14 & 15 Oct 2014 – NCCMA Workshop on Pasture Cropping & Grazing Management
Posted on 14 September, 2014 by Connecting Country
The North Central CMA is hosting a two day intensive workshop on Pasture Cropping and Grazing Management, which will take place in Newstead (at the football clubrooms) on 14 & 15 October 2014. An on-farm visit will be included in the workshop.
The workshop will feature industry specialists Colin Seis and Graeme Hand. Graeme Hand was a presenter at a Connecting Country workshop held in Yandoit in 2012. The aim of this workshop is to provide commercial farmers with a ‘how-to of Pasture Cropping and Grazing Management’. Continue Reading »
23 Sept 2014 – School Holiday Landcare Activity
Posted on 12 September, 2014 by Connecting Country
The Barkers Creek Landcare Network has organised a fun family day with games and activities on Barkers Creek during the upcoming school holidays. You can contact Mandy (p:0409866279 or e:mandchilcott@gmail.com) to find out more. Click on the flyer at left to enlarge.
15 Sept 2014 – Update on children’s play about Forest Creek
Posted on 11 September, 2014 by Connecting Country
‘Still Waters‘, is a play about the story of Forest Creek developed by local landcarer Thais Sansom in conjunction with local primary school children. It will be performed NEXT MONDAY, 15th September at 6.30pm at The Capital Theatre, 50 View Street. Bendigo. Some details of this venture were covered in an earlier post.
Tickets ($10 adults, $5 primary age kids) can be purchased at the Capital Theatre, over the phone on 5434 6100 or online .
An Afternoon Spent in an Aboriginal Landscape
Posted on 9 September, 2014 by Connecting Country
This article is about the Baynton Sidonia Landcare group’s Aboriginal Landscapes seminar that took place on Sunday 24th August 2014.
Rodney Monk talks to Baynton Sidonia Landcare president John Baulch.
Sixty-five lucky people (as half that number again had to be turned away) spent six hours immersed in Aboriginal life as it was practiced in the Baynton Sidonia area up until just 180 years ago.
The seminar began with Trish Terry of the Taungurung Clans Association welcoming participants to Country and explaining why she is qualified to welcome us to Country and what the welcome means.
Participants then experienced two outdoors workshops. In one, Tandy Annusheit told Dreamtime stories in the Taungurung language to a rapt audience, with Waa (the Raven) joining in occasionally in real time. It was extraordinarily moving to hear the mellifluous sounds of the language being spoken, probably for the first time in almost two centuries, at that spot.
The other workshop was led by Rodney Monk who is passionate about the preservation of local artifacts including clay heat balls and ovens to scar trees and rock quarry sites. He entertained and educated his audience so they gained a much wider appreciation of the kind of artifacts that still await “discovery” and preservation. He both thrilled and challenged his audience by saying to them that his culture is now the wider Australian community’s culture and as such requires effort, commitment and resources for conservation.
Trish Terry led a session titled “Cultural Landscapes” and in a very short time gave participants several new perspectives. One of these was that the landscape is culture: landscape does not just happen to be the way it is now. It was shaped by Aboriginal people, and that shaping, almost two centuries on, is still clearly visible and used by us today.
28 Sept 2014 – Landcare Golf Day
Posted on 4 September, 2014 by Connecting Country
Members of all Landcare and Friends groups across the Shire are invited to a Landcare Golf Day on 28 September to celebrate Landcare. The day has been organised by Muckleford Catchment Landcare Group, and is being held at the Castlemaine Golf Club in Muckleford.
The 9 hole game will be followed by a light lunch and drinks in the clubhouse. There will also be activities for children, talks from bird experts during the game and weeding activities along Bassett Creek after lunch.
You can find further details by clicking on the flyer to the left. Bookings are essential.
Birdwatchers aplenty at the Castlemaine Botanic Gardens
Posted on 26 August, 2014 by Tanya Loos
The Castlemaine Botanic Gardens has been all aflutter with burgeoning birdwatchers this month! A Beginners Workshop was held on the 2nd August 2014, followed by an Intermediate Birdwatching Skills Workshop on the 16th.
The workshops were presented by Tanya Loos, Habitat for Bush Birds Project Coordinator and Geoff Park, bird photographer and naturalist from the Natural Newstead blog. Both keen birders, it was interesting to note that the key messages of both workshops were quite similar!
- Get yourself at least one field guide to the Birds of Australia (The ‘Pizzey and Knight’ was the preference of the presenters, but they also acknowledged that the others were also very useful – Simpson and Day; Slater; Morcombe).
- Use the field guide and observations in your local area to get to know the features of the main woodland bird families (groupings) such as thornbills, whistlers and robins.
