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    Notes from a Small Valley A Natural History of Wolli Creek I Prehistory
    Notes from a Small Valley A Natural History of Wolli Creek I Prehistory
    Notes from a Small Valley A Natural History of Wolli Creek I Prehistory
    Ebook47 pages42 minutes

    Notes from a Small Valley A Natural History of Wolli Creek I Prehistory

    By Justin Cahill

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    This is part one of an introduction to the natural history of Sydney's Wolli Creek Valley. The Valley contains the last substantial remnants of the natural environment in the city's inner south-west. Even though it is quite small it contains a variety of habitats, ranging from tidal mudflats, saltmarsh and mangroves to reed-lands, open woodland and even fragments of rainforest. They, in turn, provide refuge for an impressive range of native wildlife, especially birds and reptiles. Part I, ‘Prehistory’, gives an account of the Valley’s geological history, its fossil record and human occupation before 1788.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJustin Cahill
    Release dateOct 16, 2014
    ISBN9781310626333
    Notes from a Small Valley A Natural History of Wolli Creek I Prehistory
    Author

    Justin Cahill

    Welcome to my Smashwords profile.I am a New Zealand-born writer, based in Sydney. My main interests are nature and history.My thesis was on the negotiations between the British and Chinese governments over the return of Hong Kong to China in 1997. It was used as a source in Dr John Wong’s Deadly Dreams: Opium, Imperialism and the Arrow War (1856-1860) in China, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1998, the standard work on that conflict.I wrote a column on the natural history of the Wolli Creek Valley for the Earlwood News (sadly, now defunct) between 1992 and 1998.My short biography of the leading Australian ornithologist, Alfred North (1855-1917), was published in 1998.I write regular reviews on books about history for my blog,’ Justin Cahill Reviews’ and Booktopia. I’m also a regular contributor to the Sydney Morning Herald's 'Heckler' column.My current projects include completing the first history of European settlement in Australia and New Zealand told from the perspective of ordinary people and a study of the extinction of Sydney’s native birds.After much thought, I decided to make my work available on Smashwords. Australia and New Zealand both have reasonably healthy print publishing industries. But, like it or not, the future lies with digital publishing.So I’m grateful to Mark Coker for having the vision to establish Smashwords and for the opportunity to distribute my work on it.

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      Book preview

      Notes from a Small Valley A Natural History of Wolli Creek I Prehistory - Justin Cahill

      Notes From a Small Valley

      A Natural History of Wolli Creek

      I

      Prehistory

      Justin Cahill

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright 2014 Justin Cahill

      Discover other titles by Justin Cahill at Smashwords.com

      Please direct all inquiries to Justin Cahill at

      PO Box 108, Lindfield, 2070

      New South Wales, Australia.

      or e-mail to: jpjc@ozemail.com.au

      This part is respectfully dedicated to

      Judy Finlason, OAM.

      "All nature is so full, that that district produces the most variety which is the most examined."

      - Gilbert White, Letter XX, 6 Oct 1768 in The Natural History of Selbourne, 1789.

      "Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves

      of strength that will endure as long as life lasts."

      - Rachel Carson, ‘Help Your Child to Wonder,

      Woman’s Home Companion, July 1956.

      Cover: a scene from Triassic St Peters, showing the labyrinthodont and three plants including Macrotaeniopteris, with paddle-shaped leaves on the left and right, Thinnfeldia, the fern on the left, centre and lower centre, and Phyllotheca, the tall, spindly plant on the left and right. From Curran’s Geology of Sydney, second ed, 1899, fig.29, p.111.

      Introduction

      i

      This work has been a long time coming. It was conceived in the early 1990s during the battle to save Sydney’s Wolli Creek Valley, one of the longest-running and most successful environmental campaigns in Sydney’s political history. During this campaign, the full power of the State was firmly behind the (as it was then) Roads and Traffic Authority’s plan to build the M5 East motorway though the Valley, destroying it forever. Led by the Wolli Creek Preservation Society, local residents fought a desperate rear-guard action to save it. What sparked such passion in the face of these formidable opponents ?

      The Valley contains the last substantial remnants of the natural environment in Sydney’s inner south-west. From high above, it looks like a green chilli dropped onto a carpet of red and grey squares. Lower down the Valley resolves into a thin, green island hemmed in on all sides by suburbia. But it is also an island in the real sense. Even though it is quite small it contains a variety of habitats, ranging from tidal mudflats, saltmarsh and mangroves to reed-lands, open woodland and even fragments of rainforest. They, in turn, provide refuge for an impressive range of native wildlife, especially birds and reptiles.

      A major plank in the Society’s campaign was saving the irreplaceable native habitat found along the Creek and its denizens. But while a fair amount of information about the Valley’s natural history was available, it was scattered throughout the collections of various libraries, archives, museums, government reports, obscure journals and out-of-print books. The Society had produced excellent guides to the Valley’s native trees and birds. But there was no single, full-length account of its natural history.

      I eagerly set out to remedy this situation by collecting the bits and pieces of information available and supplementing them with my own observations, only to strike an unexpected obstacle. While the research and field work were straightforward, I had great difficulty working out how to present it. There are two ways of writing an area’s natural history. The first is the thematic approach, with separate sections describing its geology, plants, birds, reptiles and mammals. Sometimes, there is a cursory nod to the local indigenous people. But as the species in a given area live in a complex series of relationships, this approach often results in a disconnected account, with

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