Home, Home on the Range

As you travel down Centre Rd from St Arnaud you notice the lack of understorey vegetation in many places.

Trees, yes, although few are older than 90 years due to extensive felling for timber up until the late 1990s.

A few are thick with Golden Wattle and Grey Everlasting; these are areas that have been burnt over the last 20 years.

Monitoring by the Club over a 10 year period showed little increase in the species in the burnt areas,a total of maybe 5, including Gorse Bitter-pea and a couple of lilies while the unburnt sides contained up to 30 floral species.

Despite over 100 years of sheep grazing (up until 1996) mining and timber felling and the grazing pressure from increasing numbers of kangaroos, small patches of quite rich floral diversity can still be found.

One such patch on Shearing Shed Rd is on the top of an ironbark ridge and small treasures such as Blue Pincushions, Blue Finger Flower and Grass Triggerplant and are abundant within maybe, a 4 acre plot.

Blue Finger Flower Cheiranthera cyanea- the fingers refer to the arrangement of the stamens- like a hand.

This plant of the Goldfields is nowhere common now.

Blue Pincushions Brunonia australis

A Raspwort species - I don't know which- easily overlooked as it is quite small but the hot pink flowers are intriguing

Grass Triggerplant- Stylidium graminifolium- rare now on the Range, it can be seen in greater numbers in the Wax Garden

Of course, Bursaria is flowering madly- I always think of it and Buloke Mistletoe as the Christmas Bushes of the Box-Ironbark forests.

Sweet Bursaria Bursaria spinosa with its seed capsules forming

Another small patch of rich diversity can be found on Centre Rd south of the Aliens' Camp Rd intersection.

Here, under straggly and dying Red Stringybarks (Eucalyptus macrorhyncha) a vast horde of Rosy Baeckeas (Euryomyrtus ramosissimus)ramble down the hillside

in company with many small peas, lilies and the red form of Common Correa(Correa reflexa).

Rosy Baeckea

Red form of Common Correa

Along with the Wax Garden, View Point and another small patch on Boundary Rd, these tiny patches have survived.

Better management, protection and a helping hand is called for to allow them to survive and re-seed the bush in time.

Christmas greetings from all our Club members- may you all have a happy festive season and return to 2020 reinvigorated and refreshed.

Mugga Ironbark (Eucalyptus sideroxylon) in a member's garden this December, attracting birds, insects, gliders and possums although not all at the same time.

Walker's Lake Bird Survey

Wednesday 20th Feb 2019 saw several members from St Arnaud Field Nats and Avon Plains Banyena Landcare Group leave the boat ramp for a round-the-Lake bird survey. Beautiful clear, sunny and cool weather kept any pesky insects at bay and we spent 2 1/2 hrs watching birds and listing them for Birdlife Australia's online Bird Atlas. Walker's Lake, north-west of St Arnaud, one of the waterbodies in the highly significant Avon Plains Lakes system.

30 species were seen, mostly waterbirds or landbirds that are associated with wetter environments such as Magpie-larks. For first part of our walk, through Black Box Woodland to the western end of the lunette, we were accompanied by a small family of Black-fronted Dotterels, moving like little clockwork toys along the insect-laden edges of the water. Moving with the BF Dots, but staying in front of the pack was a pair of Red-kneed Dotterels. You can see the red knees in this on-the- move long telephoto shot by Prue McAllister (APBLG).

Up onto the lunette( a huge sandbank, formed over thousands of years from pelleted clay blown from the lake bed during dry,cold spells) and the bird assembly changed- Welcome Swallows and White-plumed Honeyeaters foraged busily above or in the massive Redgums, Galahs and Long-billed Corellas defended their nesting areas; the Redgums are full of hollows, indicating their great age (150 year of growth before hollows begin to form). From our vantage point we spied a raft of Australasian Darters, diving and fishing in the shallow waters, almost like a choreographed water ballet- all up, then one after the other, down again! It was hard to count how many there were. Male Darter in breeding array Photo A Hughes StAFNC

Several smallish rafts of ducks were seen a good distance away- photos later revealed Pacific Black Ducks, Grey Teal, one lonely Hardhead, the pretty little Pink-eared Ducks and wonder of wonders, a group of 4 Australasian Shovelers, a protected species during the duck shooting season, and not unlike the Pinkies in profile( strange bills) but larger and with more distinguishing marks- white patch and dark rump. This group included 3 males and one female and the very long shot was taken again, by Prue McAllister.

Coming around to the inlet area, we were escorted along the shoreline by a Sacred Kingfisher, nervous of our presence but reluctant to leave us to our own devices for some reason. Photo by Anne Hughes StAFNC

Moving along the southern shore, through the Redgums and Black Box, we spotted 4 White-breasted Woodswallows using the fenceposts as perches.

They were not interested in posing for the cameras but the photos were good enough for identification purposes. White-breasted Woodswallows are seen at the Lake mostly during Summer.

This pair behaved like juveniles, waiting for parents to return with a meal.

Food was certainly on our minds as we completed the 3km walk and headed for our morning tea- the usual relaxed and enjoyable end to our outings at the lake.

Small Milkwort Monitoring Results

Small Milkwort (Comesperma polygaloides) is listed as threat- ened under Victoria's Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act(1988) and described as "an uncommon component of the grassy woodlands of the Wimmera, extending east to the Bendigo area"

Once widespread it is now confined to a few scattered patches across the inland slopes of Victoria with only a few plants known from our region.

See full report, click here