Pollinators and other birds
November has been super busy! I ran a workshop at Lake Treeby, attended the Australian Ornithological Conference with Alex of Penguin Empress, took a family trip to Busselton and started selling my work through Southern Land Creatives in Albury, NSW.
It was also Australian Pollinator Week! Australian Pollinator Week 2025 runs from 8 - 16 November. While honeybees get a lot of marketing, in Australia they’re feral (when not part of a farmed hive) and we have so many native pollinators who need to be celebrated, from native bees to our beetles and birds!
Pollinators are crucial for our ecosystems (the native bushland, and our gardens!) and our agriculture (farms). These are a selection of known pollinators - they pop into flowers, get covered in pollen and then head to the next flower. A few ways these creatures pollinate:
Wandering in and out again
Shaking the whole flower - blue banded bees are buzz pollinators, so they’re great for flowers like dianella and tomatoes
Sticking their beak in EVERYWHERE to see if there’s a nectar snack!
There is a ton to learn about our native pollinators - let me know which ones you’ve seen in the comments!
The Harmony event at Lake Treeby was a celebration for new residents to come together and begin building community. I had many children come by my stall to work on a colouring-in or their own watercolour masterpiece, and we talked about the native flowers they’d seen in the gardens.
I had spent a few days working on informational posters for the event, for people to learn more about their local environment and plants they might want to use in their own gardens. However, when I got to the event the backdrop to my marquee was a gorgeous mural by Brenton See - so instead, we talked about the creatures and flowers they could see on the murals!
Alex and I went to the Australian Ornithological Conference, organised by BirdLife Australia. The research posters were really informative, and had research on topics including migration patterns, preferences for habitat and food. I also picked up a new book for my kids, “This Bird” by Dr Holly Parsons and Astred Hicks. It is dense with bird facts about a number of birds around Australia and what makes them unique. The conference attendees were delightful and it was lovely to see them enjoy our goods and see some of their cool photos and listen to the work they did. Many had travelled across Australia for the event.
Alex and I are keen to do another mini-market at a conference in Perth - send an email if you’d like to have us there!