- Use your field guide to nut out key features such as field marks and behaviour. Field marks are the particular feather patterns, coloration, size, shape, bill structure, etc that help us distinguish closely related groups of birds.
- Knowing what are our typical local species also helps. It narrows down the range of possibilities for a new unknown bird that you have seen or heard.
Write-ups and photos of the workshops, and a list of resources are available: Beginners Birdwatching and Intermediate Skills.
It was really inspiring and heartwarming to see how everyone is keen as mustard to get out in the field and enjoy birdwatching, and bird monitoring. To this end, a Community Bird Monitoring Kit is in preparation. This kit will have a list of local bird species and families, a how-to guide on bird monitoring, an Excel data-recording template for those of you who are computer-orientated, and hard copy data-sheets as well. Coming soon!
11 August 2014 – FOBIF AGM
Posted on 5 August, 2014 by Connecting Country
A foggy morning in 2013 on the Mount. Photo by Bernard Slattery
The Friends of the Box-Ironbark AGM will take place on at 7.30pm on Monday August 11 in the Continuing Education Building, Templeton St, Castlemaine . At the end of a short business meeting, guest speaker George Milford will talk about the history of Mount Alexander. Visitors are welcome to attend.
You can download this flyer or check out the FOBIF site for more details.
Creativity, Innovation and Problem Solving Workshop in North Harcourt
Posted on 31 July, 2014 by Connecting Country
The North Harcourt/Sedgwick Landcare Landcare group has engaged an Innovation Facilitator to help them, and others in the community, to create new, innovative ideas to activate their membership.
The facilitators “Minds at Work” are highly acclaimed – and also fellow Landcarers.
Anybody interested in Landcare or community work can attend. The workshop will be loosely based on Landcare activities; however, as principles of engagement are universal, representatives of any community group or organisation are most welcome to attend.
Workshop 1 -Rebooting your brain + Scheming for a better way will take place on Sunday 17th August 2014 and Workshop 2 – Making great decisions will be on Thursday 4th September 2014.
Both workshops will be held at North Harcourt Hall, McIvor Rd, Harcourt.
Registration is essential, places are limited. Please register by Wednesday, 13 August 2014 via email to kklein7@bigpond.com or phone 0427 417 498.
Good food will be provided during all workshops, please nominate any dietary requirements.
This is a free workshop series sponsored by the NCCMA – Victorian Landcare Grants and the North Harcourt/Sedgwick Landcare Group.
You can download a flyer for the workshops by clicking Here.
Visit the Minds at Work website here: http://www.mindsatwork.com.au/
Community Planting – Connecting People with Place
Posted on 20 June, 2014 by Connecting Country
Twenty people banded together happily on Sunday morning (15 June 2014) to help a local Taradale landholder to realise his on-ground works with Connecting Country.
Roughly five hundred local indigenous plants were planted at two sites on the beautiful property over the course of the morning, which will extend and enhance the wildlife habitat corridor which follows the Coliban River. It was a day for Connecting Country volunteers, members and staff to come together and experience firsthand the restoration work that local landholders and our works crew do in the shire. And also to make new friends and swap stories over a lunch of sausages, burgers, muffins and hot drinks. Continue Reading »
13 June 2014 – CFNC Talk on Moss
Posted on 10 June, 2014 by Connecting Country
This Friday (13 June), there will be a special Castlemaine Field Naturalists Club (CFNC) general meeting. Local resident and amateur bryologist Bernard Slattery will be talking about local mosses. Bernard, and another local Cassia Read, launched the FOBIF publication, Mosses of the dry forests in south eastern Australia, to great fanfare two weeks ago.
Bernard writes,
I spent about 65 years not really noticing moss, except as a vaguely dank winter thing. How can a person be so blind? The discovery that things are quite spectacular down there on the ground came by accident, while I was looking for something else, and the experience has taught me that the way we see things, or don’t see them, can be quite mysterious. Maybe it has something to do with an idea Shakespeare was getting at when he talked of the man ‘ who will not see because he does not feel’…in any case, I’ll try to explain how it happened in my case. In the process, I’ll show a few pictures of what happens in the moss world when there’s a fire…the transitions are amazing.
The evening commences at 7.30pm at the Uniting Church Hall, Castlemaine – members and visitors welcome. The book will be available for sale on the night. You can also order it on the FOBIF website. A report about the launch which includes a transcript of the speech Frances Cincotta gave to launch the book is included on the website.
Looking for that special moss species.
