Seeking landscape restoration contractor for 2023

Posted on 22 December, 2022 by Ivan

Connecting Country is seeking expressions of interest for contractors to collaborate with us to deliver on-ground actions for our 2023 projects on private land across the Mount Alexander region and surrounds.

We are looking for someone with skills to:

• Plant tubestock and install coreflute guards and stakes.
• Conduct plant maintenance watering.
• Control weeds, with a focus on woody weeds such as gorse and blackberry.
• Control rabbits.
• Install fencing and exclusion fencing.

We currently have funding for around 50 days of contract work for planting, weed and rabbit control, plus 2 km of fencing, during 2023. There is also scope for more work subject to contract arrangements.

Key requirements

Our ideal contractor(s) will have:

• An Australian Business Number (ABN).
• Demonstrated interest in landscape restoration in central Victoria.
• Clear communication skills and ability to cultivate positive working relationships with staff and landholders.
• Attention to detail and ability to follow instructions.
• Good time management skills and understanding of project schedules.
• Experience in revegetation planting with tubestock and guards.
• Basic weed and plant identification skills.
• Experience in weed control methods, including herbicide use, with appropriate training.
• Experience in rabbit control methods such as baiting and warren fumigation.
• Experience in farm fencing.
• Solid understanding of health and safety systems and requirements.
• Access to a suitable reliable vehicle and equipment.
• Good availability throughout the 2023 planting season (April to July).

Plants and guards will be provided by Connecting Country. The contractor will be responsible for sourcing other materials such as herbicides and fencing materials.

We are keen to hear from both established businesses and keen individuals with relevant interest and skills. We may be able to provide some training and equipment to the right candidate.

If you are interested or have any questions, please contact us via email (info@connectingcountry.org.au) by Monday 29 January 2023.

Please provide us with the following information in your email:

• Your interest in working with Connecting Country.
• A brief outline of your relevant experience and qualifications.
• Your schedule of rates (cost per day) for planting, weed control, rabbit control and/or fencing. A quote for specific tasks will be agreed before starting work.
• Your availability during 2023.
• Your contact details.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Mapping our old trees of central Victoria: we need your help!

Posted on 20 December, 2022 by Ivan

We are excited to announce the arrival of our new mapping portal, aimed at helping community citizen scientists to map the old, and often large, trees of central Victoria. The interactive mapping portal is part of Connecting Country’s larger project, ‘Regenerate before it’s too late‘ that engages the community about the importance of old trees and how to protect them.

Over the next three years (2023-25), we will continue to host community workshops and develop engagement resources such as the mapping portal and a video. We will also help local landholders with practical on-ground actions to protect their large old trees and ensure the next generation of large old trees across the landscape.

The community, including landholders, Landcarers and land managers, will be vital in mapping their favourite old trees of across our region. Anyone can access Connecting Country’s new online mapping portal. The portal uses BioCollect, an advanced but simple-to-use data collection tool developed by the Atlas of Living Australia (ALA) and its collaborators. BioCollect helps users collect field biodiversity data for their own projects while allowing the data to be easily copied into the ALA, where it can be publicly available for others to use in research, policy and management. This allows individual projects to collectively contribute to ‘big science’.

We need your help!

The mapping portal is now open for any community member to record the old trees in your area. You will need to register with the Atlas of Living Australia (its easy and free), then upload a photo and enter the field details needed for the survey (click here for survey fields). The portal will ask you simple questions about the tree location, size, species, age (if known), health status and habitat value.

Trees can be tricky to identify, especially eucalypts. If you are unsure about the identification of the tree species, you can:

• Use the to iNaturalist app assist with identification –  click here
• Refer to a good guidebook, like those published by Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests – click here
• Visit the Castlemaine Flora website – click here

To record your large old tree – click here 

By recording large old trees you will help build our understanding of the large old trees in our region, and contribute to the largest biodiversity database in our country. As the database grows, you can also access the portal to learn about other wonderful large old trees in our area and view the photos.

