James is running the Sydney Marathon!

Folks: I will be running my first ever marathon on Sept 16th! Help me raise money for my Mum Hilary‘s *amazing* charity, the South Sinai Foundation  – supporting the Sinai Bedouin, some of the poorest and most marginalized people on earth.

This will help fund one of her many projects. The Bedu risk life and limb to help tourists and pilgrims injured on Mount Sinai, where (unbelievably) there is not a single person with formal rescue training or equipment. My target of £1500 will completely equip and train a Bedouin rescue team.

Mohamed Khedr, Coordinator of the Foundation in Sinai

Mohamed, pictured here, saved a man’s life a couple of months ago who had trekked off alone without a guide, fallen and broken his leg. The local hospital refused to lend him a stretcher, so he and his friends improvised with a plank of wood and their headcloths, bringing the man to safety on a camel. He would have died alone in the mountains.

You can learn more and donate at: https://www.justgiving.com/jdjgilbert; in the UK it’s as simple as texting “BEDU99 £X” to 70070 (where X is the amount you wish to donate).

I am currently training in the field – in the outback – which makes for some gorgeous scenery on the long runs.  I’ll miss that when I get back to Sydney, but I certainly won’t miss having to carry a radio and emergency GPS beacon while I’m running!  I will also have to do a week of my training in Daegu, Korea, where I’ll be for a conference in a few weeks’ time, which should prove interesting.  I’ll update occasionally with progress.

Long time, no post

We’ve had a hectic time back in Sydney and for a month in the UK visiting relatives and planning the wedding.  We are back in Sydney now and have moved to the beach!  We now live in Bronte, and are busily packing and unpacking, but should have some photos of the new place soon. In the meantime here are some highlights….

Arr, there be a storm comin’

Red-browed finch – my first bird ringed!

Scribbly gum – the markings are from a moth called “Ogmograptis scribula”. You can tell the moth species apart by the shape of the scribbles.

More scribbly gum markings

Perching Damselfly

Spider with crazy abdomen!

Super full moon over Sydney

Jumping spider (Astia hariola) with prey

The elusive whipbird

Now that’s just rude.

In Derby visitiing the fahmly

In London visiting Lucy’s family 🙂

At Duncan and Vix’s wedding in the Lakes

Beautiful Drilid (?) beetle in Derbyshire (note bluebells 🙂

Shanghai: smog, smog, smog

Shanghai cuisine (en route to Sydney from the UK). This dish induces a profound longing for what everyone else is having.

I haven’t yet got my head around the common preference for small birds eaten whole…

High street shop window fail.

Beautiful sunrise over Sydney

Parrot feather I found on the ground near our house

Australia vs. Wales – singing the anthems

View over the Anzac bridge near our house by moonlight.

National parks, fieldwork, and other news..

We had a couple of fantastic trips to national parks, walking and camping around the coastline and discovering beaches and swimming holes in the forest, awesome.  Shortly afterwards I ran away to the field for another field season. Lucy came to join me after two weeks. We’ve been having a lovely time out here despite some dramatic and changeable weather. A friend measured the temperature as 58°C/136°F on the ground one day, and a few days on, we are now experiencing some of the highest rainfall in years – 70mm in 12 hours and expected to last 48 hours more.  The creeks are 6 feet up, the roads are all closed and we are marooned at the field station, down to our last few bars of chocolate and crate of beer – so things may get ugly. I’ll let you know how that goes…

Last field season, a film crew from UNSW made a short video of life at Fowlers Gap with sections on both of our projects, which is now up on YouTube – here it is:

(link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klZ6cNIQJ04)

We acquired a little friend called Ctenomorphodes chronus, or “Sticky” for short.

Sticky stayed happily on our balcony for a month, munching on eucalypt leaves. I love how her head slots into her arms.

Making extravagant pannetone bread-and-butter pudding

Large monitor lizard at Kur-Ring-Gai national park

Deserted beach at Kur-Ring-Gai – bliss

Aboriginal hand paintings

Aboriginal rock carving

I forgot my boots, so unorthodox hiking footwear was called for. Surprisingly effective.

