Articles
B&B Highway
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Nesting Box Basics
Australian animals use tree hollows for various purposes – sometimes for shelter, sometimes for nesting and sometimes for safety from predators. The hollows provide insulation to help protect against cold, heat and rain, and can be found in live and dead trees. More than 340 species of Australian animals – 15 per cent of birds and about 30 per cent of land mammals – live in hollow homes. Some birds include owls, kookaburras, lorikeets, cockatoos and wood ducks. Some mammals include microbats, gliders, possums and quolls. The most important thing is to keep as many of our large, old trees…
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Cat-napping about feral cats?
When the creator of the world wide web was asked what surprised him most about the use of the internet he famously replied ‘kittens’. Everyone has an opinion on cats, from sheer hatred to obsession and everything in between. Wherever one stands, they infiltrate our lives with their fluffy tails, aloof ‘tudes and tenacity. Such tenaciousness may be admired in our pet floofs when chasing a moth inside, yet it is one of the reasons that feral cats cover 99% of Australia, around 80% of our islands, and are extremely difficult to eradicate. Worldwide, cats are listed as one of…
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Bird Flu Basics
We are hearing more about the spread of H5N1 bird flu in Australia.What is the new ‘H5N1’ strain of bird flu? How dangerous is it – and, what can we do to slow its spread? What is H5N1 bird flu?Bird flu viruses occur naturally in both poultry and wild birds and most are not dangerous. However, in 2021 a new strain emerged known as H5N1. This virus has proved to be very harmful to poultry, wild birds and mammals around the world, causing serious illness and deaths, although the risk to humans is low. In June 2026, bird flu reached…
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Time to blitz the BioBlitz!
National Biodiversity Month (September) is around the corner! Which means… drum roll… that the National Citizen Science B&B BioBlitz is approaching! September is a perfect time for students in every State and Territory to get out and about in their school grounds to take images of nature for teachers to upload to iNaturalist – which feeds into the Atlas of Living Australia hosted by the CSIRO. PlantingSeeds has been running this informative citizen science activity for five years and has witnessed a growing awareness among the public of the importance of everyday people contributing to biodiversity knowledge. The State of…
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Citizen science storms home!
University researchers have identified special traits of a bird species for the first time thanks to citizen science. A team from the University of NSW's Centre for Ecosystem Science used citizen science databases, eBird and iNaturalist, to compile images of three individual species of the White-faced Storm Petrel. The elusive sub-species of White-faced Storm Petrel, also referred to as the Kermadec Storm Petrel, is a breed of seabirds inhabiting an island off New Zealand's coastal regions. Almost nothing was known about this species until now, and this is, in part, thanks to citizen science – as reported by Tom Melville…
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The Future of Data Centres in Australia
Australia has found itself in a unique position as a critical player in the development of data centre construction, but what does this mean for Australia’s environment and people? Data centres and their rapid development have dominated global news coverage much of the last year, and Australia is set to find greater footing in the race to construct hyperscale centres. These centres power our modern lives; storing cloud data, housing the internet, which critically includes the data that supports ever-growing artificial intelligence models. By Australia allowing the construction of data centres, it can bring many wealthy technology companies to our…