Community consultation – Marrickville Golf Course & Dibble Avenue Waterhole

 

Google map of Marrickville Golf Course. Mahoney Reserve is at the bottom right of the map. 

A view of Marrickville Golf Course from across the Cooks River

This is important community consultation & something we should all participate in even if we are not a golfer.  As our area gets more developed, places like this & the Golf Club’s activities are going to become even more important for the community.

The Inner West Council is developing a new Plan of Management & landscape Master Plans for the Marrickville Golf Course & the Dibble Avenue Waterhole, which will decide the future use & facilities over the next 10-years.  It must be easier for Council to do things over a ten-year period, but for me, I worry about this length of time because our community & area is changing so rapidly.

Marrickville Golf Course covers 20-hectares, most of which is owned by the Inner West Council.  The Marrickville Golf Club leases the land from Council.  A condition of the lease is that they provide public access to the open spaces of the golf course.

There are many in the community that avail themselves of walking or cycling through the golf course because it is one of the best natural areas in the locality, especially as it runs alongside the Cooks River.   Apart from the main road in & the path to the bridge over the river, there is no concrete & this makes it a great place to walk.

This won’t last for too long though because as part of their ‘Cooks River Parklands Plan of Management & Master Plan’ that was ratified in 2016, Council wants to install a new pedestrian crossing on Illawarra Road from Steel Park to a new 3-metre wide concrete shared pathway along the river’s edge in Mahoiney Reserve after they have completed naturalization work on the river bank. The first stage will stop at the golf course, but Council would like to connect this path to the bridge over the Cooks River in Marrickville Golf Course.  This is despite the 3-metre shared pathway just across on the other side of the river.

The Dibble Avenue Waterhole is heritage listed & is also a Priority Biodiversity Site.  It is an important refuge for wildlife & aquatic plants.

Marrickville Golf Club uses water from the Dibble Avenue Waterhole to irrigate the golf course & has done so since the 1940s.

Council says that “the development of the plans provides opportunities to introduce best practice sustainable land & environmental management for both sites.”

“The process will look at –

• ways to improve safe public access to the golf course.
• ways to increase everyone’s enjoyment of the spaces.
• alternative water sources for the golf course.
• acceptable limits on water extraction[from Dibble Avenue Waterhole] into the future.”

Council is holding onsite opportunities for the community to learn more & give Council feedback at two locations.

1. Marrickville Golf Club Carpark on Saturday 2^ndJune 2018 from 1pm-3pm.
2. Mahoney Reserve beside the Amenities Block on Saturday, 16^thJune 2018 from 1pm-3pm.

If you don’t want to attend either of these sessions, you can still participate by completing a survey on Your Say Inner West by Monday 25^thJune 2018.  See – https://bit.ly/2LtnPNQ

Lastly, there is no mention in the survey of Council’s plans to halve the Marrickville Golf Course from 18 holes to 9 holes to make room for more sporting fields.  See –  https://bit.ly/2GRxf28    

Dibble Avenue Waterhole – a biodiversity hotspot & returned to being one of Marrickville’s really beautiful historic places. There is a microbat box on the pier on the left.

Marrickville Community Nursery Open Day

Plants for sale at Marrickville Community Nursery

Inner West Council is holding an Open Day at Marrickville Community Nursery.

Council says attendees will –

• Take a guided tour.
• Learn about native plants & native gardening.
• Hear from volunteers who help local biodiversity.
• Learn how to volunteer for local biodiversity.
• Go home with a free seedling.

WHEN:          Saturday 26^thMay 2018.

WHERE:        Marrickville Community Nursery is located in the Addison Road Community Centre between Reverse Garbage & The Bower – 142 Addison Road Marrickville.

TIME:             10am – 1pm.

I have attended a similar event at Marrickville Community Nursery & it was good.  I enjoyed myself.

Tree removal in Enmore Park Marrickville

Showing the row of palm trees opposite the pool.  Note the gum tree closest to the right. Is this another indication that the palms will be removed?  I love gum trees, but once they drop a branch, many in the community demand the offending tree be removed because they are seen as dangerous.

Showing one of the paths being worked on.

Inner West Council has given notice of their intention to remove 5 “small trees adjacent to paths to be reconstructed this financial year.”

They gave the following reasons –

• “The two figs are in very poor condition & have not improved over the last ten years.
• The two water gums are impacted with the pathway reconstruction & widening.
• The palm tree in the central rondel to allow for a larger canopy tree to be planted & enhance the views along the path axes.”

