Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests

Next Saturday, 4 August, the fungi book that Joy Clusker and Ray Wallace have been working for over 3 years will be launched.

Fungi of the Bendigo Region covers the area from Kamarooka in the north to Mt Alexander in the south. There are approximately 300 species featured with short descriptions and photos for identification. The guide can be carried in a back pack. 

The FOBIF Annual General Meeting will be held this year on Monday August 27 at 7.30 pm. More details about the location, program and guest speaker are forthcoming.

Do you want to play a role on the FOBIF committee? Or nominate someone else to the committee? All that’s needed is a piece of paper signed by the nominee, a nominator and a seconder—all FOBIF members. There’s no need of an official form, but for convenience, here’s a sample:

I nominate_________________________________

for the position of____________________________

Signed____________________________________

Seconded__________________________________

I accept the above nomination

Signed___________________________________

Positions on the committee are President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, and two ordinary members. Nominations should be in before the meeting.

Birdlife banner photo by Georgina Steytler

BirdLife Australia has launched a new annual bird photography competition.  Submissions are now open and close on Monday 6 August.  There are seven different categories as well as a youth segment.

You can find all the information on this Birdlife website.

Castlemaine has a new Birdlife Branch and Birdlife is visiting next weekend with their ‘Act for Birds’ roadshow. Jane Rusden, Convener of Castlemaine District BirdLife Group has asked FOBIF to publicise this event which be focused on grassroots advocacy, with short presentations by Beth Melick and Brendon Sydes. Local artists also have organised some fun for the kids. The group is only a few days old, so they will be celebrating the launch of Castlemaine District Birdlife Branch at the same time, with lunch and cake included. All welcome.

When: 12:30 – 3pm, Saturday 7 July
Where: Tea Room, Castlemaine Botanic Gardens, 2 Walker St, Castlemaine

You can find out more in this press release.

Signs: they’re everywhere, maybe too many of them. But when they start to decay, you’d have to say they give the neighbourhood a neglected character. And the signs around our public land are definitely looking neglected: out of date, rotting, falling over, they’re symptoms of the underfunding of public land management.

Poverty Gully water race: many of the signs in our bushland are in decay, sending a message that ‘no one cares’.

This air of neglect—the sense that nobody cares—is arguably one of the reasons our bushlands can be targets of abuse. If no one cares, why not dump rubbish in the bush, or ride a trail bike down an inviting gully? It’s only a bit of scrub, after all…

And here’s a twist: there are parts of our bush where we have not one, but two signs, as if DELWP’s supply chain suddenly blew a fuse and started to supply duplicates randomly around the region. Famine, feast, famine…Figure that out.

Porcupine Ridge Road: if you’re not sure the first sign is right, check it against the second!

There’s rubbish and rubbish. Some dumped stuff is lethal—asbestos comes to mind. Some is a serious pest—like garden weeds that threaten to spread into the bush. Some is an eyesore that tells you the dumper has no respect for public space, and certainly no sense of responsibility for it. Think about mattresses and plastic junk.

Running shoe in Kalimna Park: unexpected habitat. Photo: Bronwyn Silver.

And some rubbish is just plain eccentric. What’s this single running shoe doing alongside the Kalimna Circuit Track? Well, one thing it’s doing is providing nice moss habitat: a reminder that sometimes rubbish can have unexpected effects—remember the dumped mattress colonised by a phascogale? This is no defence of dumping, of course. It’s one of the scourges of public land managers, and seems to get worse: it’s now costing Victorians $30 million a year in cleanup and other costs.

Got a moment? Have a look at these two winter gems:

First, the ever reliable Wombat Forestcare Newsletter, with high quality articles on  luminous fungi, fire in the Wombat, and a fascinating glimpse of the ‘world’s rarest fungus’, found on only one tree in the Wombat Forest…

And second, the North Central Chat, which has a great article by Bev Phillips on the old trees of Maldon. A sample:

‘Of the 61 pre-1852 original eucalypt trees recorded on public and private land in Maldon, 64 percent are Eucalyptus microcarpa (Grey Box); there are eight Eucalyptus goniocalyx (Long-leaved Box), eight Eucalyptus polyanthemos subsp. Vestita  (Red Box) and three Eucalyptus melliodora  (Yellow Box).  The recorded trees are estimated to be aged between 175 and 530 years old; 49 trees are estimated to be 200-399 years old and there are three trees estimated to be aged 400-499 years and one tree 530 years. This means that 80 percent of the trees are estimated to have started growing between the years of 1618 and 1817.’

Check them out.