Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve in the south of Canberra is a leader in wildlife conservation, managing highly successful breeding programs for the critically endangered northern corroboree frog, the southern brush-tailed rock-wallaby and the eastern bettong.
Over 2018-2019, I was given the opportunity to be artist-in-residence at Tidbinbilla. This exhibition explores connections - both between the animals and their environment, and the connection I had to various species that live at Tidbinbilla.
2019
Ink and 23k gold leaf on paper
‘Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you.’ – Frank Lloyd Wright.
In a world experiencing rapidly escalating environmental issues, I am inspired by the work Australian ecologists are doing to preserve our native fauna. Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve in the south of Canberra is a leader in conservation, managing highly successful breeding programs for the critically endangered northern corroboree frog, the southern brush-tailed rock-wallaby and the eastern bettong.
Over the past year, I was given the opportunity to be artist-in-residence at Tidbinbilla. I explored the reserve independently and had the opportunity to meet with and observe the vet and ecologists to learn more about their breeding programs.
This exhibition explores connections - both between the animals and their environment, and the connection I had to various species that live at Tidbinbilla. I feel that scientific research and wildlife art are intrinsically connected. They both involve interpreting the natural world in order that it can be shared with others.
This composition represents the unity of some of the many animals in the Tidbinbilla environment. They are:
Eastern yellow robin
Spotted pardalote
Dusky antechinus
Southern brown Bandicoot
Cunningham’s skink
Bogong moth
Northern corroboree frog
Red-bellied black snake
Emu
Koala
Eastern grey kangaroo
Platypus
Eastern bettong
Long-nosed potoroo
Brush-tailed rock-wallaby
2019
Ink and 23k gold leaf on paper
‘Action is the antidote to despair.’ – Joan Baez
At its most critical time, it is estimated that there were only forty brush-tailed rock-wallabies left in the wild. Excessively hunted in the past for its fur, the small wallaby is also vulnerable to predation by eagles, cats and foxes. It faces environmental issues such as climate change, bushfires and drought, and must compete for food and territory with feral species such as goats.
Tidbinbilla established a breeding program in 1996 to bring these animals back from the brink of extinction. Initially the number of wallabies was so low that it was critical that they built a captive insurance population as quickly as possible. To do this, scientists used yellow-footed rock-wallabies as foster mothers. The joeys were transferred from brush-tailed mum to yellow-footed mum, which allowed the endangered wallaby to produce another offspring within thirty days. Scientists aimed to create the strongest genetic diversity they could so that the population wouldn’t be susceptible to health issues due to inbreeding.
It was a resounding success. More than seventy wallabies have been raised at Tidbinbilla since the program’s inception, with around twenty being released back into the wild in Victoria.
Twenty-five wallabies are now about to be released into a 120-hectare fenced enclosure on the Reserve. This enclosure will house up to 100 wallabies in future. They will be protected from foxes and cats, but otherwise the enclosure environment replicates their natural environment of rocky outcrops with plenty of grasses and shrub foliage for food.
The wallabies will continue to be researched while in the enclosure to develop a plan for their release in the wild.
2019
Ink and 23k gold leaf on paper
The title of this painting refers to Charles Darwin’s comment about emu fathers, who raise their chicks alone. The female emu mates with several males over a season. While the male incubates the eggs over a period of two months, he rarely leaves the nest. Eight to ten chicks hatch from striking dark blue-green eggs and they are raised by their father for around six months. Their striped plumage helps camouflage them when they are young. The gilded feathers here are life-size representations of the double-shafted, shaggy feathers that replace their striped plumage at maturity.
The best place to see the emus is in the paddocks on the Birrigai Time Trail walk, and fathers with their young family are generally seen around August-September.
2019
Ink and 23k gold leaf on paper
‘When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe’ – John Muir.
The southern brown bandicoot, eastern bettong and long-nosed potoroo are small marsupials that are listed as Vulnerable or Endangered. They are all residents of Tidbinbilla, where they live in predator-proof enclosures. Tidbinbilla hosts a breeding program for bettongs like the one at Mulligans Flat Woodland Sanctuary in the north of Canberra. They also monitor their potoroo and bandicoot populations closely.
These marsupials feed mainly on native truffles (a type of fungi), roots, seeds and insects. As they dig for these nutritious subterranean treats, they create small holes that trap leaf litter, water and nutrients. These holes can become hotspots for productivity and seed germination. This process is so important to the Australian environment that digging animals like these three species are often referred to as 'ecosystem engineers'.
The species depicted in this painting are linked, and all can be found at Tidbinbilla. The marsupials eat the tubers of native lilies and orchids such as the leopard double-tail orchid and the vanilla lily. They also eat native truffles (a variety of which are shown at the bottom of the composition). The native truffles feed the acacia (wattle) and eucalypt tree roots (the wattle blooms are shown here in gold leaf). Moth species such as (smallest to largest) the reddish wave, the southern old lady and the wattle goat moth lay eggs in the ground that hatch into larvae which feed on the acacia roots, and the marsupials eat the larvae.
2019
Ink and 23k gold leaf on paper
‘What we call the highest and lowest in nature are both equally perfect.’ – Beatrix Potter.