They say they will replace these trees this year between April to June 2018 with-

• 1 × Ficus rubiginosa (1000L)
• 1 × Liquidambar styraciflua ‘Rotundiloba’ (300L)
• 1 × Eucalyptus pilularis (75L)
• 1 × Ficus macrophylla (100L)

I went to have a look at the trees a couple of weekends ago & as far as I could make out, they had all been removed.  The areas where work was happening had been fenced off with cyclone fencing & shade cloth making it hard to see what was happening. The only tree I could identify with confidence was the palm in the central rondel & that had already been removed.

Prior to amalgamation Marrickville Council used to give 3-weeks for community consultation concerning tree removal.  I suspect now the new Inner West Council puts up notification as they start work or very close to the commencement of work.  I am not sure yet.  Certainly, the way they now do community consultation has changed.  They no longer give a period of notification with a deadline to contact the Council.

Two trees are being removed to widen the path.  I do not know whether the trees were located on one side of the path or one tree on each side.  Council does not say where all, but one tree is located.

It is worth thinking that all the paths have been like they were in 1943.  See an aerial map of Enmore Park taken in 1943 on Marrickville Heritage Society’s blog.  See – https://bit.ly/2rwAczp,   Why does Council need to widen the paths that have been this way for at least more than 7 decades?   The paths are certainly wide enough to give equal access.

The last time Council removed trees in Enmore Park was in October 2013 where they removed 15 trees, most of them old Moreton Bay & Port Jackson Fig trees.   See – https://bit.ly/2rvDNh0

One big Fig was removed from the corner of Llewellyn Street & Enmore Road & its trunk is still rotting slowly away in Steel Park Marrickville South.  If I am correct & the two Fig trees to be removed are in the same location, it will mean the corner will be bare indeed.

I have reservations about removing very old heritage trees even if they are in poor condition.  My reasons are that trees can be helped to recover, whereas our public trees do not get much help in terms of nutrients.  They get by with whatever rainfall they can get & nothing else.

Enmore Park is heritage-listed.  It was the first park to be established in Marrickville municipality, opening in two sections in May 1886 & on October 1893.  The Fig trees were likely planted at this time & therefore are heritage items too.

I think efforts could have been made to take care of them.  However, if Council has been making efforts to improve their health by providing them with water & nutrients, then I will retract these comments & admit my error.

Looking at fig trees in Petersham Park I can see the some are in declining health, but these trees still stand proud & everyone who sees them loves them.  I suspect it is the same for the Fig trees in Enmore Park as well.

I felt sad to see the big healthy palm tree in the central rondel had been removed for what appears to be Council’s design preference & not because the tree was sick, dangerous or inappropriate for the location.

To me removing this tree does not make sense considering this tree matched all the other palm trees that run both side of the pathway from Enmore Road to the central rondel & then only on one side due to the building of the pool, which resulted in a loss of more than 50 trees.  If you look down this row of trees, they take your eye onwards up Addison Road.

To replace with a “larger canopy tree”interrupts these two rows of palm trees, which are a strong feature of this park.  I hope the removal of this central palm does not indicate a future plan to remove all the palms.

Lastly Council removing 5 trees & replacing with only 4 trees is very disappointing.

Central rondel with stump of palm tree

Showing the central rondel without the palm tree and the row of palm trees that take the eye to Addison Road.

 

Increasing the urban tree canopy for real

Two dead street trees right next to each other in Marrickville – notable because they are beside each other.

My last post was about the NSW government’s ‘Five Million Trees’ initiative.  See – https://bit.ly/2H2IEkz    The aim is to increase Sydney’s existing tree canopy from 16.8% to 40% over the next 12 years at a cost of $37.5 million over four years.

Fortune had it that I came across a long & detailed article from Scenario Journal titled, ‘How Many Trees Are Enough? Tree Death and the Urban Canopy’ written by Lara A. Roman.  https://bit.ly/2K1G1gC

The article looked at tree survival across US cities.  Research has found that, despite concentrated campaigns to increase the urban canopy in many major US cities, the canopy cover is actually declining. This is of major concern considering the extra pressure we have from increased development, a changing climate & its associated urban heat island impacts.

