A paper published this week in Current Biology describes some of the ideal mechanisms behind soil restoration. However, like many academic studies, it is questionably too complex and theoretical to be of practical use. It leaves me wondering how one would implement these measures. The authors point at several key factors: soil properties (S), climate (C), organisms (O), relief (R), parent material (P), age (A) and spatial position (N)’ adding ‘these factors interact in complex ways [and] understanding and manipulating [them] can aid in restoring soil biodiversity.’ However, the inordinate sca ..read more

After my successful swim yesterday I decided to look at the other side of fossil beach to the east. I had heard visibility was better there yesterday. That little pocket tends to be a little clearer on average, as it doesn’t seem as affected by currents circulating from the coast north and south. It was indeed clearer … but not much. Enough to make it attractive though. A few fiddler rays were nice finds. I found myself once again distracted by the cryptic sacoglossum in Port Phillip Bay ..read more

It never ceases to amaze me how different every swim can be. Today I dropped in on the fossil-beach side of the Beaumaris Motor Yacht Squadron and headed out to where it’s about 2m deep. Visibility wasn’t great but I was able to find not one but three species of sapsucker. These seas slugs have a very interesting life history as they effectively absorb the essence of plants into their bodies to become plant-like. Unlike nudibranchs, which are carnivorous, they are strictly vegetarian ..read more

A night snorkel at Blairgowrie Pier was the chance to take advantage of light winds. There are spring tides at present but the evening tide variation was only small, so currents were quite minimal. We got in at about 6PM, half an hour after sunset and got out about 7:15PM. The seagrass was pumping with animals. There was so much to see from Shorthead Worm-eels and Shorthead Seahorses to Bobtail Squid, Pygmy Squid, Seahares, Shaw’s Cowfish, Grass Clingfish, Helmetshield Slugs and nudibranchs ..read more

This is a bit of a departure from my normal blogs but this came up in conversation twice yesterday. I thought it useful to link to a few of the key references on this subject. For many years we have been led to think that human population is growing. In actual fact, the rate of human reproduction has been declining since the 1960s. This is despite recently reaching 8 billion people in the world. The reason for the time difference is a lag-effect, which is quite normal in ecological systems ..read more

Here’s my latest Raja Ampat trip report from our coral triangle cruises. Another wonderful trip with a lovely group of people. On this trip we were about 50:50 divers to snorkelers. We now have four zodiacs which gives us even more flexibility to accommodate everyone. Would you like to join us next February? If you don’t know whether you think this trip would suit you, drop me a line at simon@wildiaries.com or call/text +61 (0) 405 220 830 ..read more

The weather was just too good to ignore. Perhaps this would be the last warm day of summer? It was still 21 degrees by sunset and tomorrow’s temperature was forecast to plummet. The wind was still a brisk northerly so I chose a night snorkel at Teahouse Reef in the middle of Ricketts Point. Here the reef to the north offers shelter from any residual wind chop, which is always a pain when trying to take photos (you bounce up and down and focusing is hard ..read more

Rarer than the Tasmanian Tiger and more mysterious, the Southern Moray has never been seen alive. A single specimen collected in Port Phillip Bay’s Half Moon Bay in 1884 is all we know about it. It wasn’t even noticed as a species among the museum archives until 2001. Where did it go? Did it use to be common? Are they still out there? ? The specimen went unnoticed for 150 years because it was presumed it was a Green Moray ..read more

The sun came out this afternoon and the wind dropped off to just two knots. Eager to see if I could find a Port Jackson Shark at Ricketts Point again, I headed out in front of the yacht club past the white markers. The sea was a lovely 19 degrees once more and there were lots of snapper about. After about 40 minutes I came across this guy sitting on the seafloor. Initially I didn’t dive down as I wanted to give it time to get used to my presence ..read more

I was a bit unsure what it was going to be like today but it turned out to be a very enjoyable Ricketts Point snorkel. Overall the water was quite clear and surprisingly fishy. The wind got up a bit but it was quite exhilarating and the sun peeked through a little. This nice smiley Rough Leatherjacket that came in to say ‘cheese’ provided the highlight of the swim at Ricketts Point Marine Sanctuary. Just goes to show, there’s always the unexpected to look forward to ..read more