We are most grateful for our generous project support from the Ian & Shirley Norman Foundation. The foundation aims ‘To encourage and support organisations that are capable of responding to social and ecological opportunities and challenges.’ To learn more about Ian & Shirley Norman Foundation – click here

Euan Jenny and Peter with a large old tree (photo by Beth Mellick)

Happy holiday ideas from Connecting Country 2022

Posted on 20 December, 2022 by Frances

On behalf of the Connecting Country team, we warmly wish all our subscribers a safe and festive holiday season. Once again, a huge thank you to our marvellous volunteers, members, landholders, donors and other supporters for your invaluable contributions during 2022.

The Connecting Country office will be closed for a short break from 5 pm on Thursday 22 December 2022 until Tuesday 3 January 2023, although some staff will be on leave until 16 January.

As we approach the end of 2022, we hope you enjoy a chance to celebrate and to connect with our special local environment. With this unseasonably cool and wet summer, there’s sure to be lots to see out in the bush.

If you’re looking for some time out or an activity to do over the holiday season, here is some inspiration:

• Grab our ‘Birdwalk for beginners’ brochure and take a leisurely morning or evening bird walk along Forest Creek in Castlemaine – click here
• Book in for our Eltham Copper Butterfly workshop on 14 January 2023 – only four places remaining! – click here
• Get a copy of our ‘Landcare stickybeak tour 2022’ map and take yourself on an exploration of local Landcare work sites – click here
• Catch up on Connecting Country’s recent achievements with our 2022 annual report – click here
• Select a walk from Damian Kelly’s excellent book on ‘Castlemaine Bird Walks: A guide to walks and birds in the Castlemaine district’ – click here
• Go exploring with Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forest’s ‘Twenty Bushwalks in the Mount Alexander Region’ book  – click here
• Take photos of the bush in our region and submit your favourite to the ‘FOBIF turns 25’ exhibition by 1 February 2023 – click here
• Download the INaturalist app and start recording, sharing and identifying the plants, animals and fungi in your local bushland – click here
• Use the FrogID app to record frog calls and identify the many frogs enjoying our recent wet weather – click here
• Stay tuned for Connecting Country’s new large tree mapping project.

Connecting Country staff team – past and present – celebrating the end of 2022 (photo by Frances Howe)

Connecting Country staff enjoyed a lovely summer evening together (photo by Tanya Loos)

Celebrating our 2022 volunteers and donors – and a quiz!

Posted on 13 December, 2022 by Ivan

Connecting Country celebrated our amazing collective of volunteers and donors at the Castlemaine Botanic Gardens Tea Room last Sunday 11 December 2022, with an evening of trivia, conversation and tasty treats. We couldn’t achieve what we do without our amazing volunteers and donors, and are most grateful for their support.

The relaxed evening celebrated community, volunteering and donating. Our Monitoring Coordinator, Jess Lawton, provided a summary of our substantial monitoring achievements for 2022, which were only made possible through our volunteers and donors. Our management committee is run by volunteers, our monitoring programs rely on skilled citizen scientists, our landholders give time and resources to landscape restoration, and others help with events, Landcare, engagement, plant guards and in countless other ways. We appreciate their dedication to our collective vision of restoring landscapes across central Victoria.

It was a great pleasure to host the thank-you celebration. The delicious and creative catering was much appreciated. Jess and Hadley ran an entertaining game of ecological trivia, followed by plenty of chatting and laughter. Thank you to everyone who came and made it a wonderful evening with great company. Special thanks to Jane R and Duncan for setting up and helping the event run smoothly, and to all staff for assisting with setup.

We are blessed to have an engaged and enthusiastic community who support us. If it wasn’t for your contributions, we simply could not continue to collect valuable long-term wildlife data, engage our community in caring for local landscapes, support Landcare, or empower landholders to manage their land as wildlife habitat.

To everyone who has helped Connecting Country in 2022: a huge thank you! We are so grateful for your support and encouragement.

To find out more about volunteer and donation opportunities at Connecting Country, please – click here

Volunteer celebration trivia – play along!

If you didn’t attend our event, we have published the trivia questions to test your knowledge against the region’s best! Answers are provided at the bottom of the page.

