A sun-baking mantid, hot pink and purple plants, frosty mornings and rainbows, an Australian Shelduck on our wetland and getting rid of Cruel Vine. Plus, a visit from the Food Next Door farmers!

Direct seeding video, our new electric side-by-side vehicle and the end of Buffel Grass hunting season.

Beautiful birds: Mulga Parrots, Grey Fantail and Red-capped Robins

Celebrating the launch of the Raakajlim sanctuary and completion of our conservation fence with a short video and an interview with our supporters. Enjoy the wonderful footage of the property and our Mallee birds.

A covey of quail, the cutest Nobbi Dragon, frogs enjoying the rain, Garland Lilies as Easter eggs, trapping bats and tree planting finished for 2022.

Dragonflies dragging each other around by the head, psychedelic Damselflies, and an epic battle with a Mudeye.

Buffel Grass alert! A tired Australian Wanderer; Rain and the tadpoles; Bathurst Burr versus welding gloves; A first for southern Australia on the moth sheet; A flight through a semi-arid grassland

The wetlands on Raakajlim, incredible colors on a Flower Chafer Beetle, a juvenile Brown Snake, a visit from the Mildura Birdlife gang, the fence is finally finished, and the Sand Goanna mystery solved.

A rare plant called Boerhavia coccinea, the food plant for the Striped Hawk Moth caterpillar Yeperenye.

After six months, we are pleased to announce that the fence is finally finished!

A firey start to the new year, a plant that looks better dead, a handsome puffball, January rain, and the cutest Wooly Bee-fly.

Flowering at night, a mystery, native bee pollinator and special twists to keep the flowers closed. Weird indeed.

We’re building the final section of our fence. It is in steep sand dunes and is really tricky and slow-going. But we are getting there!

Regent Parrots eating wattle seed, collecting Pine seed, a “sphexish” wasp and the return of the Black-shouldered Kite.

At this time of year, the Hopbush is looking spectacular. I have mixed feelings about this shrub though. On one hand, it hosts lots of cool insects and birds and is useful for erosion control. But it can be invasive, encroaching and then dominating vegetation communities.

The revegetation planted in 2008 now feeds Pink Cockatoos; Regent Parrots enjoying Goosefoot; Rainbow Bee-eaters eating bees; the amazing growth of the rare plant Cullen pallidum; and a stunning Velvet Ant.

The first stage of completing our conservation fence - removing the old netting and about 4000 Pine posts.

The lizards are out - a very yellow Central Bearded Dragon and a fierce Stumpytail. It’s Gazania hunting season. The White-browed Wood Swallows have arrived, and an attack of the Army Ants!

Bee-eaters are colorful birds that migrate to the southern states in Spring and Summer. How consistent is their early October arrival date?

This is Austral Bugle (Ajuga australis). Plants from Raakajlim will contribute to understanding the taxonomy of this species. But it looks like the Mallee plants are the grandest of them all!