Beautiful little forested dell

Windswept rock formations…

A deserted beach where I decided to propose – luckily I was accepted!

Somebody forgot the knife…

We had an idyllic swimming hole in the forest all to ourselves

Saw this on the way to the field – thought it was appropriate 🙂

Awesome bark formation in a creekbed eucalypt

Moonrise over Fowlers Gap

Akainothrips francisi – the new species!

Typical family of thrips – tiny dad, two mums, and babies…

Lizard by the roadside..

Processionary caterpillars – awesome!

They process nose-to-tail for miles over the landscape

My field site

At the height of summer, the flies are pretty bad

After the deluge, the one road out of Fowlers Gap….

Latest doings and our little flat

Happy Christmas and new year!  At the very least we hope you had a better day of it than we did…  At Christmas we tried to explore the national parks and have a day on a deserted beach 1 hour south of Sydney, under the perfectly understandable reasoning that everyone else would be at home with family.  Oh no.  After a disgusting 2 hours in stationary traffic we were turned away at the park entrance by police, who informed us that the park was “dangerously full”. When we got back home the bird we had taken out of the freezer for our Christmas feast had not only defrosted but gone thoroughly off in the heat, and had to be thrown away!  Chiz.

It’s not been all bad.  We finished our second field season at the end of November, which was successful. I discovered a new species of thrips!  Akainothrips francisi is the first species of thrips to be recorded living and breeding inside the nest of another thrips, i.e. a social parasite.  Very exciting.  Just FYI I am taking bids from anyone who wants the next one named after them.  Other highlights included the Melbourne Cup, a legendary horse race for which the whole of Australia grinds to a halt and indulges in much revelry and derring-do.  The local watering hole, usually very chilled out, was suddenly thronging with people behatted and bedecked in finery, and creating races out of everything it is possible to race, crayfish, beer, spouses, each other, etc.  Great fun.

Back in Sydney we found a lovely little flat that overlooks the city skyline, with a balcony perfect for kicking back with a beer in the evening.  Awesome.  I got the funding I had applied for, so we will be here for at least two more years before coming back to the UK for a year.

Lucy has been out bird-ringing several times at a local National Park, disappearing at unspeakable times of the morning.  We both went out last weekend, and got up close and personal with some beautiful kingfishers.  Less beautiful but also exciting was seeing the biggest thrips in the world (as I am told).

Out on a bush walk near the Ochre house at Fowlers Gap

Feeding a hungry gaggle of habituated apostlebirds

More Fowlers Gap sunset wondrousness

The Melbourne Cup was a good excuse for a yabbie race

Husband-racing at the Melbourne cup is also popular.

Awesome rock formations at the Ochre House near Fowlers Gap

If I were a potter wasp I’d live in here too.

The Ochre House near Fowlers Gap – miles and miles from anywhere.

Bearded dragon

Our little flat in Sydney

Our flat’s balcony with view over the city. Intolerable.

Temporary awesomeness over the Sydney skyline

Azure kingfisher, Lucy handling expertly

He seemed unimpressed that I hadn’t had any hand at all in catching him, but was still trying to look earnest for a photo.

We found plenty of my beasties too. This is reportedly the biggest thrips in the world at almost 3 cm!

Sacred kingfisher took exception to Lucy’s hand.

Learning from the Sensei

In the field again….

Green ants. These emit citric acid not formic acid, and therefore taste of lemon. You can throw the whole nest into chocolate for an interesting dessert. Maybe I’ll wait to try that…

Roadside humour. Those incorrigible Aussies….

My labmates organised a surprise for a friend returning from a trip abroad….

I think the function of the front garden is viewed a little differently in Australia.

We had a trip to Melbourne and went walking in the Dandenongs with some huge eucalypts.

At Cockle bay you can watch the rugby on the biggest screen ever. Awesome.

Directions to a house I stayed in in Sydney involved the phrase “turn right at the Velociraptor.”

Interestingly named lift manufacturer… Dave Gorman are you listening..?