Three questions were asked –

• “With major new planting campaigns, how many of those trees will survive for decades, reaching a mature size at which their environmental and socioeconomic benefits are greatest?
• How many trees are enough – that is, how many need to be planted to make a lasting impact, and meet a city’s canopy cover goals?
• What are the implications of future tree death for managing the urban forest, in terms of cycles of tree removal and replacement?”

“For street trees in New York City, eight to nine years after planting, 26.2% were dead.  For a yard tree give-away program in Sacramento,  five years after planting, 29.1% had died, on top of 15.1% that were never planted by residents.  For these yard and street tree examples, over a quarter of the trees planted died within the first five to nine years, and furthermore, for the tree give-away, some trees never made it into the ground.”                                                 

As part of their 5 Million Trees initiative the NSW government plans to give away 15,000 trees to people who are building homes in new land release areas in Western Sydney.  I wonder how many of these trees will actually be planted.  I don’t know about you, but I have bought plants from the nursery & left it too long before I put them into the ground.   One can realistically expect that high numbers of these giveaway trees will not be planted in western Sydney.  Will these be acknowledged, or will they just be written up as a successful addition to the urban canopy simply because they were given away?

The Inner West Council has given away trees for the past two National Tree Days & I applaud them for this.  It would be interesting to know whether Council has gathered information about how many of these trees made it into the ground & how many are still alive today?

The article notes that in the US there is very little in regards to monitoring & follow-up with tree planting campaigns & calls for a nationally coordinated monitoring network.

The author then cites the common belief that street trees live on average for only 7-years & a maximum of 13-years. Apparently, this belief was formed decades ago where a questionnaire was sent to urban foresters “asking the local experts to estimate the typical tree lifespans in their cities.”  The author describes this as “overly pessimistic.”

One only need to look around our own suburbs to know that there are plenty of streets with street trees that are 70-100 years of age.  Generally, these are QLD Brushbox or Fig trees.

A study to understand the change in the street tree population of West Oakland in the US looking at annual tree planting & tree deaths found that the annual mortality rate was 3.7%.   Most of the tree loss came from newly planted trees with a trunk of 7.6cms (3 inches).

“Extra vigilance during the establishment phase, in terms of maintenance and stewardship, might have the most payoff for ensuring planting survival, and thus achieving larger canopy objectives.”

“Planting a few hundred trees, or even a million, does not automatically translate into an increase in the overall tree population over the long-term. To increase population levels, the survival and planting rates have to out-weigh losses from tree death and removal, including both old and young individuals.”

I think this article brings up serious issues concerning increasing the urban forest.  I’ve noticed that street tree removals post Marrickville Council’s Tree Inventory meant that for at least 3-4 years the urban forest numbers stayed relatively the same.  With 1,590 streettrees to be removed from 2013, planting around 400 new trees a year meant that making up ground was slow.

I have noticed that a lot of street trees have been removed in the last couple of years.  Since Council does not report the removal of trees 5-metres or under & since 49% of our street trees were found to be 5-metres or under, we have no idea where street tree numbers are at now & no ability to calculate this ourselves.  The Tree Inventory was costly, so I doubt we will have a new one done for many years.

Increasing the canopy means not the number of trees planted, but the “percentage of total ground area; for example, at 50% canopy cover, half of the total ground area is covered by the vertical projection of tree crowns.”  

This has an impact on the way Council prune street trees as well. Continuing to remove side branches that serve to make the tree canopy fuller & produce longer periods of shade is counterproductive – unless it is required for safety reasons like branches over the road affecting passing trucks as an example.  However, you only need to look at the street trees around you to know that many street trees are pruned to have no side branches.

Council’s policy of no tree branches 2.5-metres (8.2 feet) above a footpath pretty much ensures that the footpath will have no shade except for perhaps an hour when the sun is in the right position.

The Five Million Trees initiative may result in significant changes with tree planting & reporting.  It would be good if this information is available to the community should they be interested.  Hopefully, outdated ways to manage street trees get dumped & our urban landscape becomes green & flourishing.

A Marrickville streetscape – a good one because it has street trees 2 storeys tall.  Photo June 2016.

A plan for a green Sydney

Corner of Canterbury Road and Herbert Street Dulwich Hill – an unusual opportunity by Council to make a truly green and inviting space for the community in this location. A missed opportunity and I bet this work cost a lot.

New Canterbury Road Dulwich Hill.   Plenty of room for street trees here

A while ago a reader wrote & asked what I thought of the NSW government’s plan to plant 5-million new trees across Sydney by 2030.  I was surprised that I had missed such a great commitment from the government & pleased that finally, something was happening to address Sydney’s canopy.

