Port Stephens Diary of Natural Events - April


An extract from Michael Smith's "Port Stephens Diary of Natural Events"

APRIL

Baby Noisy Miners and Rainbow Lorikeets are being fed.
Fairy penguin chicks leave their burrow for the open sea.
Muttonbird parents leave Broughton Island for a 30,000km flight.
From now until September Koalas are bellowing, fighting and scent marking.
Sugar glider young are ejected from the family nest.
Flying foxes mate.
New Holland and White-cheeked Honeyeaters raise their chicks.
April to July Bream and Luderick travelling north enter Port Stephens.
Swamp mahogany comes into flower.
Orion sets at night.
Geniah and Corvus appear in the night sky.
Noisy miners are active.
Quolls mate.
Gymea Lily flowers open.
Wild Parsnips in flower.
Muttonbird fledgelings leave Broughton Island.
Butcher birds are active.
Puff balls are dried out and spreading spores.
Channel Billed Cuckoo leaves for New Guinea.
Red Wattlebirds arrive.
Muttonbirds that left Broughton Island arrive at the Bering Sea.
The leaf of the Pixie Cap orchid appears on the ground.
The first greenhood orchids appear.
Granny Bonnet, Mountain Devil & Native Cherry in flower.
Cycad "cones" appear.
Squid are in Nelson Bay Harbour.
Blueberry Ash berries fall to the ground.

Michael Smith, 1999

Kath Fries, North Arm Cove bush-scape with sunlight and shadows, photograph,  2013