Science & Nature

A classy grass showing off right now

Right now many local grasses are looking simply spectacular. I’ve previously featured the Native Sorghum (S. leiocladum), Basket Grass (Oplismenus sp.), Pygmy Panic (Panicum pygmaeum) and the Love Grasses (Eragrostis species) and they’re all doing...

Flooding and Illawarra’s native vegetation

High rainfall events and flooding are regular occurrences in the Illawarra region, as in many parts of the world. The last four years have included three very wet summers (due to influences such as La Niña phase of the El Niño-La Niña Seasonal...

Births, deaths and marriages: the perils of nature watching

You’ve heard it, I’ve said it, we all know that spending time in nature is good for us. But as I spent the last few days on tenterhooks, using my camera’s telephoto lens as proxy binoculars, watching a tawny frogmouth family of four swiftly...

Author Leon Fuller reveals Flame Tree secrets after bumper spring

The vibrant Illawarra Flame Tree (Brachychiton acerifolius) has flowered in abundance this past spring. Writer of ‘Wollongong’s Native Trees’ and local expert Leon Fuller shared some lesser-known information about the iconic Australian trees...

Tyneesha Williams

Where have all the Christmas beetles gone?

To add this season’s Christmas beetle sighting to the project, head to iNaturalist, the Christmas Beetle Count

Wake up and smell the Coffee Bush!

In fruit right now is one of the most common and widespread local shrubs of the Illawarra region: the Coffee Bush (Breynia oblongifolia). And it’s looking spectacular!! The foliage and ripe fruit of the Coffee Bush (Breynia oblongifolia). Perhaps...

Frequent Visitor Award goes to Shark #1901

This is the second of my 2024 reports on detections of tagged sharks by our listening station off Stanwell Park. Most detection notifications supply the date and location the shark was first tagged and the date and location of the previous detection...

Duncan Leadbitter

Here come the cicadas: Don’t miss summer’s best show

There’s a pulsating shriek, the call of dozens of cicadas yelling into the heat of the early summer morning. Their big, fat bodies thud against the house before careening back off into the sky. Many become food for our local growing family of...

Fruiting now: the Cheese Tree

The Cheese Tree (Glochidion ferdinandi) is a lovely thing, particularly at the moment when many plants are in full fruit and covered in their colourful pinkish-red, very vaguely cheese-like capsules. Cheese Trees are some of the most widespread...

Deer damage Helensburgh Bushcare site

For 30 years now, Helensburgh & District Landcare Group has been removing weeds and planting trees and shrubs at Helensburgh Creek. Those trees that were planted between 25 and 30 years ago are now, mostly, mature trees. We occasionally had deer...

Merilyn House

Corals of our Coast: Dive into the Illawarra

By Phebe Fidge If you thought corals were warm-water spectacles exclusive to distant underwater seascapes, think again. Shellharbour scuba instructor Bob McKee has corrected many a tourist who’s assumed it’s too cold for corals on the South Coast...

The Illawarra Flame

Photo Feature

Flame Trees in Flower

Scroll through the gallery above to see the flowers that make up the ‘flame’.

Tyneesha Williams

The magic in Macquarie Pass and why you shouldn’t miss it

I’m not a huge fan of the dark. Sure, I love wandering around my yard at night, especially as the weather warms and the cicadas start to emerge, shirking off their hard shells and transforming before my eyes. I love wandering down the street...

Resilient native meadows can cope with wet and dry

I’ve written about many of Illawarra’s local native ground covers, grasses and ferns. Individually each species has its appealing (or not-so-appealing) features, and environmental preferences, with everything from grasses that prefer to grow in mud...

Ancient mud reveals Australia’s burning history over the past 130,000 years – and shows a way through our fiery future

Over the past 20 years, the forests and woodlands of southeastern Australia have become hotspots for major fires

The Conversation

Flowering now, the spectacular Swamp Lily

With the warm and now wet spring we’re having, many local plants are flowering and fruiting brilliantly. It’s an excellent time to observe local native plants and see what they’re up to. One local plant that is doing particularly well is the Swamp...

Future Proofing the Cabbage Tree Palm

Cabbage Tree Palms are very significant to local First Nations Peoples. They are also immensely important to many fruit-eating birds, particularly but not only local pigeons and doves. For this reason they are a really valuable element of local...

Handsome huntsmans: the misunderstood, family-oriented spiders who make ideal housemates

Spring is peaking, summer is coming, and this week in Wollongong, the humidity is stifling. Though the wet, warm air may make us humans a little crabby, other creatures revel in it, breed and thrive in it. An arthropod’s biggest fear is as...

Andy Lawrence

Croom BioBlitz an opportunity for budding citizen scientists

This Friday and Saturday, local citizen scientists have the chance to explore and document the amazing biodiversity of Croom Reserve in Shellharbour. Croom Reserve is a precious remnant of the Illawarra’s original vegetation, a beautiful place to...

Whale season wraps up

Ah November, the month where whale tragics everywhere begin to feel the pull of their obligations, work, family and friends. As daily whale sightings begin to thin out, the spell lessens and then finally breaks and we rub our eyes as if we have been...

Bird of the Month: Sooty Oystercatcher

Sooty Oystercatcher (Haematopus fuliginosus) The bird of the month for November is a shorebird species that inhabits rock shelves and rocky beaches and is found along almost all coastal areas of Australia. They can typically be seen in the Illawarr...

Ewan Auld