Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests

After a fair bit of consideration, FOBIF has been experimenting with a Facebook page, as a way of varying our approach to informing the public about matters in our region, and maybe of reaching a new audience. The material we publish there will be variations on what we put on this site, and there’ll be links back to here.

We’re launching the page today with a slide show of photos of the late Doug Ralph. The page can be found here or by clicking on the Facebook icon to the right of this post.

If you’re into Facebook, add us to your friends – and add your knowledge and ideas to the material we’ve put out!

Try a walk in the bush at the Garfield Water Wheel, Castlemaine, Sunday 6th September, meeting at 9.30 am outside Castlemaine Continuing Education in Templeton Street.

Youth Sustainability Champion, Nioka Mellick-Cooper, is a Year 9 student at the Castlemaine Secondary College. She is leading her fourth youth walk as part of the Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests bushwalking program, and is generously funded by the Mount Alexander Shire’s Youth Grants. Nioka has received two grants to run her walks program and is looking forward to the Fathers’ Day ramble. See here for the post on the Mount Alexander youth walk which took place earlier this year.

“We took a few wrong turns on the last walk and got a bit lost, but it was all good fun. We hope to see some new people try their hand at bushwalking this time around, with or without your without a dad-type figure in tow.”

The walk will take just over 2 hours and will cover around 4-5km. Previous walks have been in the Muckleford forest, at the Eureka Reef, and Mount Alexander.

Arrive back at the carpark area for a vegetarian BBQ before returning to Castlemaine. All young people will receive a complementary gift pack. Please book a spot by phoning 54724609 or 0431 219 980.

The childrens walk planned for  Sunday August 30 in the Castlemaine Botanical Gardens has had to be cancelled due to ill health. Our apologies for the short notice: we’ll let readers know when alternative arrangements are made.

Julie Whitfield gave a rousing talk on local butterflies to Newstead Landcare last Thursday. Those who missed it are recommended as a consolation to log on to a terrific Radio National Off Track program, A world without butterflies in which [among many other things] Whitfield takes a well aimed pot shot at the popular book A very hungry caterpillar. Why shouldn’t a good childrens book also be biologically accurate?

There are about 400 species of butterflies worldwide, of which about 130 can be found in Victoria—and 40-50 in this region. One surprising piece of info in Thursday’s talk was the revelation that the humble mistletoe is a butterfly hotspot…so, if you’re strolling past an accessible patch of this much misunderstood semi parasite, take time to peer in.