Holly Kirk

🚨 New podcast episode available now!

🌳 We speak to recently published People and Nature author Marilisa Herchet about the mental health benefits of urban green 🏙️

🎙️ Listen on Soundcloud ➡️ buff.ly/eK1rfVy
🎙️ Listen on Spotify ➡️ buff.ly/3hWpQn7

Grainy phone camera footage submitted in evidence
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#urbanNature
#wildOzthe

The similarity in conundrums is strong.

Sadly the birds went away eventually so pavement pounding still took place.

Three Cunninghams Skinks, all a year old, looking at the photographer over the back of a sofa. The lizard on the left has a new-born sibling on its back.

I've had a family of Cunninghams Skinks take over the lounge in the front room and I can't use my front door. I feel your pain.

I signed up knowing full well the expectations ahead of me. 🫡

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Wouldn't have it any other way Dr Dave!

Oh my goodness these are sooooo cute!! 🤩

I would happily give up TV privileges on their behalf!

I can't go for my evening run because two singing honeyeaters are currently using the water dish on the courtyard wall, and if I open the front door I'll scare them off.

#wildOz
#urbanNature
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Thank you for sharing! 🙏

Hydrology Paper of the Day @hollykirk.bsky.social on a Nature-Water Design framework for ensuring urban and landscape design in the context of ecological services, systems, and climate change: a combination of frameworks; design principles; ensuring connectivity and stewardship; and five principles.

A scorching summer has left Australian wildlife on the brink, but it doesn’t have to be this way | Euan Ritchie and Jess Harwood Unsettling predictions are now our catastrophic reality, but a brighter future is still within reach if our political leaders change course

Our first collaboration and joint publication in @australia.theguardian.com!

@jessharwoodart.bsky.social and I describe some of the recent impacts of climate change, extreme weather events, and other threats, on wildlife and ecosystems across southern Australia www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Nature-Water Design: Integrating biodiversity and water sensitive urban design The global rise of Nature-based Solutions (NbS) presents a key opportunity to find synergies between social and environmental objectives of urban deve…

New paper from almost-finished-her-PhD Fiona Hoegh-Guldberg! @icon-science.bsky.social

Recognising that water sensitive #urbanDesign often overlooks #biodiversity, Fi introduces a joint BSUD & WSUD framework, to improve outcomes for nature, water and people.
🌏🧪
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Did u know? I read this week that we shouldn't approach gardening as *gardening*, we should consider it as habitat restoration. Nature desperately needs us to bring back meadows,ponds,wildflowers & shelters for small souls that underpin the world we're lucky to call home. Go, restore. 🌿🌱🇬🇧🌱🌍🪲🦋🐛🪰🐦‍⬛🦔🦎🐸

Tomorrow I'll be presenting at #VicBioCon! I've got a speed talk in Plants and Pollinators 1 (at 11:45am) and have a poster that evening at 5pm. Come say hi and ask me about my Acacias! 😊

Waves excitedly 👋

A blue and yellow graphic with a cutout portrait photo of Holly smiling at the camera. Repeating text behind the photo says "panel" four times with a blue flower and green stem wrapped around it on the left. A text tag to the right says "panel one". Beneath the photo Dr Holly Kirk's name is listed.

Introducing Dr Holly Kirk, one of our panelists for "Challenges & Opportunities in Urban Areas"! Holly is an urban ecologist researching and teaching in the School of Design and the Built Environment at Curtin University, specialising in the application of ecology to urban planning and design. 🧵

Oooh, great work team, I'm excited to read and cite!!

Are green firebreaks a useful fire management tool under climate change in southeastern Australia? Fire management under changing climatic conditions presents several challenges, including the need to manage fire regimes for multiple objectives, suc…

Are green firebreaks a useful fire management tool under climate change in southeastern Australia?

TLDR: yes, in many scenarios, especially when used in conjunction with other fire mitigation measures

by @ericamarshall.bsky.social @trentpenman.bsky.social

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Native predators like owls and goannas are dying from eating poisoned rats and mice. Wildlife experts are shocked the government won’t ban these toxic compounds.

