Living in Hawaii gives me a certain immediacy when it comes to native biota. Where I’m from, we have seen so much loss. Traveling lets me appreciate how other places are handling modern challenges for their plants and animals. So while other bloggers and YouTubers might judge a place on its food scene or its urbanism, I like to walk around the urban core and see what native things I see taking advantage of modern aesthetics. A few days ago, my wife and I walked to Kings Park in Perth to see what’s around.

Our walk from the hotel to the park was along the Swan river estuary, so we were expecting to see plenty of waterfowl and other shorebirds. It was neat to see sooty oyster-catchers around the Swan river. I suppose our various turnstones, sandpipers, and plovers would be good analogues but don’t have any as striking in Hawai`i.

Speaking of waterfowl, we also came upon this group. A couple of what looks to be Australian wood ducks (Chenonetta jubata) and Pacific black duck (Anas superciliosa). I’m always keen on seeing black ducks because recent phylogenies seem to resolve that the moa-nalo radiation of Hawai`i may be derived from them.

I particularly liked this juxtaposition on Park Ave. Here are some nice homes with modern urban landscaping, directly across what looks to be really nice native bush. We really don’t have any sort of intact terrestrial native ecosystem directly abutting the human landscape like that in Hawai`i.

Kings Park has a very dry open feel. For me the grass trees or Balga (Xanthorrhoea priessii) gives the landscape a very distinctive structural look.

And in this distinctive scrub forest, we came upon one of its distinctive denizens:

I find the radiation of Australasian black cockatoos very charismatic. This small flock Red-tailed black cockatoo (Calyptorhynchus banksii) was quietly foraging along the side of the path. It was a pleasure to take a few minutes and really observe them.

All in all, it was really impressive for me to see with some foresight and care, an urban area like Perth can carve out meaningful space for its amazing native biota. If you ever find yourself in the area, it’s really worth checking out.