Skink caught in the small mammal traps

Saturniid moth caught at the light trap (amongst about a million other moths)

Apostlebirds – these turn up every morning at the insect trap for breakfast

Tiger beetle. He turns up for breakfast at the insect trap, too

Fat-tailed gecko caught in the small mammal traps. I think the markings on his body look just like an aboriginal painting. Absolutely beautiful.

Hi-tech mouse ID – Lucy sniffing the mouse to tell whether it is a house mouse or a Forest’s mouse.

Forest’s mouse – slightly heavier set and longer in the face than a house mouse.

Stripe-faced Dunnart took exception to Lucy’s glove…

… and while it was busy killing the glove, we took some measurements

We went to the field…

I came back from a successful field trip to Fowlers Gap (near Broken Hill), having found the small insects I wanted.  Lucy stayed out there and will come back in November.  We also had a brief foray into the Flinders NP.

Welcome to Mad Max country…. here’s your hire car

Getting friendly with the local fauna

Sundowners at Fowlers Gap

Outback sunsets are hard to beat!

A vision in denim

Shingleback lizard (Who does this remind you of?!)

Target beastie acquired!

We fit in a visit to the Flinders Ranges, saw the earliest fossils and some rare birds

My study insect wraps trees in silk.

Catching flying foxes

 

Bat in the net!

Taking it out of the net

Who does this remind you of...?

 

Video of flying fox being released here

In the Blue Mountains…

Some recent derring-do – I had a “work” trip to the Blue Mountains to learn how to handle a 4×4 in the outback.  This was truly awful, as you can imagine.  We seized the day and made a long weekend of it.

I crossed off a lifetime goal by hearing the song of a superb lyrebird, as per David Attenborough – awesome!  We could hear the male mimicking the songs of lots of birds in the forest, like magpies and kookaburras. No chainsaws or automatic cameras though, which is not entirely disappointing. Lucy actually managed to see him displaying, although I missed him.  We also saw male and female satin bowerbirds. Absolutely fantastic.

The fish market has some odd rules

My first experience with an Aussie legend

I bagged tickets to the Waratahs versus the Brumbies. If you screw your eyes up you might make out Matt Giteau winking at me.

I will never stop being amused by this.

The Blue Mountains!

What a landscape

The Three Sisters

Katoomba Falls

The world’s steepest and most terrifying railway

Learning how to tame the great outdoors

No worries mate!

First couple of weeks…

Yes, we are still alive!  We arrived in Sydney about two weeks ago.  We are in a shared house temporarily for about a month until we head into the outback.  We have been orienting ourselves at our respective universities (me, Sydney; Lucy, UNSW) and trying hard to hit the ground running.  Unfortunately we are both operating to quite tight schedules so there hasn’t been much excitement to report just yet.

When we eventually get to the field, Lucy will be continuing her field research on social behaviour in chestnut-crowned babblers (cooperatively-breeding birds).   I am not sure exactly where in Australia the bugs I am studying occur, but will be starting my searches in a haphazardly chosen location, at the field station where Lucy works.  Happily this isn’t entirely random as I have been told that previous researchers have found the critters there before!

Monday was “the Queen’s birthday”, so naturally all Aussies get the day off (apart from those in WA, who don’t deserve it).  This was our first real chance to get out and enjoy Sydney so we walked from the Spit to Manly Wharf, which has fantastic views over Sydney and a ferry trip back through Sydney Harbour.  Saw my first kookaburra!

Sydney University is modelled on an Oxbridge quad, so it feels just like home, although with a few more parrots

This Shield Intentionally Left Blank - Insert coat of arms as applicable from rich donor.... (nb. before it gets colonized by paper wasps, that is - spot the nest! This pleased me greatly)

Oh, now that's just no fun at all.

Looking over towards the Spit - Sydney and Harbour Bridge in background

Banksias all over the place - straight from Mars

Horrible, horrible time we're having

For Australia, it is actually reasonably cold…

... magnificent!

James and Lucy are flying away :(

This blog will be up soon with updates of our adventures in Oz.