👉 Read the full story: theconversation.com/househo...

Yes, feral cats and foxes really have driven many Australian mammals to extinction Decades of evidence link foxes and feral cats with extinctions of Australian mammals. Claims these introduced predators aren’t responsible don’t stack up.

Feral cats and foxes really have driven many Australian mammals to extinction. Claims these introduced predators aren't responsible don't stack up. Protecting our unique species will be even harder if feral cats and foxes are given a free pass to keep killing. 🌐🌎
theconversation.com/yes-feral-ca...

New paper!🖥️

Tracking terrestrial wildlife with environmental DNA: Methods designed by and for Indigenous organizations🧬 🏔️

This research provides a robust and unique comparison of eDNA sampling methods for the detection of terrestrial species 🦌

Read more: buff.ly/D7iwFqJ

Picture with a large orange and black wasp at the top and a larger pale brown spider at the bottom. The wasp is standing over the spider

Came across this Orange Spider Wasp (Heterodontonyx bicolor) just as she was paralysing this unfortunate Huntsman spider, who she’ll now seal into a nest along with an egg that she lays.

Nature can seem brutal at times!

#ausinverts #wildoz #spider #arachnid #wasp #Hymenoptera #nature #inaturalist

Soft fuzzy jumping spider with black legs and a bright red "cap" CNN a bright red booty visible behind him. He's peering at you from a dry oak leaf

View of the lad from behind, as he peers at something to upper right of frame. The top of his entire body is just bright velvety red

Day 25 of my 2025 Favorites: the most festive of boys

Phidippus cardinalis. Just a lovely little velvet ant mimic lad. That red is so striking in the sandy scrub. ❤️
#EmotionalSupportSpood #InverteFest
Merry Whatever-The-Hell-You're-Doing-Today Day to you all

Figure 2. Picture showing a geographic visualization of the seven categories of spillover from protected areas They include (1) physical spillovers, (2) ecological spillovers, (3) societal and sociocultural spillovers, (4) economic spillovers, (5) political and/or legislative spillovers, (6) management spillovers, and (7) spillovers to physical infrastructure. These categories are explained in more detail in the text.

Our new review lays out a framework for understanding the social-ecological benefits of protected areas to their surroundings - just published in One Earth:
www.cell.com/one-earth/ab...
doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2025.101462

A magpie that has been coming to an elderly couples home for 16 years came in yesterday and despite hoping and trying in the end she couldn’t be saved. We usually only do this for pets but 16 yrs is a long time, they loved her. They’re going to bury her tomorrow.

Oh no, this is so heartbreaking but also so special and lovely.

I completely agree that we do not recognize enough the impact that our immediate bird neighbors have on our lives.

Thank you for tagging me ❤️🪶

Also - I accidentally dropped a Star Trek reference - did you hear it!?

So once a Trekkie always a Trekkie too I guess 😆🤷‍♀️

127 Pelagics | Weekend Birder Pelagic trips take you far offshore to the seabirds most of us never get to see. Dr Holly Kirk shares what turns up at the continental shelf, how to spot albatrosses and petrels, and how to prepare so...

Once a seabirder always a seabirder 😊

It was such a pleasure (and a privilege) to contribute to this episode on pelagic #seabird trips.

I think lots of beginner birders are pelagic-curious so hopefully this encourages some folks give it a go!
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www.weekendbirder.com/podcast/127-...

Cartoon of stylised drawings of a pig seen head on (labelled Pig) and a hedge (labelled hege) seen in section. The area where they overlap forms the shape of a hedgehog. Caption: VENN DIAGRAM

www.worldofmoose.com/collections/...

Women are often disproportionately impacted by biodiversity loss, but simultaneously sidelined when it comes to decision-making at various levels. 🌱

In episode 3 of the IPBES podcast, Brit Garner discusses this in more depth with Nadia Sitas and Nita Shashidharan.

🎧 natureinsight.podbean.com