The issue is back in the news today, so I thought I would write about it for the people like me who missed this news.

Climate change is coming with a vengeance.  You just have to feel today’s temperature at a record-breaking 35-degrees for the third time this week in mid-Autumn to know something is going on & every year it gets hotter. Even the trees are getting confused putting on a second flowering when they are supposed to be shedding their leaves.

The ‘Five Million Trees’ initiative will cost $37.5-million over four years & will increase Sydney’s existing tree canopy from 16.8% to 40% over the next 12-years.  The former Marrickville LGA’s canopy was documented as “poor” by 202020 Vision at 16.3%.  Leichardt LGA was documented as 20.3%, & Ashfield as 19.8%.  

You just have to cross Parramatta Road to Leichhardt & Annandale to see a massive difference in the canopy compared to Marrickville, Tempe, Sydenham & St Peters.  The suburbs of Petersham, Camperdown & Stanmore fare much better & to my mind, have a much nicer streetscape because of the street trees. Even then, the comparison to streetscapes in the former Leichhardt LGA makes these suburbs look tree poor.  Dulwich Hill is somewhere in the middle depending on where you are.

Taking our canopy from 16.3% to 40% by 2030 will mean a substantial increase in livability for residents, though I do have concerns about how this will be managed with the coming over-development for Marrickville & Dulwich Hill.

Development generally means losing mature trees & token trees as a replacement.  Let’s hope the government forces developers to leave space for big canopy trees & not take the route of removing trees in one place & saying it is okay to plant trees somewhere else.  This is a terribly poor result for the community & especially wildlife.

This would be a good time to force developers to set their high-rise buildings back 4-5 metres to allow trees to be planted at the street front instead of building right to the footpath.  Trees in the front of set-back buildings could look so much better & be much healthier for the residents of these buildings.  I would be happy to give developers extra height to allow space at the front for trees & to avoid the tunnel effect of overbearing buildings.

380,000 trees will need to be planted by local councils across Sydney every year for 12-years to achieve the target & to minimize the urban heat island effect. 

I would love to know how many new trees Inner West Council will need to plant every year to meet this target. The improved canopy cover is expected to reduce temperatures when the sun is at its hottest by approximately 5-degrees Celsius.  That doesn’t sound much, but stand under a shady tree on a hot summer’s day & you will instantly notice how much cooler & pleasant this is. We will have people being neighbourly again & not trapped inside with the air-conditioning. This will be a good thing for community relations.

In 2017 the Inner West Council said they planted 1,000 trees across the municipality.  While I am pleased for any new tree planted, I thought that was a low number for what was, until recently, three municipalities.  They did not say where the trees were planted, so we have no idea whether each former municipality got one-third each or Balmain & Leichhardt lucked out with the largest number of new trees planted. Who knows?  You can’t blame anyone for wondering these things when there is poor information given.

I estimate that the Inner West Council will be required to plant more than three times that number every year from now on.  Perhaps, this will encourage council to include the community in tree planting, as happens elsewhere across the globe.  If the residents help plant the trees, there is a lesser chance that these will be vandalized.

The community will come to understand why trees are necessary & how these new street trees will improve their quality of life, their health, the value of their home & lessen their power bills.

You just have to see the work done by Blacktown City Council’s Cool Streets project to see how their community went from choosing small stature street trees to choosing a mixture of medium to tall trees.  They made the huge change because they learnt about the benefits to their health & their wallet.  Of course, there is always a chance of a roaming vandal, but hopefully, these people get caught up in the tree education and decide to vandalise inanimate objects (or their own home) instead of public trees.

The NSW government also plans to give away 15,000 trees to people who are building homes in new land release areas in Western Sydney.  This is a very good thing, but I wonder where they will find space to plant them. Having seen new estates, the blocks are almost all covered by the building’s footprint.   There also needs to be means to check that these trees have actually been planted.

Environment Minister Gabrielle Upton said, “Planting this many trees across Sydney is equivalent to taking about 355,000 cars off the road each year.”

The ‘Five Million Trees’ initiative is part of the NSW Government’s Open Spaces package at a cost of $290 million.

• $100-million will be to secure green space,
• $20-million will be to build & renovate up to 200 playgrounds.
• $30-million will be to create 81 school ovals & playgrounds for public use during school holidays.   I have concerns about using playgrounds as public green space. I may write about this on another occasion.

