Category: General

Landscapes in Transition Property Visit


Join Muckleford Landcare at 10am on the 24th August to explore a property that demonstrates techniques to transition a landscape via planting and water management. You will see:

-How dams can be functional water sources, habitats and aesthetic features that sit within the landscape.
-How the efficacy of different planting techniques are dependent on the landscape.
-How direct seeding of native seed can be used at a larger scale to kick start the transition.

10am-11.30am, Saturday 24th August 2019, 88 Symes Rd, Muckleford South. Please RSVP to Beth Mellick on 0431219980 or email me here to respond.

Results of Nest Box Monitoring Walmer Conservation Reserve

Thank you to everyone who came to the nest box monitoring activity on Sunday 19th May 2019 at the Walmer Conservation Reserve. And a big thank you to Blair from City of Greater Bendigo who lent us the pole and camera equipment, which I found incredibly useful and definitely beats the ‘going up the ladder’ approach. Miles Geldard led the activity and is going to be doing some follow up repairs in the Reserve.

We surveyed for two hours in the morning, but then Nev, Dave, Beth and Theo went back in the afternoon and did another two hours to finish it off. There are around 90 boxes on the reserve and we are currently working on putting in GPS points for each box as well as a new labelling system. Some boxes are for Bats, Pardalotes and Kookaburras, but we only surveyed the larger mammal boxes.

The results are as follows:  We checked 74 boxes in total. We found 28 animals – 5 Brush-tailed Possums, 4 Brush-tailed Phascogales, and 19 Sugar Gliders. There was evidence of recent phascogale nesting in 14 boxes. Three boxes had bees. This data will be submitted into the Atlas of Living Australia.

Blair on the pole camera with various people monitoring through screens and iPods
The monitors allow everyone to see what’s nesting in the box

 

Young Dale and his mum Linda. Dale was doing his Landcare badge for Scouts

 

Jacky Lizards

These guys are everywhere, living in the wood pile, under the tank pump, in stumps of wood, under the caravan. They don’t seem fussy about their homes, and they are incredibly friendly. In fact, we often nearly step on them as they are in no hurry to flee.