Category: General

Bird Count

Five Muckleford Landcare members took part in the Castlemaine Field Naturalists Club annual bird count on the weekend.

Eleanor, Albi, Theo, Neville and Beth braved the unusually cold morning to survey the Castlemaine golf course. We found 155 birds in total and 44 different species.

The highlight occurred the next day when Deb Worland and her son Chris (regular bird monitors at the golf course) gave us a tip-off about some powerful owls and we all ran back to sight and record them in the survey as well. Eleanor and Albi took some beautiful photos http://www.gypsytwitchers.com

If people are interested, we could make this a whole of landcare group activity next year – we’ll put it on the agenda at the AGM.

Last Event for the Year

Mucklefest 2017

The last Muckleford Landcare event for 2017 is the Christmas breakup drinks and AGM on 7th December, in the garden at The Hub, 233 Templeton Street, Castlemaine, starting at 4.30pm.

At this meeting, we will elect the Committee which is made up of President, Vice-President, Secretary, Treasurer and ordinary member/s. I believe the current committee will be standing again and is as follows:
President: Neville Cooper
Vice-President: David Griffiths
Secretary:  Beth Mellick
Treasurer:  Paul Hampton
Ordinary member: Chris Mackenzie

Please let me know if you would like to stand for any of the Committee positions, especially ordinary members.

It will also be the time for Landcare members to sign up for 2018. A new membership form is available on the website, but it will be emailed to current members as well.

Please come along and have a drink, share stories, and take part in the discussion on our NCCMA-funded project in 2018 – Bassett Creek Restoration Project Stage 2. There’s lots to do on this project and all offers of help would be accepted gladly.

 

African Weed Orchid

Local Landcare member, Eleanor Wright, has been tackling the African Weed Orchid which is quickly moving into Muckleford. Eleanor reports that each plant can release 10,000 dust-like spores each season if not removed. She has dealt with her infestations by digging them out by hand.

Dates for your diary

Here are the two events coming up for Muckleford Landcare members:

  • Mucklefest (Muckleford’s local festival) is on Sunday 22nd October, starting at 10am. We will have our tent there with information, guides, and plants to sell.
  • Weed Workshop (get to know your local weeds) on Tuesday 24th October, 6pm. This is a Connecting Country workshop for three adjoining Landcare groups (Guildford, Muckleford, and Sandy Creek). We will not only learn about weed species, but there is games and a quiz (surely us Mucklefordians need to win this one!!) and supper is provided. Please let me know if you are coming Beth 0431219980 or email me. Here is the flyer – Get to know your weeds_Newstead & surrounds flier.

Landscape Restoration Techniques

We had an interesting workshop a few weeks ago, on the property of Landcare member, John MacGregor. Thanks to John for letting us on his property and to David Griffith for conducting the workshop.

John has been using a range of techniques to slow down water flowing across his land, in order to decrease erosion in a gully. This is what we learnt:

  • ideally adjoining properties (in this case state forest) further up the catchment need to apply the same strategies to slow down flow
  • I was surprised that John didn’t need to use logs or fallen trees – branches and sticks were successful
  • these techniques can be combined with plantings around the edges of the erosion areas
Dams placed in the wrong place in the landscape (often inherited by previous landowners) show you how powerful water is, it will do what it wants to do every time, like blow a hole in the wall
small barrier with sticks and stakes in the gully, plant in guard also visible

 

 

 

 

 

Vegetation also slows down the water

 

Sticks lying across a large bare piece of ground where run off would have been quick