Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests is having a BBQ at Bronwyn Silver’s place in Walmer on Monday 11 December.
It starts at 6 pm and the address is 1036 Muckleford-Walmer Road, Walmer.
BYO
* food to share, including something for the BBQ if you like
* plates, glasses, cutlery
* drinks
* a chair
All FOBIF members and supporters are welcome. Enquires Bronwyn: 0448751111.
Bioblitz is a great opportunity for people to get out in the bush, parks or their gardens and become citizen scientists. It increases understanding and interest in biodiversity and contributes enormously to the scientific databases of thousands of species and their distribution. There is also the exciting possibility of finding a species new to science. You can find out how to be involved here.
This year Castlemaine Field Naturalists Club is the host for the Castlemaine region project, comprising Mount Alexander Shire and the eastern half of Hepburn Shire. Local events are shown below.
A packed house attended FOBIF’s AGM last Monday to hear Cassia Read’s talk ‘Gardening the Goldfields: you can have your roses and Blue Wrens too?’
Cassia giving her talk. Photo Asha Bannon
A major theme in the info-packed talk was to present the garden as part of the wider environment, as well as an island in it. Of course, gardens meet the aesthetic, practical and emotional needs of the resident-gardener—but they also can provide food, shelter, water and habitat for local native wildlife. Cassia encouraged listeners to see their gardens as links in the neighbourhood to other gardens and to local bushland, critical stopping points for mixed-flocks of bushland birds, that forage across the local urban landscape.
Insects, bugs, and creeping things get a bad press generally, but they were heroes in this vision, signs and sources of health in the garden. Above all, the talk was not prescriptive: Cassia urged gardeners to open mindedly observe what was happening in the garden, to be prepared to try things, to look around the neighbourhood to see how their gardens could complement others.
One of the photos in Cassia’s talk: Julie Hurley’s fledgling garden.
We’re hoping Cassia’s talk will be a preview of a Gardening the Goldfields book FOBIF is looking to publish in…the near future.
On Sunday Frances Cincotta led a large group on a short walk in the Fryers Range State Forest. Despite being cold it turned out to be good walking weather and the rain held off. The spring wildflower display was terrific and walkers loved the fascinating plant commentary by Frances during the approximately two hour hours that it took to complete the 2.7 km loop. She sent us this summary.
A good selection of native peas were in flower: Common Wedge-pea (blue-grey buds and yellow flowers), and four of the so-called “bacon and eggs” species that have red and yellow within each flower: Dwarf Bush-pea, Matted Bush-pea, Showy Parrot-pea and Grey Parrot-pea.
We sorted out the differences between Hibbertia and Goodenia which both have yellow 5-petaled flowers but in Hibbertia the 5 petals are equally spaced while in Goodenia they are arranged ‘2 up 3 down’ (hence a Goodenia flower has only one axis of symmetry while a Hibbertia flower has many). We also came up with a mnemonic device for the sepals: H for Hibbertia and H for Hasn’t got sepals attached to backs of petals and G for Goodenia and G for Got sepals ‘Glued’ to backs of petals.
Flowering in the shrub layer were Daphne Heath, Heath Tea-tree and Fairy Wax-flower (all with white flowers), Downy Grevilleas (red flowers), and Rough Mint-bush (purple flowers), all in abundance.
Five types of everlasting daisy were in bloom: Hoary Sunray, and White, Grey, Sticky and Clustered Everlastings. Many of them adorned with “Cuckoo’s spit”. The bubbly foam is produced by the insect sheltering inside which is a juvenile (or nymph) frog hopper also known as Spittlebugs. (See Liz Martin’s first photo below.)
We saw only a few Chocolate Lilies out in flower, one Bulbine Lily, one Yam Daisy/Myrnong, some Wax-lip Orchids and some Milkmaids out in flower. These wildflower were notably fewer in number and not as tall as seen in years with plenty of rain in the middle of the year. There was quite a variety of eucalypts on the loop walk, but the only species noted in flower was Red Box.
Our thanks to Frances for leading the walk and to Christine Henderson for letting us know about this wonderful corner of the Fryers Forest.
Once again Noel Young has compiled comprehensive field notes which include 17 bird species recognised by calls and 28 flowering plants. Photos below are by Liz Martin.
Our next walk will be in March 2024. The 2024 walk program will be posted on this site in January.
At the AGM the following members were elected unopposed to the FOBIF committee for the upcoming year:
President: Marie Jones; Vice President: Neville Cooper; Secretary: Bernard Slattery; Treasurer: Lynette Amaterstein; Committee members: Asha Bannon, Frances Cincotta, Christine Henderson, Jeremy Holland, Cassia Read, Bronwyn Silver, Jo Matthews
White Everlasting Daisy (Chrysocephalum baxteri)
Slime Mould
Dunns Reef
Tall Greenhoods
Gnat Orchid
Blue Caladenia
Downy Grevillea (Grevillea alpina)
Coliban river upstream of the Gibbons bridge
Coliban river upstream of the Gibbons bridge.
Coliban river upstream of the Gibbons bridge.
Sailors Gully ruin
Loddon River near Vaughan
Cortinarius archeri
Mycena subgalericulata
Cortinarius rotundisporus
Cortinarius cystidiocatenatus,
Ramaria sp.
Pink Heath
Mount Alexander
Mount Alexander
Click on image for info/order page
Click on image for info/order page
Click on image for info/order page