Natural History

• Bird List - List of birds between Rosedale and Tomakin to the east of George Bass Drive.
• Plant List - Jane Lemann's plant list.

Jackie Miles and Max Campbell have compiled a large database of images of Bega Valley plants. Although their region is different from our own, many of the fungi, native plants, and weeds included in their database would be found in the Eurobodalla shire. A Search Engine will return images of the plant or plants sought each with their with botanical and common name and an image which can be enlarged. A Full List gives all the plants in the database if you want to see what is there.The authors of the database do not claim that it is comprehensive.

Month by month of the year this book by Jill Whiter of Eurobodalla Natural History Society describes some of the wildlife that you might see in our part of the South Coast. Jill writes "This is a simple record of the observations and musings of an amateur naturalist over the twenty-five years from 1981 to 2006."

The Eurobodalla Naturalist's Diary is available from:

• Moruya Books, Shop 4, 9 Church St, Moruya
• The Bay Bookshop, Shop 7, Blandford Centre, Batemans Bay
• Eurobodalla Botanic Gardens, Deep Creek Dam Rd, Batemans Bay
• Jill Whiter, PO Box 248, Batemans Bay, NSW 2536

Des Beechey, Research Associate, Australian Museum is working towards the publication of a monograph of the 2000 species of marine molluscs of New South Wales. The development of this project, which is about half complete, can be seen at Des' web site The Seashells of New South Wales.

The web site is presented as a book with a table of contents, an introduction to each family with photographs of the species, and an index.

I am slowly accumulating copies of old photographs and family snaps for a different purpose from those mentioned in Request for photos and stories for Rosedale history. I am interested in landscape science and ecology and ask "What did the landscape, the beachscape, and the urban-scape or Rodedale look like in earlier years, and how has it changed in between then and now?" Old photos of the sort of views that give us this information directly are not always easy to come by.

However, there may be hundreds of photos of beach houses and of people doing things on the beach and in their gardens, wherever, whatever, around Rosedale over the years. They may have never have been directly intended to do so but they can show us the past shape of Rosedale in their backgrounds. With a bit of forensic snooping a great deal can be learned from the background to these happy snaps.

Will you share your old photos, movies, or videos with me please? Please dig them out, any subject whatever, showing any aspect of a previous Rosedale, however mundane it may appear to you. I can scan them, either in Canberra or Rosedale, or can accept images by e-mail.

I thank Gordon Bray and Andrew Gleeson for their revealing photographic contributiuons to date. Gordon was able to contribute a 16 mm movie transferred to VHS tape.

David Mackenzie 6288 6194 or 4471 8471 or e-mail to