Tasmania – Landscapes and Plants

2014 March 15

Of course, in addition to taking pictures of various invertebrates, I photographed a lot of other things, of which I only have room for a few here. One thing that is particularly notable, is how much better trees grow in Tasmania than here in northern Michigan. For example: this is one of the pines my Dad planted around 1984, and it is just a bit over 30 years old:

For comparison, here’s a selfie of me with one of the pines in the plantation behind our house here in Michigan. It is also about 30 years old:

And here’s Sam with Amanda and her dog, in one of my Dad’s younger plantations[1] (planted around 1990, I think)

Keeping in mind that the previous picture was taken in the absolute dead of the Tasmanian winter, now consider the approximately 25-30 year old pine plantation behind our house, in the absolute dead of the Michigan winter:

If I was in the business of raising pines commercially here in Michigan, this would make me weep. The Tasmanian trees look to me like they are growing at least four times faster![2]

Moving on from the trees, here’s a view of “The Nut” from about 25 miles away, taken from a hill on my parent’s property:

Tasmania is pretty hilly. I would say “mountainous”, but the mountains have been thoroughly worn down over time, so they don’t have much of that exposed-rock cragginess that one expects of mountains. It looks pretty similar to the worn-down mountain stubs in the Porcupine Mountains in Michigan, in fact. Tasmania’s location in the “Roaring Forties” also means a lot of wind. So if you want to farm up on the hills, some trees for windbreaks are a good idea.

Speaking of hills and wind: Practically all of Tasmania’s electricity is generated by hydroelectric dams, which the geography is well-suited for. They are also one of the best locations in the world for wind power. Which is why, just down the road from my parents’ place, there is the massive Woolnorth Wind Farm, which I suspect probably comes as close to operating at capacity 100% of the time as is possible for wind turbines.

(Those are really big turbines, by the way. I was probably a mile distant when I took those pictures.)

Getting away from pictures of big things at a distance, here are some sheep that are kept in the paddock[3] behind the barn. The one with the black head is kind of disturbing in dim light, because when it gets dark it looks like it has no head.

They were fond of apples, but then again, who isn’t?

I could keep going on, but I have well over a thousand pictures of things other than insects and one has to stop somewhere. So I’ll just wrap up with these nice purple flowers.

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[1] My Dad is very serious about raising high-quality pines. He has close to 100 acres of pines, all carefully pruned and well cared for. They are very nice trees, and will make high-grade lumber when they are finally harvested. In comparison, the ones here in Michigan get minimal attention because they grow so slowly, and the only reason they are economic to grow at all is that land is so cheap here. The ones behind our house are destined for making paper pulp. While it would be possible to prune pines in Michigan to make nice lumber, there are a number of local bark-boring pests like the Red Turpentine Beetle. These are very common, and would promptly bore into the place where branches were pruned off, deforming or killing the tree. These pests evidently don’t exist in Tasmania.

[2] Most of the difference can probably be chalked up to the difference in growing season. If you assume that temperatures need to be at least 50 F for pine trees to actually show growth, then the northern Michigan growing season only runs from about mid-May to about the middle of September, or about 4 months. Meanwhile, the Tasmanian pines can probably grow at least a little all year round, as temperatures get above 50 F even in the middle of winter.

[3] A “paddock” in Australia is what we would call a “pasture” in Michigan – a fenced grassy field where animals are kept to graze.

One Response
  1. Katbird permalink
    March 15, 2014

    Very interesting! Have you seen any mantids?

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