shorebirds - with their ridiculous beaks 😆
They hold the world record for non-stop long-distance flight
with one recorded taking 11 days to fly 13,500km from Alaska to Tasmania. And they do that trip twice each year!
Oh my goodness! How precious!
😆
One of three Tawny Frogmouths I encountered on a short walk down the Darwin esplanade last night. They were rather chill, allowing me to get this photo with my phone.
#WildOz #UrbanBirds
A Long-footed Frog (Cyclorana longipes), one of many, many frogs we encountered at Bullo River Station last week after some of the first big rains if the season.
#WildOz
Over five years after cameras were set up within a sprawling Western Australian landscape, an elusive “chuditch” has been filmed for the first time.
au.news.yahoo.com/camera-captu...
Talked to ABC country hour today about the big fire season in the NT through October. The chat became short but neat story about the last few weeks of action. The hottest October on record, nowhere near the biggest fire year but still pretty big.
www.abc.net.au/news/2025-11...
A rainbow pitta standing upright on a patch of forest floor. It has moss green wings with a neon blue patch at the shoulder, a small cap of red on its head and a velvet black head and front.
A rather gregarious Rainbow Pitta (Pitta iris) looking resplendent among the leaf litter at Binybara/Lee Point in Darwin.
#WildOz
A northern rosella perches on a bare branch with a grey sky in the background. It is looking at the camera with a glint in its eye. It has blue wings, with yellow and black feathers on its front giving a scalloped appearance, red on its rump and a black and white head.
A northern rosella (Platycercus venustus) spotted during bird surveys at AWC's Wongalara Wildlife Sanctuary on Rembarrnga and Ngalakan Country.
#WildOz
A buff-sided Robin perched on a twig. It is a black, white and grey bird with a buff patch under its wings. It is holding its wings down and its tail is cocked.
One of several buff-sided robins (Poecilodryas cerviniventris) which live around the homestead at AWC's Pungalina-Seven Emu Sanctuary. These insectivorous birds are generally found in densely vegetated habitat by streams and rivers across much of northern Australia.
#WildOz
Yep, that's my understanding. We have roost caves on Pungalina too, but we only visit them when we need to survey the population because they are sensitive to human disturbance.
A pile of colourful feathers plucked from a rainbow bee-eater and discarded by a ghost bat.
The two detached wings of an owlet nightjar sitting on a cave floor.
Ghost bats (Macroderma gigas) are Australia's only bat species that feeds on large vertebrates. On a recent fieldwork trip to AWC's Pungalina-Seven Emu Sanctuary, we visited one of their feeding caves where we found remains of owlet nightjars and rainbow bee-eaters caught by bats 😮. #WildOz
It's doing really well. I've just started working there so I don't have a good frame of reference, but the habitats are looking really healthy, the fire program is going well and feral herbivores are being managed well.
Thanks! Very lucky to be in the right place at the right time 😊
Thank you!
A jacky winter at Hattah-Kulkyne National Park.
About 8 Gouldian Finches perched in a tree. There is a mix of adult and juvenile bird with both red and black faces.
Gouldian Ficnhes are listed as endangered under the EPBC act, with numbers once thought to be as low as 2500. Their primary threat is inappropriate fire regimes resulting in large, hot late dry season fires which destroy the tree hollows the nest in and reduce the availability of the seed they eat
Six Gouldian Finches, five sat on a lawn with a sixth coming in to land, it's wings outstretched behind it. There is one dull grey-green juvenile bird and five colourful adults. The adults have a yellow belly, purple chests, green back and bright blue on their tail and ringing their faces, which are either red or black.
A highlight of a recent fieldwork trip to AWC's Pungalina-Seven Emu Sanctuary was seeing my first Gouldian Finches.
We only got a brief look at a group of 6 on sanctuary (thrilling nonetheless) but then on the way back to Darwin we had ~130 of them visit our campsite in Limmen National Park.
#WildOz
Picture of a small spider with a dazzlingly colourful abdomen in greens and reds
Another #spider for the end of #Arachtober 🕷️
Meet the incredibly handsome Banksia Peacock spider (Maratus mungaich). He’ll use those amazing colours on his abdomen to try and impress the lady spiders
#ausinverts #wildoz #arachnids #inaturalist #nature
Most of a wolf spider, taken from directly above. The last segments of a few legs have been cut off by the frame. It is standing on holy salty sand, so the background looks like a solid slab of black specked beige. The spider is a mainly soft grey body with four black eyes showing. The abdomen is marked with a grey line and black rimmed blobs all over it. This made it incredibly hard to see if you weren't paying close attention. The legs are a more pinky white with diffuse black barring. If it was big enough people would be wearing the "pelt" as luxury coats. It's gorgeous.
The same spider taken from a low angle, looking at the face slightly angled. This shows the female palps and the entire set of 8 black eyes. It also showed how the spider was right up on its "toes" ready for a fast get-away (or maybe the blinding white salt was hot to stand on). There is a bit of a shadow from the intense sunlight. Spider description is on the other photo.
Sorry spider haters, but this was just the most beautiful beast & I knew (nearly everyone) would need to see it 😉. It sat frozen, up on its toes, on the edge of Leeman (WA) salt lake while I took pics. Unfortunately it was too big (body length 1.4cm) for my lens. #spider #Lycosidae #Tetralycosa
Stunning!
It certainly wasn't getting any of my coffee! 😁