I’d love to tell you I saw bogong moths in the rock crevices around Tidbinbilla. I looked, to no avail. This little moth with a wingspan of around 5cm is so important to so many other species. A couple of months later, I read a news article reporting the decline of the moths. This is a developing situation – it has only been in the past two years that scientists have noticed a fall in moth numbers. They believe it is due to climate change and drought in breeding areas. When there is not enough vegetation to feed the caterpillars, not enough survive until metamorphosis.
The moths breed in outback New South Wales and southern Queensland, then once the new generation of caterpillars metamorphose into moths, they fly to the alps of Victoria and NSW in Spring and Summer to estivate (a summer hibernation). Along the way, they stop to rest in places like the rock crevices around Tidbinbilla. They feed on the nectar of flowering eucalypts such as the snow gum, pollinating these plants while they feed.
The moth migration provides a major food source for native bats and rodents, and birds such as boobook owls and ravens.
But the most worrying development in the lack of migration could mean the extinction of an already Critically Endangered species – the mountain pygmy possum. This tiny possum (seen in the painting at approximately life-size) lives in the alpine regions of NSW and Victoria. The bogong moth is a major food source, providing an energy reserve to sustain the possums for up to seven months of hibernation. Scientists have already seen the effects on the possums – in 2018-9 the possums have lost young due to inadequate reserves of energy. This has a flow-on effect of a decline in an already miniscule population.
Due to a lack of resources, not a lot of research into bogong moths and other alpine insects has been undertaken. Whether this is a short-term anomaly, or the beginning of another catastrophic climate event, we will have to wait and see – scientists say next year will be the ‘litmus test’, particularly for the future of the possums. In the meantime, several captive breeding programs and a recovery plan for mountain pygmy possums continue.
2019
Ink and 23k gold leaf on paper
‘Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help.’ – May Sarton.
I came to know this koala family quite well during my residency. From left to right is Yellow (female), Jed (male), and Scully (female). They are usually joined in the enclosure by at least one joey. Towards the end of the residency, Yellow (who already had a larger male joey, Yulu) had another joey emerge from her pouch – a yet-to-be-named female (pictured) -the first female born to this family! They lead a happy life – always with plenty of food, water and shelter. The rangers told me that their main health issue was the heat in summer.
Despite popular belief, koalas aren’t ‘stoned’! The amount of energy provided by toxic eucalypt leaves is very low. They preserve energy by resting most of the day. Koalas eat a very limited diet of only a few species of eucalypts – – those they have acclimatised to in their local environment. The Tidbinbilla koala family likes narrow- and broad-leafed peppermints, ribbon gum, mealy bundy, apple box and blue gum, some of which are painted here with their scientific names listed in gold leaf.
2019
Ink and 23k gold leaf on paper
‘The fate of the creatures which share our planet lies entirely at the hand of mankind - it is within our power to protect them or watch them become extinct. Let us choose the first route.’ – Sir David Attenborough.
From the very beginning, little yellow-and-black striped northern corroboree frogs have got it tough. Whereas many other frog species lay hundreds of eggs, corroboree frogs lay around 20-30. They take longer to reach breeding maturity – around four years. They live in a tiny area of Australia – the Brindabella, Bimberi and Fiery Ranges of ACT/southern NSW. They are also at risk of habitat loss due to weeds such as blackberries invading their sphagnum bog environment, climate change and habitat modification. But one of the biggest risks to the species is Chytrid fungus. It is an infectious disease that causes breakdown of the keratin in the skin of the frog, killing them. Some species such as the common eastern froglet (hiding amongst the corroboree frogs in this painting) are carriers of the disease, but don’t appear to be affected by it themselves. There is currently no way to stop or cure the disease.
At its lowest point, it is estimated only around 50 frogs remained in the wild in the ACT. Many had perished due to habitat destruction during the 2003 bushfires. In order to protect this species, in 2003 Tidbinbilla began their breeding program in climate-controlled shipping containers to create an insurance population. It took five years for the frogs to breed from eggs that were collected from two sites at Namadgi National Park. They now have more than 1000 frogs in the program, and for the past eight years have been releasing frogs back to their natural habitat at Namadgi, where ecologists hope they will breed and develop natural disease resistance to Chytrid fungus.
Wildlife officers are now trying new techniques for the breeding program – a group of frogs has been released into an outdoor tank, providing more natural conditions for the frogs to breed in. So far, 32 of the 33 frogs released have survived, already breeding and growing bigger than the ones in the climate-controlled breeding centre.
I was fascinated by the diversity of patterns of the frogs when I visited the breeding facility. Some were almost completely black, some were more orange than yellow, and some had little blue spots on their limbs! They also have unique gold and white spotted patterns on their stomachs, and this is how researchers identify individuals.
2019
Ink and 23k gold leaf on paper
‘In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.’ – Aristotle.
This series of ten paintings portrays the stars of brief but unforgettable moments. Over the year, I experienced the delight of seeing wedge-tailed eagles making slow circles in the air on a summer day; the awe of seeing a platypus briefly surface in a pond; the amusement of watching a cormorant take a very noisy and splashy bath!
I saw many birds for the first time – a friendly female grey shrike-thrush, magpie geese, and pilotbirds – so named because of their connection to lyrebirds – they scoop up the leftover insects found in soil overturned by the lyrebird.
Many of the residents of the Sanctuary and the Eucalypt Forest have names – an indicator of how treasured they are by the wildlife officers. It was always a pleasure to see these animals each time I visited, to observe more of their behaviour and personality.
