Blue Planet

Directions

Blue Planet Contact information, map and directions, contact form, opening hours, services, ratings, photos, videos and announcements from Blue Planet, Melbourne.

Baby season starts this week. You're going to find baby animals in your yard. Most of them don't need your help.Here's t...
25/03/2026

Baby season starts this week. You're going to find baby animals in your yard. Most of them don't need your help.

Here's the decision for each one.

A baby rabbit alone in a grass nest — the mother visits once or twice a day for a few minutes, at dawn or dusk. She stays away on purpose because her scent attracts predators. The babies are not abandoned. Lay two thin sticks in an X over the nest and check in twelve hours. Sticks disturbed means mom visited.

A fawn lying alone in tall grass — the mother left it there deliberately. Fawns have almost no scent for the first week and predators can't find them. A fawn lying still with its ears up is hiding, not hurt. The mother returns several times a day to nurse. Contact a rehabilitator only if the fawn is walking in circles, visibly injured, or vocalizing continuously for many hours.

A baby bird on the ground — if it's feathered, hopping, eyes open, and roughly tennis-ball sized, it's a fledgling. Leave it. The parents are nearby and feeding it. If it's naked with eyes closed, it's a nestling that fell from the nest — put it back. The myth that parents reject a baby touched by humans is false. If it's visibly injured, contact a rehabilitator.

A baby squirrel that approaches you needs help — healthy babies don't approach humans. One sitting in a tree or on a roof is fine.

A baby opossum longer than about seven inches nose to rump is independent and on schedule. Smaller than that and alone, it may have fallen off the mother's back — contact a rehabilitator.

A baby turtle is independent from the moment it hatches. It never meets its mother. There is no such thing as an abandoned baby turtle.

🌿 The universal rule:

- Before touching any baby animal, call a wildlife rehabilitator. Describe what you see. They'll tell you what to do
- Most baby animals look abandoned because being alone is their survival strategy
- Wait and watch from a distance for a couple of hours before intervening — in most cases the parent returns on a schedule you can't see
- If a cat is near a fledgling, move the bird under a dense shrub within thirty feet. The parents find it by sound

The instinct to help is good. The information to help correctly is what makes the difference 🌿

Your yard sounds different than it did four weeks ago. Here's the acoustic shift, hour by hour.At five-thirty four weeks...
24/03/2026

Your yard sounds different than it did four weeks ago. Here's the acoustic shift, hour by hour.

At five-thirty four weeks ago — silence. Dark.

At five-thirty now — robin. Alone. One voice in the dark. She started a little earlier today than yesterday. She'll start a little earlier tomorrow.

At six, four weeks ago — one cardinal. Distant. Tentative.

At six now — robin, cardinal, and Song Sparrow overlapping. Carolina Wren erupting from the holly bush. Tufted Titmouse calling peter peter peter from the canopy.

At six-thirty, four weeks ago — maybe a chickadee. A crow in the distance.

At six-thirty now — full dawn chorus. Seven or more species simultaneously. Downy Woodpecker drumming. Red-bellied Woodpecker calling. If there's a Brown Thrasher in your thicket, every phrase sung twice. Eastern Towhee from the brush pile.

By eight, four weeks ago — sparse. A few calls between silences.

By eight now — constant. Territorial songs peaking. Every singing male is defending a zone the size of your yard or smaller. The airspace is divided and every occupant is advertising.

Midday is still a lull — but now it's punctuated by flight calls from migrants passing overhead. A kinglet singing from the canopy that wasn't there last week.

Late afternoon, four weeks ago — evening feeding at the feeder. Quiet otherwise.

Late afternoon now — a second song peak. Males singing again before dusk.

After dark, four weeks ago — silence.

After dark now — frog chorus at full volume from every wet ditch. Woodcock calling from the open field. Owl starting the night shift.

Your yard went from a solo act to an orchestra in four weeks. Every new voice is an animal that arrived, survived the winter, or switched from silence to broadcast because the light said now.

