Day: August 8, 2026

It is often said that a weed is a plant out of place.
If ever there was such plant that was the epitome of that statement then surely in the Australian landscape the African Boxthorn (Lycium ferocissimum) is a master class.

Originally introduced into Australia some time in the mid-1800s, it was planted by early settlers as a house and garden plant.
And.
Like so many other introduced species, it not only flourished but quickly spread across the country.

Hard to eradicate, evasive as it grows into huge impenetrable copses that make the ground unusable, poisonous to people, and rapid growing it is a bane to agricultural areas.
But.
For many small Australian birds, it provides, shelter and in some cases food. Many parrots find the berries attractive, and somehow their constitution is not affected by the toxins. And they reward the plant by carrying the seeds to a new location and expel them to begin a new colony. Each fruit can, so I’m reliably informed have up to 70 or more seeds.

Having worked, when I much younger, at digging and burning the pest, I have fair share of disdain for the plant.

I was walking down a dry creek line, lamenting as I went about the numbers of bushes I had to walk around to avoid, when I approached two bushes, each about 1.5 metres in diameter.
Suddenly out of the bushes jumped several families of Superb Fairywrens.

All of a chatter because their quiet kingdom had been disturbed by my presence.
The boxthorn was alive with the little chattering defenders.
I counted at least four males in breeding plumage, three females who were ready to tell everyone of their displeasure, and perhaps five, or six young, first year, males who had not attained breeding status.

For a long time it was thought that one male had a ‘harem’ of females because of the presence of so many brown birds in a colony, I think it was John Gould himself who named them “Mormon birds”. As it turns out the sex life of the wren is quite another story. The females generally play the field and visit neighbouring males. The chances of a male looking after a growing family from his gene pool is highly unlikely. Don’t feel bad for him, his contributions are in the bushes of the other clans.
It seems to be the wren way of keeping the gene pool healthy

So here are four from the morning’s encounter.