Come all and Ride

Led by  ARTcycle and the Friends of The GreenWay in a ride to celebrate the GreenWay no matter who funds it. You can also meet up later at 3:30pm at Gadigal Reserve - between Grosvenor Rd and Parramatta Rd. See Friends for all the details. 

Footprints Eco-Festival

In the backstreets of Annandale you will find the Whites Creek Valley Parklands hosting a community garden, ecological wetlands and sustainable cottage community centre. For all the details on the Footprints Eco-Festival like how to get there please visit Annandale on the Web. ps its only a short ride away from the GreenWay.

opening mosiac wonder

mosiac mural must see

  

In the Lords Road Tunnel (yes down from Art Est) a beautiful community artwork by a long list of community members and students is up for viewing. The original mural design is by April Keogh, the mosaic assemblage direction by Nola Diamantopoulos and the internal story wall by Joel Tarling. Here via U-Tube is a great film about it.

Signage and info installed reads...

It is a beautiful thing seeing men at work and an iron "whipple truss" bridge! Please go and read more at the tunnel.

National Tree Day

this lovely tree with great foundations is by Onyedi Iriele

National Tree Day is Australia's biggest community tree-planting event.

Please join in: 10am to 12.30pm this Sunday 31st July at Richard Murden Reserve, Hawthorne Parade, Haberfield

we will help plant some indigenous species creating great habitat for our native birds and animals. 

Powerful Owl

If you have heard at night a deep Whoo-hoo it could be the Powerful Owl,  Ninox strenua. It is the largest Australian nocturnal bird and is listed as vulnerable in NSW. Birds Australia has a public call out to help locate and monitor breeding pairs and Birds In Backyards will train volunteers. For a lot more detail please use my links and to report a sighting or join in volunteering please go here

As I am not often able to see outside of a book the birds and animals I like to depict in my art I then frequent museums to observe the preserved. A favourite is the intimate and historically important Macleay Museum at the University of Sydney - where presently they have a long-nosed bandicoot on display...  so I strongly encourage a visit! 

They estimate to have 9000 bird studyskins that were mainly collected in the late 1800s. I am currently drawing some of the birds found along the greenway, of course, and here I believe is a not so typically posed tawny frogmouth. It was common that the taxidermists and engravers of the time had also never seen these specimens alive and in real situ. 

cat attack / bandicoot talk

These small etchings are from another art project I am doing. And they are a good reminder of how our beloved meows can be active predators to our local native fauna.


The bandicoot talk given by Dr Tanya Leary presented by IWEG was thoroughly enlightening. There is already a lot of information on these Marsupials via the net so google ahead if you want more.


from my notes:  
21 bandicoot species ... the long-nosed are common but not here in the inner west where they had disappeared in the 1970's. Now rediscovered in 2002. Being a disjunct population it is classed as endangered. A worrying fact: 7 reported deaths in 12 months.
They are about the size of a rabbit and do hop and are fecund as rabbits too. Described as "naive" they don't avoid traffic and their threats are high. Local predators include our domestic friends and feral foxes. Here they have been found living under old style houses and one lady has been known to feed them steak! 
Our responsibility could include being pro-active about a night curfew for cats; covering compost, no outside pet food to minimize attracting foxes; "mosaic" clearing and planting of gardens... this integral approach to weed removal is practiced by bushcare groups so our fauna have plenty of dense and interspersed foliage - the ideal habitat for the bandicoots!

IWEG presents:

at Pine Street

Until the 16th June, there is a beautiful exhibition on at Pine Street Creative Arts Centre in Chippendale. All participating creators here are  5 to 12 years old with part of the show a competition about World Environment Day 2011  organised between Pine Street and City of Sydney's Sustainability Unit. The United Nations Environment Program for this year is the Forests: Nature at your Service with loads of interesting info on their site to look through.

Hawthorne Canal

..playing with ideas for artworks..

long-nosed bandicoot

Here in the Inner West the Long-nosed Bandicoot (Perameles nasuta) has been recently spotted with this photograph (below) taken by a Dulwich Hill resident in February this year. Their conical shaped diggings are a good giveaway of their nightly activities and are distinctively different from diggings by other animals like rabbits and rats. Current native and non-native vegetation along the GreenWay are good habitat for these sweet critters and clearing weedy vegetation should been done slowly allowing recently planted natives to firstly reach their maturity.

Just hot off the press is a new brochure by the GreenWay Sustainability Project team to raise awareness of this endangered local population and how to identify and protect them. For a download please link here. 

image courtesy of greenway.org.au

Inspired by these endangered locals, I recently participated in a volunteer day at North Head Sanctuary in Manly to help with scientific research. Bandicoots on the Brink is run by Earthwatch and is focused on protecting these endangered species by educating us and gaining data to understand the impact, activity and abundance of introduced predators in this area. I highly recommend to all to join up!! It is a beautiful day out learning about these little marsupials and more. A truely spectacular place among Sydney's endangered Eastern Suburbs Banksia Scrub and other wildlife. In good company and while attending to the asked duties, I also joyfully documented fungi and spotted birdlife I hadn't seen before - what a thrill. Thank you to both Dr Nelika Hughes the Wildlife Ecologist from the Australian Wildlife Conservancy and Rachel Maitland from the Earthwatch team for all your hard work and for such an informative and fun day.

and click on the cat-attack post for more bandicoot info

at dawn

golden orb weavers - the bold and beautiful

Overlooking the newly weeded and replanted native site at Cardigal Reserve* are five bold and beautiful female Golden Orb Weaving Spiders. Not only do they have a lovely view but seem to have a stronghold by a layered and interwoven positioning so no chance for any flying critters (sorry, it was hard to capture this effect on camera). Below, the golden sheen of the web is more noticeable. This non aggressive spider often shares or allow other spiders to build off their own  - how wonderful is that!