🐦 How to track the shift:

- Step outside at six AM tomorrow and count the species you hear singing. Write the number down. Do it again next week at the same time — the difference will be measurable

- The robin starts first almost every morning. Time her first note this week and again next week — she shifts a few minutes earlier each day as daylight lengthens

- A new song you don't recognize means a migrant arrived overnight. This is how you detect new arrivals without seeing a single bird — the acoustic signature of your yard changes before the visual one does

- The dawn chorus peaks between now and mid-May. By June, territorial disputes are settled and singing drops off. The next four weeks are the loudest your yard will be all year

- Record thirty seconds on your phone at six AM once a week through April. By the end of the month you'll have a four-part audio diary of spring arriving in real time

Your yard went from silence to symphony in a month. Step outside at dawn and count the voices 🌿

I am not a frog. And the difference takes five seconds to learn.You found me in your garden. Brown. Bumpy. Sitting on di...
24/03/2026

I am not a frog. And the difference takes five seconds to learn.

You found me in your garden. Brown. Bumpy. Sitting on dirt. You said look, a frog. Your kid said a frog.

I'm a toad. I'm an American Toad. And I'm standing here being misidentified while the actual frog is in the wet ditch nearby, wondering why everyone keeps confusing us.

Here's the five-second test.

Touch the skin — gently. If it's dry, rough, and covered in bumps, that's a toad. If it's smooth, wet, and slick, that's a frog. I feel like sandpaper. A frog feels like a wet bar of soap. This one test is right almost every time.

Look at the body shape. I'm round, squat, and built like a potato. My legs are short. I walk — short awkward steps. A frog is lean and athletic with long powerful hind legs built for jumping. A Spring Peeper can clear many times its own body length. I can barely clear a brick.

Consider where you found me. I'm in the garden. In dry soil. Under mulch. Beside a rock. Toads live on land. We return to water only to breed, and only for a few nights per year. If you find a brown amphibian in your garden bed in the afternoon — toad. If you find one at the edge of the pond after dark — probably a frog.

Check behind my eyes. I have two large oval bumps called parotoid glands. They produce a bitter substance that tastes terrible to predators. Dogs that mouth a toad drool and spit it out — it's unpleasant for them but not dangerous. Not harmful to humans either — just wash your hands after handling. Frogs don't have these glands.

The bumps on my skin are glands, not warts. You cannot get warts from touching me. Warts are caused by a human virus that has nothing to do with toads.

The trill you hear from the breeding pool in April — a long steady musical trill that lasts many seconds — that's me. The short peep or ribbit is a frog. Different animals. Different sounds. Different lives.

🐸 Why you want a toad in your garden:

- A single toad eats enormous numbers of slugs, beetles, grubs, and ants every night. It hunts the same mulch layer where your worst garden pests live
- Toads are territorial — once one settles in your garden, it stays in the same area for years. You have a resident pest controller that never leaves
- A shallow dish of water sunk to ground level gives a toad a soaking spot without needing a pond. They absorb water through their skin and need to rehydrate regularly
- A broken terracotta pot turned on its side in a shady garden bed is a perfect toad shelter. They return to the same hiding spot every morning
- Don't use slug pellets or chemical pesticides in a garden with toads — they eat the poisoned slugs and absorb chemicals through their skin

I'm a toad. I've been in your garden all week. Please stop calling me a frog 🌿

Hummingbirds navigate to the same feeders year after year — arriving within days of last year's date and flying directly...
23/03/2026

Hummingbirds navigate to the same feeders year after year — arriving within days of last year's date and flying directly to the same location. But the first scout arriving at your latitude needs to find an established food source. A feeder that's been hanging with fresh nectar for a couple of weeks signals that the territory feeds. An empty hook gets passed over.

If the scout doesn't find food, she moves on and may not check your yard again for weeks. You lose first access to the earliest arriving female — the one that raises the most successful broods.

The timing varies by latitude. Gulf Coast states — scouts are already here. Southeast and mid-South — this week through late March. Mid-Atlantic — hang by early April. Northeast and upper Midwest — hang by mid-April. Don't wait for sightings. By the time you see one, she's been in your area for days and has already evaluated every yard on the block.

The recipe hasn't changed in decades. One part plain white sugar to four parts water. Boil. Cool. Fill.

Skip the red dye — the red on the feeder is enough. Skip honey — it ferments and grows mold. Skip raw or organic sugar — stick with plain white. The simple recipe is the right one.