Breutelia and triquetrella. Photo by Bernard Slattery. White Gum Track, 31 August 2012
15 June 2014 – Community Planting Day with Connecting Country
Posted on 2 June, 2014 by Connecting Country
Connecting Country is running two Community Planting Days over the coming months as part of our Connecting Landscapes program. The plantings are being done at strategically important locations, where the new vegetation will create valuable habitat linkages for native wildlife such as the threatened Brush-tailed Phascogale to move across the local landscape.
The first planting day is coming up very soon, being on Sunday 15th June in Elphinstone. We’d love for you to come and join us. We will be providing a free bus ride to site and are meeting in Castlemaine outside the Ray Bradfield room in the Maxi IGA car-park at 9am for a 9:15am departure. This is a great opportunity for people of all ages to get involved with our habitat restoration activities first-hand while meeting other Connecting Country members, volunteers and staff. After the planting and over a BBQ lunch, Tanya Loos – coordinator of the new Habitat for Bush Birds project – will give a talk about habitat structure for woodland birds. We will be returning to Castlemaine by bus at 1pm.
Please RSVP to bonnie@connectingcountry.org.au to secure a place on the bus, and for further details about the day.
All things great and small
Posted on 15 May, 2014 by Connecting Country
A gully at Baringhup, with remnant bulokes and other trees, provided us with shelter from the biting wind and a chilly autumn day for our second workshop session, “Biodiversity in the Paddock” on Sunday May 4th 2014. The spot also provided a more permanent home to an array of flora and fauna, all contributing to local biodiversity on the property.
Thanks to property holders Jacqui and Lachlan Brown for providing their farm as an ideal location to explore concepts around biodiversity, productivity and restoration.
Guided by Lachy, Jacqui and our expert ecologists we moved between scales; from the broader landscape, down to the property and paddock level and back, to identify what makes up ‘biodiversity’ and how we can improve and monitor the health of a landscape.
Cassia Read, Karl Just, Bonnie Humphreys and Chris Timewell led us through a hands-on foray for the obvious to the often overlooked – in this case plants, birds, mosses and lichens, ants.
Jim Radford takes us on a journey of species, genetics, processes
Karl, Bonnie, Cassia, Lachy, Jacqui and Chris
More information, photos and links from the session as well as Jules Walsh’s summary of the session, can be found here.
For more information: email (janet@connectingcountry.org.au) or call Janet on 5472 1594.
Registrations Open for Box-Ironbark Ecology Course 2014
Posted on 15 May, 2014 by Connecting Country
We have been informed by the organisers that registrations are open for the 17th Box-Ironbark Ecology Course. This five-day residential course in Nagambie commences on Monday 6th October and concludes on Friday 10th October, 2014.
The course is for those interested in gaining a general understanding of ecological processes and principles specific to Box-Ironbark Country, as is complementary to the workshops being run locally be Connecting Country.
The course involves five absorbing days of field studies and is taught by a number of expert ecologists including: Cathy Botta (soil), Andrea Canzano (insects), Garry Cheers (birds), Paul Foreman (plants), Lindy Lumsden (wildlife), David Meagher (mosses and liverworts) and Neville Rosengren (geology).
Have a look at their course flyer for more information on the location and topics. Note that this is not a Connecting Country event. Contact Kate Stothers (katelance1@gmail.com) if you are interested in attending.
This area of Box-Ironbark Forest has a Grey Box (Eucalyptus microcarpa) and Red Ironbark (Eucalyptus tricarpa) overstorey. Not all ‘Box-Ironbark’ forest contains these two eucalypt though.
2014 Workshop Program Launch this Weekend
Posted on 24 February, 2014 by Connecting Country
A reminder that Connecting Country will be launching it’s Improve Biodiversity on Your Property Workshop Program 2014 at the Newstead Community Centre this Sunday (2 March) with a talk by popular ecologist and author Ian Lunt.
This will be social event with a free BBQ dinner after the talk and it would be great to see as many Connecting Country members & friends there as possible.
Ian will be presenting a talk titled “Natural regeneration in central Victoria: the biggest positive change for conservation in south-east Australia”. Have a look at our previous post for more information.
The talk will begin at 4pm and dinner will be at 6pm. RSVPs are not essential, but are greatly preferred for catering purposes – max@connectingcountry.org.au, or phone 5472 1594
Please note, if you are planning on attending Vocal Nosh with Fay White in the adjacent Mechanics Hall that evening you can do both! Ian Lunt’s talk will finish just as Vocal Nosh is getting started.
Natural regeneration of Drooping Cassinia and Eucalyptus in a lightly stocked paddock near Metcalfe.