1. What does ‘pigeon-toed’ mean in humans?
2. Phaps is a genus of native Australian pigeons, the most abundant and widespread of which is Phaps chalcoptera. What are the Phaps species commonly known as?
3.  What is the collective noun for a group of quails?
4. What are the two common names of the largest lizards that occur in the Mount Alexander area? (bonus points for latin names!)
5. True or false: Kangaroos emit far less methane via flatulence than other, similar sized mammals?
6. What does ‘going on the Wallaby’ mean?
7. What possum species is rated as ‘vulnerable’ in South Australia, but is a major introduced pest in New Zealand.
8. In 2019 a native Queensland mouse, the Bramble Cay melomys (Melomys rubicola), was formally declared to be extinct. Why did this extinction make world headlines?
9. Professor Wood Jones was an academic polymath, who in the early 20th century had a seminal influence on Australian biology. “Though once a familiar animal to settlers whose homes were in the more wooded districts, P.penicillata is unknown to the rising generation of country people … it seems a remarkable thing that so well equipped a carnivore should have been reduced to a state bordering on extinction in so comparatively short a time” – 1923. He argued that humans were descended from tarsiers, not apes, and opposed Darwinism. What was his first name?
10.  What are the Dja Dja Wurrung names for the three Mounts in the local region?
11.  What is the name of the ancestral creator in Dja Dja Wurrung dream time culture?
12.  Who wrote: ‘I love a sunburnt country, a land of sweeping plains, 0f ragged mountain ranges, 0f droughts and flooding rains.’
13. December 2022 is the 20th birthday celebration of what local event?
14. December 2022 is the 171st-anniversary celebration of what local event?
15. Which of the following is not a genus of Australian native wallaby grass? (a) Amphibromus (b) Austrodanthonia (c) Danthonia (d) Rytidosperma?
16. What is the official date of National Wattle Day in Australia?
17. What species of prickly wattle, endemic to the south-eastern Australian mainland, has common names including ‘kangaroo thorn’, ‘hedge wattle’?
18.  Bush regeneration work targets the most degraded areas of a site first. True/False

(scroll down for the answers)

Answers:

1. Answer: Feet point inwards
2. Answer: Bronzewing 
3. Answer: Bevy (‘covey’ or ‘quail’ also accepted)
4. Answer: Sand Goanna (Varanus gouldii) and Lace Monitor (Varanus various)
5.  Answer: True
6.  Answer: Travelling around, usually looking for work
7. Answer: Brushtail possum (Trichosurus vulpecula)
8. Answer: It was believed to be the first mammal extinction caused by anthropogenic climate change
9. Answer: Frederic
10. Answer: Leanganook, Lalgambook and Tarrengower – but Yapenya (aka Mount Barker) was also accepted
11. Answer: Bunjil, The Wedge-tailed Eagle
12. Answer: Dorothea Mackellar
13. Answer: Castlemaine Diggings National Heritage Park
14. Answer: The 171st anniversary of the Monster Meeting itself being celebrated the same day – what other surprises might be in the pipeline?
15. Answer: Danthonia – but this was highly controversial and created lots of heated discussion from the experts!
16. Answer: 1 September
17. Answer: Acacia paradoxa
18. Answer: False – bush regeneration generally targets the best native vegetation for protection first

Connecting Country Director role – applications due

Posted on 12 December, 2022 by Frances

Just a reminder that applications for the role of Connecting Country’s Director are scheduled to close on Thursday 15 December 2022.

Perhaps you know someone who would make a great new Director? Please continue to circulate this opportunity via your networks and encourage anyone who is interested to apply, if they haven’t already.

For more information and to access the position description, please click on the following link.

Work with Connecting Country – Director role

FOBIF turns 25 exhibition

Posted on 12 December, 2022 by Frances

We warmly congratulate our colleagues over at Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forest (FOBIF) on their milestone 25th anniversary. Happy birthday FOBIF! 

To celebrate 25 years of Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forest they are planning an exhibition at the Newstead Arts Hub (8A Tivey St, Newstead VIC) from 25 February to 13 March 2023. There will be a new photo show, geology exhibits, children’s art, posters, pamphlets and photos about FOBIF’s history.