🐦 Feeder care that keeps them coming back:

- Change nectar every three to five days in cooler weather, every two days above eighty degrees. Change immediately if it looks cloudy
- Clean the feeder with hot water only — no soap. Residue affects the nectar
- Place in afternoon shade to slow fermentation. Within fifteen feet of flowers if possible — the flowers signal that a food source is nearby
- A thin branch or shepherd's hook within ten feet of the feeder gives them a perch between feeding bouts — hummingbirds rest more than people realize and a nearby perch increases feeder use noticeably

🐦 The two-feeder trick:

- Male Ruby-throated Hummingbirds are fiercely territorial — one dominant male will guard a single feeder and chase every other bird away
- Hang a second feeder thirty or more feet from the first. That's too far for one male to patrol both. The second feeder catches every bird the first male chases off

I sit on fence posts along rural roads. Bright yellow chest. Black V-shaped bib. I throw my head back and sing a clear d...
19/03/2026

I sit on fence posts along rural roads. Bright yellow chest. Black V-shaped bib. I throw my head back and sing a clear descending whistle that sounds like spring itself. You've heard it from a car window and smiled.

I'm an Eastern Meadowlark. And the thing that's quietly reducing my numbers is a calendar problem nobody planned for.

I nest on the ground. In grass. Open fields, hayfields, pastures, and meadows. I build my nest in a depression in the soil, hidden by grass stems woven into a dome over the top. The eggs take about two weeks to hatch. The chicks take another two weeks to fledge. That's nearly a month of needing the grass to stay uncut.

Hay gets mowed in early June. I'm still nesting.

Every mowing pass during active nesting destroys nests and chicks that can't fly yet. In intensively managed hayfields, nest success drops dramatically. The timing overlap between first mowing and peak nesting is the core problem — and it's gotten worse as mowing schedules have shifted earlier over the decades.

My population has declined significantly since the 1970s. The cause isn't pesticides or predators — it's the loss of grassland habitat and the timing of how the remaining grassland gets managed. I don't nest in forests. I don't nest in yards. I don't nest in hedgerows. I need open grass that nobody touches for about four months. That's the one thing this landscape offers less of every year.

Development converts the fields I need into housing. What's left often gets mowed too early, too often, and too short for a ground nester to complete a cycle.

🐦 What helps meadowlarks:

- If you own or manage a hayfield or large meadow, delaying the first mowing until mid-July gives ground-nesting birds enough time to fledge. Even a two-week delay makes a measurable difference
- A strip of unmowed grass along a field edge or fence line — even twenty to thirty feet wide — provides nesting habitat that a fully mowed field eliminates
- Meadowlarks use fence posts as singing perches to establish territory. If you hear one singing from a post near a field, nesting is likely underway in the grass nearby
- Supporting local land trusts that preserve grassland and manage mowing schedules around nesting season is the most direct conservation action for this species
- The song is a clear descending whistle — three or four notes, unmistakable once you learn it. If you hear it from a car window near open fields, the bird is still holding territory there

The song from the fence post isn't background music. It's a bird that needs the grass to stay standing for one more month 🌿

Their glow used to light whole fields.Now each summer feels dimmer.Mowed lawns. Pesticides. Too much light at night.Turn...
28/01/2026

Their glow used to light whole fields.
Now each summer feels dimmer.
Mowed lawns. Pesticides. Too much light at night.
Turn off yard lights. Skip pesticides. Plant native.

Praying mantises are powerful natural pest controllers.They eat moths, crickets, beetles, and many harmful insects.They ...
28/01/2026

Praying mantises are powerful natural pest controllers.
They eat moths, crickets, beetles, and many harmful insects.
They hunt both day and night and can take prey twice their size.
They mostly ignore beneficial pollinators.
A single mantis can keep an entire garden balanced.

Every time a forest is cleared for roads or housing, wildlife doesn't just relocate; it vanishes. 🌲 Let's safeguard thei...
27/01/2026

Every time a forest is cleared for roads or housing, wildlife doesn't just relocate; it vanishes. 🌲 Let's safeguard their irreplaceable homes. Protect habitats before they’re lost forever.

Many animals people fear or overlook actually protect and support our landscapes.Opossums reduce ticks.Bats guard crops....
27/01/2026

Many animals people fear or overlook actually protect and support our landscapes.
Opossums reduce ticks.
Bats guard crops.
Coyotes control rodent populations.
Bees and butterflies keep entire food systems standing.

When we see them differently, coexistence becomes possible.

Every tree removed means a lost home for owls, bats, and birds. 🌳💔 Let's stop destroying habitats faster than they can r...
26/01/2026

Every tree removed means a lost home for owls, bats, and birds. 🌳💔 Let's stop destroying habitats faster than they can recover. 🦉

Address

Melbourne, VIC

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Blue Planet posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Sponsored

Share