Marrickville streetscape. There was more concrete behind me.

Update on tree removal in St Peters

12-15 street trees were removed from Campbell Street down Unwins Bridge Road.

I wrote about the street tree removal along Unwins Bridge Road in February.  See https://bit.ly/2C0hmny

Around 12 – 15 Evergreen ash (Fraxinus griffithii) had been chopped down from the corner of Campbell street & along the eastern side of Unwins Bridge Road.   I wrote to Inner West Council to ask why & they replied also in February.  Apologies for the delay.  I am busy with other things over the last few months, though hopefully things should return to normal soon.

Council said the trees were removed as part of WestConnex works.

“Approval for their removal is as per the Environmental Impact Statement issued for the New M5. The WestConnex New M5 Arborist Report for Campbell Street and Campbell Road can be found on the WestConnex website.” – https://bit.ly/2Hmov5W

Council also said that replacement trees will be planted somewhere in the area to make up for the loss in this particular location.  So at least we know.

Join in on the Bioblitz happening at Sydney Park

A Pied cormorant and a Little black cormorant sit together 

City of Sydney are holding a Bioblitz on Friday evening 13^th April & Saturday 14^th April 2018 at Sydney Park.

What is a Bioblitz?  This is where regular people of all ages become citizen scientists & get together to record all the living beings they see so the Council & the community can learn about the biodiversity at Sydney Park.

There will be workshops, science activities, lectures & bike safaris.

On the evening of Friday the 13^th you can help survey the microbats or participate in a spotlighting survey looking for animals in the park.  Or you could look inside nesting boxes with a camera on a stick or search for frogs in the wetlands.

At dawn on Saturday morning, there will be a bird survey & in the afternoon a bike safari up the Alexandria Canal looking at what animals and plants are living in this location.  Learn also about the cultural & environmental history of the canal.  On Saturday evening, there will be a spider spotting survey.

There will be a Bioblitz Hub manned by scientists & staff from Sydney’s Taronga Zoo.  They will help you to record & identify sightings & be available for a chat.  There will be microscopes to use, as well & drawing of plants found.

There is a list of events, plus cost & booking information here –

https://whatson.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/programs/bioblitz

A ride from Mackey Park to Tempe Reserve

Fatima Island jusst holding on.  

One of two new trees planted close to the edge of the rover bank in Kendrick Park. These will provide nice shade & food for wildlife.  Discovery Point Wolli Creek looms over us.  The wide angle lens flattens the height making the buildings seem less imposing than what they are.  Building has not finished yet.  

Last weekend we took a bike ride from Mackey Park to Kendrick Park & on to Tempe Reserve.  For various reasons, it has been a number of months since we last visited  Tempe Reserve.

It was great to see two new trees planted close to the riverbank at Kendrick Park.  These will replace the trees removed back in 2011 that were in this position.  Shade here will improve the amenity of the park, as well as add beauty & habitat/food for wildlife.

Looking across to the ever-increasing development at Discovery Point Wolli Creek is perhaps a look at the future for Marrickville & Dulwich Hill.  I certainly find it strange to recreate under the eyes of so many just across the river.  I think this is something we are all going to have to get used to.

It was also wonderful to see that all the new trees planted near to the Princes Highway at Kendrick Park are growing well & have not been vandalised.  This is unusual these days.

Unfortunately, Fatima Island is holding on by a thread.  There are perhaps three trees left.  Personally I feel sad that this island is likely to be lost.  It is a wonderful refuge for waterbirds & only one of two places along the Cooks River where you can always see them when the tide is low.

Ofo bike tossed in the Cooks River.

OFO bike placed in a tree at Tempe Reserve.  Not good for the bike and definitely not good for the tree.

Once we got to Tempe Reserve we saw three yellow OFO Bikes in the river & another high up in a fig tree.  Seeing these bikes in the river has become more prominent than shopping trolleys.

Council’s planting around the picnic kiosks on the western side have grown well & quite a few Casuarina trees have opportunistically popped up, which is not a bad thing in my opinion.  There is plenty of room for more trees in this park.  The other area of new trees and understorey opposite the kiosks beside the ‘turpentine forest’ is also doing well having filled out considerably.

This pole has had a large section removed from the top and has been bound with steel straps.