For the photo show, they are inviting FOBIF members and supporters to send an image/s that shows something about the local natural environment that they find interesting or special in some way. They would also like participants to write a short piece (100-300 words) explaining the choice.

So if you have a favourite photo/s of the bush in our region send them along to FOBIF (info@fobif.org.au) with a description. There is plenty of time to take new photos: the closing date for the submission of photos is not till 1 February 2023.

FOBIF will place all photos in a designated page on the FOBIF website. A FOBIF sub-committee will then select approximately 15 photos to be printed and framed for the exhibition. The text will be printed and displayed next to the photo. Photos will be for sale with proceeds used to cover costs.

If your photo is selected, as well as being included in the exhibition, you will receive a free copy of your photo.

For more information contact FOBIF (info@fobif.org.au) or phone Bronwyn Silver (0448 751 111).

To visit the FOBIF website to learn more about FOBIF and their activities – click here

Read on to enjoy two early contributions to the FOBIF turns 25 show.

Joy Clusker

Earthstar (Geastrum triplex) photo by Joy Clusker

 

Mount Alexander is wonderful on an autumn morning, midweek you can have the place to yourself. The mist hangs around till lunchtime, casting a mysterious veil over everything. In the silence, all you can hear is water dripping from the trees, and calls from the Sulphur Crested Cockatoos. Then from out of the gloom is a shine from a perfect Earthstar, Geastrum triplex, still dusted with water droplets, contrasting with the dark forest floor. A fleeting occurrence witnessed by few, busy working on its purpose to consume the substrate and reproduce itself.

Alex Panelli

Photo by Alex Panelli

 

What matters to me about this country is it’s happening. It happens with me now, up close and all around. I am immersed in it, psychologically entangled. There are foreshadowings here and absences; offerings and traces.It was in my childhood and with my family that I first came – to an ancestral place, seemingly empty, waiting for us. Much later, in 2009, it drew me again. I came, this time alone. At first then I took photos mainly of flowers, but there were also the slim trunks of Candlebarks wavering in the glow that comes through fog when the sun is rising. I moved on to tangled bush and singular trees, still often in fog or deeply shaded frost with the sun beyond them. I lay on the ground, took photos through grass. In the dust of summer, photos of shadows, myself amongst them. Torsos of bravely dying trees, and of human things discarded. Of fallen leaves in amber water in the hollows of a stream, and of reflections on a pool of water’s surface.Looking at these things later, I was disappointed. I am not a great photographer but that was not the problem. Slowly and more deeply I came to realise, however, consummate a photo may appear, each thing that joins our gaze – the intense self-presence of an opening flower, the living poise of a bird, whether at rest or in motion, or the decaying, life-giving looming of an ancient tree that waits to fall – they are with us, we meet. Each meeting – a mutual exposure – we are in it, it can surprise us, it leaves a trace. And each one joins us intimately with all that is unfocussed and still unsaid around it. I would like my photos to acknowledge this.

Shining the spotlight: Chilean Needle Grass in our region

Posted on 8 December, 2022 by Ivan

Chilean Needle Grass (Nassella neesiana) is becoming a serious pasture and environmental weed in south-eastern Australia, including around the Mount Alexander region. These introduced spear grasses are very invasive and form dense infestations in pastures, bushland and roadsides, with a number of infestations known around Castlemaine and surrounds. They can tolerate drought and will seed prolifically, giving them great potential to spread and over-run existing vegetation. It has been estimated that the potential distribution for Chilean Needle Grass alone exceeds 40 million hectares across Australia.

Spear grasses are characterised by a seed with a sharp tip and a long ‘tail’ attached, giving them their spear grass name. Within the Mount Alexander region we have both native spear grasses and a handful of introduced species. One of the biggest challenges facing the successful treatment of needle grasses is identifying infestations before they become large and dominating in the landscape. Thankfully, one of our unsung local heroes, Margaret Panter, has been working on another brochure in her series on recognising and treating these invasive species. This latest guide provides photos, illustrations, descriptions and treatment options. Margaret has been surveying sites for invasive grasses for many years, diligently working to treat infestations before they become out of control.

