Our Chief Environmental Officer

This green tree frog (Litoria moorei)lives close by our shallow well which provides water for the vineyard. He is seen sitting on part of the pump house.
Fertilisers,whether animal poo or from a factory are used very inefficiently by plants, and end up contaminating the environment. We minimise fertiliser inputs by monitoring phosphate and nitrate in the plants, and adjusting fertiliser applications accordingly. The shallow well is at the bottom of the hill and receives all the groundwater from the vineyard. We can check nitrate and phosphate levels in the water to check the levels of contamination.
Even better our CEO keeps an eye on us. He hates contamination, and walks out if he feels threatened. In fact his mates produce long slimy threads of frog eggs which hatch into thousands of tadpoles in the spring. Sadly most of them end up in the food chain and help maintain our bird population.
Interviewed recently about the state of our vineyard, Litoria croaked with a grin "Good water"! The cacophony of croaks, bonks and grunts every evening, tell us all his relatives agree.

Kangaroos

Kangaroos are magnificient animals. An adult buck stands higher than a man, and with large claws on his powerful hind legs, can be formidable and dangerous if cornered. Mostly they are timid animals and hop off when approached. This adult female Western grey (Macropus fuliginosus) enjoying some weeds from our native flower garden.

Do they cause damage in the vineyard? They can decimate the shoots of young vines, but don't eat much of mature vines or grapes. However, they will not learn the rules about going from one row to the next. Instead of hopping around the end of the row, they go straight through the trellis! This can cause a lot of damage.

Why do they come into the vineyard? In our case there are two reasons:
Firstly, we have released some hand reared joeys on the property. These have been orphaned and then raised by a group of joey minders. They don't have the same fear of people as wild kangaroos.
Secondly, things get tough in the bush in the summer, with little feed and no water. In contrast, the vineyard is cool and shady with lots of nice succulent weeds. Who can blame them?

We made the hard decision to keep them out of the vineyard, and after the great millenium fire, we built a 1.8m fence to keep them out of the 5 hectares (12.5 acres) set aside for the vines and buildings.

This leaves them the remaining 24 hectares (60 acres) which has a dam and lots of pasture. This has a 1.2m fence. They either crawl under it and destroy it or jump over and catch the top wires, sometimes breaking the wire or breaking their leg. To get around the problem of damaged fences and injured kangaroos, we have installed some kangaroo gates (a CSIRO design). Believe it or not, these let the kangaroos through (they poke their nose under the gate and lift it up), but sheep (too stupid) or cattle (too big) can't get out.

This young mum was hand raised and is not frightened, but her joey takes to the pouch as soon as I approach! Think of this poor mother trying to jump over a fence with a heavy joey in her pouch! He doesn't know yet but in a couple of weeks mum will decide he's too big for the pouch and will close it off with strong muscles so he can't get in. He will stay with mum for another year, but the pouch will be reserved for the next member of the family.

A tiny kangaroo, about 2-3cm in length will be delivered from the uterus and crawl into the pouch where it will attach to a nipple and remain until it is big enough to face the outside world.
You might ask: where is dad while all this is going on? Sorry to say he's being doing the rounds of the attractive young females. But it's a competitive business, as there are lots of other males competing for the privileges. We have found one young male dead in the dam. His belly had been opened by the powerful toe of a stronger male. He developed peritonitis and tried to ease the pain in the cool water.

Who is this?

This little critter has invaded the electric power box, and filled it with leaves. She was discovered when I went to plug in the electric drill. I had to buy a generator to avoid disturbing her.
The leaves in the nest were carried, one at a time, from a huge blue gum (Eucalyptus globulus) about 30 metres away and at least 5 metres up to the nearest leaves.
Note the big brown eyes which indicate a nocturnal animal. She is a little unhappy to have the door opened in the middle of a bright sunny day, when she was fast asleep recovering from a busy night.

A full view indicates a marsupial Western Pygmy Possum (Cercartetus concinnus), who live off the nectar of flowering plants and are important pollinators of many Australian plants. They are about the size of a house mouse, and have tiny babies. The new babies climb into the pouch and attach to a nipple.

Look at this handsome couple!

Over the 10 years that we have owned Jinnunger we have planted Banksias, Agonis (tea tree) and Hakeas around the sheds to encourage birds down from the bush. We have been rewarded by the appearance of Splendid Fairy wrens (Malurus splendens). This couple have set up home in a densely leaved Banksia. They forage widely on the ground and low shrubs for insects. They are very vulnerable to cats and so are not seen close to towns. No cats come near Jinnunger more than once, so the wrens survive.

The male is showing off his breeding plumage. His lady is not so showy, but very attractive, with her blue tail feathers. He has caught a moth, and she has put on a show, trying to get a share of it. She flaps her tail up and down and fans out the tail feathers to entice him to share it with her. He was not impressed and refused to share his moth.
We are hoping for a big family to help repopulate the burned bush.

Honeyeaters showing off some of our beautiful local flowers

The New Holland Honey Eater (Phylidonyris novaehollandiae) is common across the southern parts of Australia, and we have thousands of them. They love to sit high on a branch or a flower keeping an eye on the neighbours. They are fast moving doing aerobatics and chasing each other, defending their territory where necessary against much bigger birds. They will attack a magpie or crow who might threaten to take the young from their nest. In spring the young line up to be fed by the adults.











The one below, is taking the nectar from an Albany Red Banksia (Banksia coccinea) and in the process pollinating the flowers, and another (on the right) is caught amongst the pincushion flowers of Hakea laurina. This Hakea comes from the area east of  Jinnunger, but has been widely planted in gardens and roadsides across Australia