Information here is sourced from Sue Stevens, the Landcare Supervisor of the GreenWay Sustainability Project 

and the Australian Museum provide a great factsheet.

* for existing bushcare sites please have a look here at IWEG

and the natives recently planted here include wonga wonga vine, blue flax lily, pink spider grevillea and native indigo 

finding fungi

can you spot the mushroom?

Weed Workshop

'A weed is a plant that has mastered every survival skill except for learning how to grow in rows' --Doug Larson--

sourced from weedbook Sydney on facebook

at Richard Murden Reserve, Haberfield...  my distraction on our walk were the many species of fungi and mushrooms

We had fun and all done before the rain....

first part: Adam West, the Biodiversity Officer of the GreenWay Sustainability Project, gave an indepth coverage concerning weeds in a one day workshop provided for free. Glad to discover that I have been pulling out in my garden (can now relax my vigor!)  a native ground cover Commelina cyanae thinking they were the weed trad for short (or wandering jew/ creeping christian)   Tradescantia fluminensis. The second part of the day was out in the field at Richard Murden Reserve to along the Hawthorne Canal of the GreenWay. Sue Stevens, the GreenWay Landcare Supervisor pointed out the various weeds and natives in the bush care sites inspiring great interest from the workshop group.  I also saw my first real female fig bird ... so what a bonus! 

native ground cover Commelina cyanae 

Some GreenWay weeds covered during the day included

•      Ehrhata erecta

•      Bidens pilosa

•      fleabane   Conyza sumatrensis

•      blackberry nightshade   Solanum nigrum

•     turkey rhubarb   Acetosa sagittata

•       moth vine   Araujia hortorum

•      fat hen  Chenopodium album

•      madeira vine   Auredera cordifolia

and noxious weeds focused on during the workshop included

      •       Lantana camara

•       Castor oil plant   Ricinus communis

•       Asthma weed   Parietaria judaica

•       Prickly pear  Cylindropuntia species

•       Broad leaf Privet   ligustrum lucidium

•       Narrow leaf privet   ligustrum sinense

•       Camphor laurel   Cinnamomum camphora

•       Tradescantia fluminensis

some great links...

Australian Native Plant Society

International Environmental Weed Foundation

Weeds in Australia

Sydney Weeds

Weedy Connections

Symposium, Lecture and Exhibition

Tin Sheds Gallery

April 7 - 30th 2011

During this weekend at the University of Sydney is      

The Right to the City  Symposium.

'Right to The City is an exhibition, symposium and publishing project that brings together a series of artistic, theoretical and philosophical escape plans. These escape plans range from the whimsical to the more serious, and present real or imagined ways of reinventing life in our cities.'

for more information please look at the link above and  the     
Tin Sheds site.

Clicking onto Joni Taylor's DIY Urbanism: Sydney Reconsidered The Remnant Emergency Artlab have a project where the Botanical Gardens are extended with the aim to provide possible new roosting area for the flying foxes that are currently and unintentionally devastating the trees at the Botanical Gardens.

Leichhardt Jubilee Pressed

until the end of April

Together the Leichhardt Library and Hill End Press (Bill Moseley and Genevieve Carroll  from the heritage gold-mining town of Hill End) have put on a fabulous exhibition with a fresh reprinting from the original 52 metal printing blocks (below) of the 1921 Leichhardt Jubilee celebrations. And yes Iron Cove included!! It runs until the end of April at the Leichhardt Library as part of their Heritage Festival. My photos aren't the best here and a closer inspection of familiar places and faces of the past are worth a visit.

Vision at Art Est.

Thank you to Brendan Day from Art Est. Art School for these photos taken at the opening of Gilbert Grace's latest solo exhibition. 


more Vision here

Gilbert Grace

Vision
until 27th  April
Art Est. Gallery
Studio 4, 67-69 Lords Rd
Leichhardt  T: 9564 1519

Gilbert Grace - the winner of the inaugural GreenWay Art Prize held during the festival of 2010 at Art Est.

The opening of Vision was a great night and I hope that others will come throughout the month to see Gilbert Grace's latest paintings. Recognising the various places of the inner west from suburban street scenes to along the GreenWay makes for instant connection. You can see these images reveal Gilbert's other passion for the environment through cycling which has lead to the circuit known as the Sydney Green Ring. For a lot more detail click on to the Gilbert Grace blog, website and Artcycle

Art Est, a beautifully renovated warehouse, holds the gallery, 3 teaching workshop spaces as well as 5 artists' studios. It's very easy to get here via the GreenWay along Hawthorne Canal through the Lords Rd tunnel, then 2nd driveway on your left. Lords Rd is behind Market Town and not too far from either Marion St or Parramatta Rd if busing it.

Ashfield Park...

CARNIVAL OF CULTURES  

cancelled due to heavy rain

The annual festival held in our local 19th century park is full of grand trees, old school flower beds (either roses, geraniums or canna lilies) and Pheonix palm trees. The Carnival celebrates the diversity of people that live in the area and the paths are lined with plenty of community stalls and food stands. Well unfortunately not today...

I like others still went to collect our annual 3 free plants! This year again was only natives and I think there was a better choice of smaller shrubs (how the birds will be happy to have more Grevilleas about !) I am not sure about my particular choice... they are pretty but whether they will take to my shady clay and dry garden we will see. Here in front of a jade plant are my 3 newbies from left to right: Lomandra longifolia (because of its "strongly perfumed flowers"), Austromyrtus inophloia - blushing beauty and Dianella hybrid - silver streak.