To view and download Margaret’s brochures:

• What to do if you find needle grass – click here
• Chilean needle grass – click here

Warmer weather and the arrival of spring triggers grasses to flower, making them easier to identify. Due to the late arrival of the sunshine this year, now is a perfect time to be out looking for this species. During the warmer months, needle grasses produce large amounts of unpalatable flower stalks with little leaf material, resulting in a severe reduction of stock carrying capacity. A dense infestation of needle grass can carry up to 15,000 seeds per square metre beneath infestations. These seeds can remain viable for over ten years and can spread via livestock, machinery and disturbance.

The presence of Chilean Needle Grass may reduce land value. During the warmer months, large amounts of unpalatable flower stalks are produced, with very little leaf material, resulting in a severe reduction of summer stock carrying capacity. The vigour of Chilean needle grass can be partly explained by its efficient system of seed production.

Thank you for your hard work Margaret, in preventing the further spread of this declared noxious weed across the landscape.

Another helpful resource is the following video about how to identify this invasive grass (courtesy of the Marlborough District Council in New Zealand).

Eltham Copper Butterfly workshop and walk – 14 January 2023

Posted on 6 December, 2022 by Ivan

Enjoy these beautiful pictures of our Eltham Copper Butterfly taken by Elaine Bayes. To learn more about the Eltham Copper Butterfly – click here

Photos: Elaine Bayes

Bird of the month: Tawny Frogmouth

Posted on 6 December, 2022 by Ivan

Welcome to Bird of the month, a partnership between Connecting Country and BirdLife Castlemaine District. Each month we’re taking a close look at one special local bird species. We’re excited to join forces to deliver you a different bird each month, seasonally adjusted, and welcome suggestions from the community. We are blessed to have the brilliant Jane Rusden and Damian Kelly  from BirdLife Castlemaine District writing about our next bird of the month, accompanied by their stunning photos.

Tawny Frogmouth (Podargus strigoides)

For BirdLife Castlemaine District’s November 2022 bird walk, bird of the day was a Tawny Frogmouth, who patiently let 30-odd birdwatchers have a good look at it. The bird was found by our local young gun of a birder, the extremely sharp-eyed Tavish. I gather Tavish spotted a tree that didn’t quite look right, and it turned out that that odd-looking branch was a Tawny Frogmouth.

Tawny Frogmouth at Pennyweight Flat during the BirdLife Castlemaine November 2022 bird walk. (Photo by Jane Rusden)

Personally I’ve spent hours and hours wandering through bush looking for them, but they are so brilliant at hiding in plain sight, I rarely see them. Not only are their feathers like tatty tree bark, but they strike a pose that makes them look like a dead branch that is not worth noticing. Their huge yellow eyes close to cryptic slits, as they watch potential threats and curious bird watchers wander by in oblivion.

Tawny Frogmouth at night, pretending to be a dead branch (Photo by Damian Kelly)

Bright lights attract insects and towns attract mice, which in turn can lure nocturnal Tawny Frogmouths into urban environments, and sometime unfortunately and fatally in front of moving cars. I have witnessed one doing their classic hunting behaviour of perching on a low support, in this case a star picket, and pouncing on moths that were drawn to the light spilling from a window. Their diet consists of insects and mice, and also spiders, frogs and even small rats. Such incredibly cryptic feathers help the stealthy wait for unsuspecting prey to wander within striking distance, either on the ground or in the air.

Despite being nocturnal and hunting by stealth on silent wings, they are not an owl. Tawny Frogmouths belong to the frogmouth family, which include a few other species close by in Papua New Guinea. David Fleay (a pioneering Australian scientist and conservationist) described Frogmouth nests as a crude and crazy fabrication of sticks – often across the fork of a horizontal bough. Both female and male birds will sit on the eggs and feed the chicks – usually two chicks, but sometimes three or four. It’s currently the middle of their breeding season, which is usually August to December.

Tavish, I haven’t forgotten I owe you and your friend a chocolate frog for spotting the bird of the day.

After dusk Tawny Frogmouths are sometimes heard calling, their repeated ‘oom, oom, oom, oom, oom’ calls carrying through the night air (Photo by Damian Kelly)