Grampians Wildflower and Arts Show
FOGG activities this past quarter included the Grampians Wildflower & Arts Show in Halls Gap, so generously supported by FOGG members once again. Thank you everyone. The reviews were very positive and the trips out to look at the flowers in situ were very well patronised.
FriendsNet
In September we entered a competition through FriendsNet and managed to get two very strong weeding tools, to be shared between FOGG and the HG Botanic garden. They were invented by a member of the Friends of Wattle Park and we are very happy with them.
Red Gum Walk
The Red Gum Walk tree risk work has been done, plans for a new information shelter are well in hand and the first steps have been taken towards finding the age of the huge fallen red gums. Bill and Henny Neve have compiled a post-fire bird list which will go up on the information board. See below. Monterey Secondary College visited in November and helped clear parts of the path and attack the scotch thistles. They gave some useful feedback on the signs. One of the students was in an electric wheelchair and it was pleasing to see that he managed the path well, with only one culvert causing any problem.
Brush Tailed Rock Wallaby Release
But the highlight of the quarter was the release of 11 captive bred rock wallabies into the Park. Years of hard work came to fruition on November 12. Ten wallabies were rounded up at the hardening pens at Dunkeld and Tidbinbilla, and to everyone’s delight one of the females at Dunkeld was found to have a pouch young. After speeches etc at Boreang campground we departed in 4 wheel drive buses to where we could stand on a bluff to watch the wallabies being released below us. The day ended with a festive meal at Dunkeld. All the wallabies were fitted with collars and for the first week there was a ranger on round the clock duty on the bluff. The animals have not moved very far, the two groups have mixed a bit. Unfortunately, being in the wild means being out in wild weather. The collar indicated that one of the subadult male wallabies had stopped moving. When rangers went in to investigate it was found squashed under a rock that had fallen in the cave it was sheltering in. Very sad, but not something that could have been prevented in any way. The school children of Halls Gap are immensely interested in the BTRW programme (both Tony Corrigan and Sean Frey have sons at the school). They raised money for one of the collars and are keeping a diary of the release. We are putting the student reports up on the FOGG website, so do check at regular intervals for reports and photos. We were also delighted to learn that the BTRW is now featuring on registration stickers for the coming year.
Threatened Species Group
There have been several TSG excursions since the last Newsletter but some had to be canceled due to weather or the temperamental behaviour of the plants concerned.
September 25 saw an unsuccessful search for the small leaf waxflower but an enjoyable walk nevertheless.
Then on October 2,there was a count of spiral sun orchids and an absolutely fascinating evening lecture by Colin Bower, Principal Consultant Botanist Flora Search entitled “Pollinators of Sexually Deceptive Caladenia Species in SW Victoria”. He told us about the orchids that emit a pheromone that their specific male wasp pollinator can smell at 20 metres, so that they come expecting to encounter a female, try to pick her up and make off with her, only to be bitterly disappointed, but having in the process transferred pollen from flower to flower. Amazing also was the number of species of wasps there are, and how specialised they are in the orchids they visit. The implications for protecting vulnerable orchid species are interesting too.
October 30 saw a successful search for the Grampians Bitter Pea (Daviesia laevis). This plant had been exceedingly rare before the Mt Lubra fire, but new seedlings are popping up in new as well as known sites. At one known site over 200 seedlings were counted, a sighting of two or three well established plants was confirmed at a new site, and the next day a third site was discovered. Another group of volunteers inspected a mature flowering plant in the unburnt section of the park. Some of the plants are now caged, as despite their bitter taste they seem to be very attractive to wallabies.
December 2 brought another evening presentation. Mike Stevens talked to us about his research into the effect of fire on small mammals. See this article for more details on this significant work.
The last TSG activity for the year was on December 4th when we joined Jeff Jeans from the Botanic Gardens in Melbourne to collect seed from the downy star bush (Asterolasia phebaloides) for the Millenium Seed Bank project. There were plenty of plants on the plateau area above Beehive Falls but collecting ripe seeds was elusive. However there were enough of us to get a reasonable harvest. Photos of TSG activities will be on the website shortly.
The Millennium Seed Bank Project (MSBP) of the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew (UK) is the largest ex situ conservation project ever conceived. Its partners will have banked seed from 10% of the world’s wild plant species by the end of the decade. These will not be just any plants, but will include the rarest, most threatened and most useful species known to man. The Melbourne Botanic Gardens and DSE are committed to supporting the project with a focus on targeting our most vulnerable plants, 100 each year. For more information follow the links on www.rbg.vic.gov.au and www.kew.org/msbp