Further along the mystery of the split habitat pole was solved.  See – https://bit.ly/2pxSQH2

It was an unintentional split & Council has wrapped many steel bracings around the pole to fix this.  I will be very interested to see if any wildlife does set up home in the hollow attached to this pole.   Perhaps this has already happened.

The bottom of the National Tree Day 2015 site is not doing well.

However the top section has shown some progress.

The 2015 National Tree Day site is showing progress.  The bottom part has not done well, but the area at the top has & the 5 trees planted have all survived & are growing.   You can compare by seeing past photos here – https://bit.ly/2IOf2EK

The WestConnex Authority is drilling at Tempe Reserve for the M5 extension

The WestConnex Authority are onsite & have cordoned off a section of the park & the basketball courts to drill & store their equipment.  This is not the first time I have seen them drilling here.  I think it is felt by the majority of this community that it will be a terrible loss & impact on green space if the motorway runs through or over Tempe Reserve.

I am so happy to see this beautiful fig tree doing so well after its roots were exposed by erosion.  The plantings  by Sydney Water are doing well.

The wonderful work done by Sydney Water to restore the river bank as the Cooks River becomes the Alexandra Canal is looking good.  The sedge plantings on the riverbank wall are growing well, as well as all their other plants around the trees.  Importantly, the beautiful Fig tree whose roots were exposed to the air & the brackish water of the river is looking very good after being helped.

Sedge planting in the new riverbank wall built by Sydney Water.  It was low tide when I took this photo.

Can’t get cheaper than a gold coin

Yellow Buttons (Chrysocephalum apiculatum) – a lovely Australian native.

The City of Sydney is having a plant sale this Sunday 11^th March.   The plants all come from the Council’s Living Colour displays throughout the CBD.

Some of the varieties are rosemary, mint, thyme, marigold, coleus, westringia, dianella & laurentia.

They are asking for a gold coin donation for each plant with the proceeds going to the RSPCA to help animals in need.  What a great cause.

WHERE:        Sydney Park.

WHEN:          Sunday 11^th March 2018.

TIME:             8am.  Previous sales were almost over within 30-minutes, so be quick.

Brushtail possum attacked by ravens

Raven in attack mode.

Getting closer

Moving to a different position

We saw nature in its rawness yesterday evening.  We were riding along the Cooks River when we came across a flock of very rowdy shrieking Cockatoos.  There were around twenty of them all gathered in the one gum tree.  The noise was something else.

I stopped to take some photos when my husband said, “There is a mammal up there.”  I looked around the canopy & saw a brushtail possum with two ravens nearby.  It was about 7pm & the sun was still up, so we had a very good view of this possum.  Being nocturnal, these animals are usually only seen after dark.

As we watched it became obvious that the ravens wanted to attack the possum. They are meat eaters, usually carrion.  My guess is that the possum was seen as an opportunity for food because it was in such a vulnerable position.  That is, if they could get him to fall to his death.

Whatever the reason behind their actions, the ravens were most certainly wanting to harm the possum.  He was standing on a very thin branchlet, having put a branch between him & the ravens.  His left foot was poised ready to strike any raven that came too close.

So, we had two strong black beaks that could have easily blinded the possum & the long claws of the possum, which would have caused injury to any raven that got too close.

The ravens took turns & tried to strike the possum from underneath, but they just could not get close enough.  Meanwhile the Cockatoos were alerting everyone in earshot that a possum was in danger.  We felt scared for the possum because he had nowhere to go.

Suddenly a large cockatoo entered the fray.  Wings out & crest up,  this cockatoo came between the ravens & the possum.  Screeching & expanding his size by spreading those wings even more, he managed to push the ravens out & miracle of miracles, they gave up & flew off.

The cockatoo then moved away from the possum still making a performance until he had moved to a different part of the canopy.  What a hero!   Then the rest of the flock praised his bravery as loud as they could.

When we moved on, the possum was still standing in the same position probably getting over what was a near death experience & thinking he will never come out early again.

I am pleased that there are possums along the river.  We need to keep in mind that trees offer both food & a home to wildlife & plant trees that will serve our native wildlife well.  In other words, plant food producing trees as a first choice.

Big old trees are vitally important & I expect we will lose many of them to development.   Then the accommodation crisis for homes between birds & animals will become obvious.

This was a great outcome for the brushtail possum & three cheers for the brave cockatoo who put an end to the fight.

Cockatoo to the rescue!

Look at how fierce I am

Moving away now that the ravens have gone

Taking a new position now the possum is safe.