14 June 2013 – Love Thy Spider
Posted on 31 May, 2013 by Connecting Country
The Castlemaine Field Naturalist Club’s guest speaker on 14 June 2013 will be local resident, Lynne Kelly, who will give a talk entitled ‘Love thy Spider‘. Lynne comments that ‘We all live up close to lots of neighbouring spiders. They live amazingly interesting, often traumatic, lives, all played out on multiple stages around your house. Spiders are the only animal you can get to know as individuals and watch over the long term in their natural habitat of web or burrow. ‘
This talk will include sequences of photos of individuals in a Castlemaine backyard and house and is suitable for kids as well as adults. Lynne says that ‘observing spiders is easy to do, safe and genuinely adds to our scientific knowledge. Long term behavioural studies of our spiders in their natural habitats have not been done – not even black house spiders! But – be warned – there will be some very revealing photos of a pair of huntsmen. We’ll then talk about “The Spiderblogger” and the way we can share Castlemaine spider notes.’
Lynne Kelly
Lynne is the author of 14 books, her most recent being “Spiders: learning to love them“. When her arachnophobia was getting out of control, she decided to cure the irrational fear by learning about the horrible hairy beasts. She overdid the cure and is now ‘obsessed by the gorgeous little critters’.
Lynne is an Honorary Visiting Research Fellow at LaTrobe University, working on the way indigenous peoples memorise masses of information about animals, plants and other natural sciences. She then applies this research to the archaeological record.
The talk will be held at the Uniting Church Hall in Lyttleton St, Castlemaine (building behind the church), and will commence from 7.30pm. Everyone is welcome.
26 May 2013 – Cactus War Continues
Posted on 22 May, 2013 by Connecting Country
The Tarrangower Cactus Control Group will be holding its next field day on a property on the eastern side of Cairn Curran.
The Control Group would like to make this a record year in the War on Wheel Cactus. Over 50 volunteers attended the first field day for the year and everyone is welcome to participate this month (26 May from 10.30am). Click here to download the flyer which has a map and directions.
Reconciliation Week Activities in Mount Alexander Shire
Posted on 15 May, 2013 by Connecting Country
National Reconciliation Week will take place this year between 27 May – 3 June 2013. A range of activities will be held in the Mount Alexander Shire that the community can become involved with, including an indigenous food planting event with Castlemaine Landcare. Also on National Sorry Day (26 May) there will be a gathering in Castlemaine next to the Market Building between 9.50am to 11.45am where people can add their thoughts to the Sorry Tree. This flyer has the full details, as well as the website address for the recognition for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in our Constitution. While Connecting Country is not directly involved in this year’s program, we are very supportive of this initiative and of efforts towards reconciliation.
4 May 2013 – Woody Weed Control Demonstration Day
Posted on 29 April, 2013 by Connecting Country
Do you want to know more about woody weeds and some of the most effective ways to manage them? Come along to the free Barkers Creek Landcare Network demonstration day and learn more!
See the revolutionary ecoBlade machine – which cuts and paints woody weeds such as blackberry and gorse at the same time!
Also included on the day:
- On-site demonstrations of other relevant woody weed control techniques
- Useful information on how to get the best weed control results
Drinks and a light lunch will be provided (no charge).
Midday – 2.00pm, Saturday 4th May 2013
End of Hagues Road, Barkers Creek – click here for map
Information about the Barkers Creek Clean-up Project: www.connectingcountry.org.au/barkers-ck/
email: michael@connectingcountry.org.au or call 5472 1594
The event is also supported by the Victorian Blackberry Taskforce and Victorian Gorse Taskforce.
Back to Cactus Killing
Posted on 22 April, 2013 by Connecting Country
The Tarrangower Cactus Control Committee and Parks Victoria will hold their first cactus-injecting field day for 2013 on Sunday 28th April. Field days will continue until November on the last Sunday of each month.
The venue for the first field day will be in Watersons Road near its intersection with Tarrengower School Road starting at 10.30 am. The site will be clearly signposted from the corner of the Bridgewater-Maldon and Watersons Roads.
Special guest will be Councillor Sharon Telford who has agreed to launch the season.
As usual the day will finish with a free sausage sizzle and cuppa.
Bird Photography … with Chris Tzaros
Posted on 16 April, 2013 by Connecting Country
On Thursday 25th April, at 7.30pm at the Newstead Community Centre, Chris Tzaros from BirdLife Australia will deliver a talk entitled Bird Photography: Tips & Techniques. Chris is one of Australia’s best known bird photographers and author of the publication, Wildlife of Box-Ironbark Country. As well as providing some practical information on the topic, the presentation will showcase some of Chris’ breathtaking images. Gold coin donation to the Newstead Landcare Group. Everyone is welcome.
Chris and Geoff Park will also be leading a field workshop on 27 April but that is already booked out. It is likely that similar workshops will be held later this year.