Category: Activity Report

Birdwatching and farewell to Bill and Hennie Neve – Saturday August 18th

It so happened that it was one of the rare days this winter that it really rained, so birdwatching ended up a very minor part of the day. Not that anyone would complain about rain this year. Some of us took the opportunity to explore the nearby Trust for Nature reserve to observe the very slow recovery of the red gum forest which was burnt heavily in 2014. Bill reports that the bird life in the area has also not recovered to the pre-fire levels.

But we all enjoyed our last opportunity to enjoy their amazing and beautiful home and chat with them both and each other. We will miss them, and wish them well as they move closer to family in WA. One of the things we discussed was the most valuable work the Nature Glenelg Trust is doing to restore the wetlands (see last newsletter). We decided we … Read the rest

Mt Dryden Excursion – 23rd September 2018

Mt Dryden was the target of this excursion, with three objectives in mind: enjoy the view, look at the rocks, and look at the vegetation.

Mt Dryden is a greenstone outcrop, being volcanic material from the Cambrian era, the oldest rocks in Victoria. It is a particular igneous type with high magnesium, low silica content, with derived minerals including actinolyte which was prized as axe material by aboriginals.

Landholder Graeme Maher met us, and along with Geoff McPhee (previous owner) escorted us to near the summit where the views were quite spectacular. Those with a rock interest collected various specimens, and a good ramble round the peak was enjoyed. We then repaired to the shearing shed for lunch and examined specimens of greenstone axes (and other rocks) found over the years in parts of the Wimmera. Graeme told us about some of the local history including Chinese gardens watered by … Read the rest

Annual Biodiversity Seminar at Nhill

There was a good representation of local FOGG members once again at this most interesting day. We learnt so much.

A very quick summary:

  • The first speaker was Professor Libby Robin from Canberra who gave us a very interesting talk on how the Little Desert National Park came into being 50 years ago. Clive Crouch who was integral to the campaign followed her. One thing that struck me was how the campaign was headed by locals, not Melbourne activists.
  • Next came Peter Monkhorst from the Arthur Rylah Institute (he also was originally a local Nhill resident). Peter talked on mammal and bird treasures of the southern Lowan Mallee.
  • Next came Ben Holmes, from the Conservation Volunteers property adjoining the Little Desert Park, who talked about the ambitious rewilding programme on their predator proof properties. ( Some of us will remember Ben from his time as a ranger in our Park,
… Read the rest

Red Gum Walk Working Bee – May 12

A moist but not quite drizzly day saw a group of us doing our annual maintenance work on this track down in the Victoria Valley. The weather meant we could do weeding and pruning quite easily, but replacing worn out signs proved difficult and we had to give up on this planned task. Once we reached the remains of what used to be the huge drive- through tree we decided to see whether we could find where the track used to continue before the 2006 fire. with not too much difficulty we could, and made our way back to our picnic table to discuss what we saw as the future of the walk.
It was extremely useful to have both longterm members and more recent folk there. For longterm members like myself, there is so much sentiment attached to the walk that we see it quite differently to those who… Read the rest

Fungi Frolic

On July 15th a group of 10 Foggies met at Jimmy’s Creek for our Fungi day. Those who arrived early shared a classic FOGGs picnic in the carpark. After all it was actually a beautiful sunny winter’s afternoon. Historically this site has been a winner for us. This year things are a bit dry compared to past fungi days. The constant frosts in recent weeks have also taken their toll on the fruiting bodies we were searching for. We were pleased to have Dave and Lynn Munroe in attendance as members, offering us their extraordinary knowledge. Over the years they spent much time with the great Ian McCann looking at fungi. And Dave is a Fungi (fun guy) to hang out with! The first thing you learn is that many fungi species do not have a common name. Latin is all you get!
We had barely crossed the bridge to… Read the rest

Clean Up Australia Day – 3 March 2018

FOGG has been involved with cleaning up around the Grampians for over 30 years.

On Saturday, the 24th of March, seven FOGG members met with Parks Victoria staff in the Halls Gap picnic area. We were provided with gloves, rubbish bags and rubbish grabbers, and allocated two target areas to clean; Silverband Falls and the picnic grounds adjacent to Lake Bellfield.

There was very little rubbish found at Silverband Falls, however we did collect a number of bags of Scotch Thistle from the creek banks, most not far off seeding. We found quite a lot of rubbish at the picnic grounds next to Lake Bellfield including litter, rusted posts and bits of metal, and bird wire. All up, we collected more than 15 bags of rubbish weighing approximately 60kg. Overall, it was a very successful day.

Our thanks to Parks Victoria staff for providing our gear, and more importantly, a … Read the rest

March 26 2018 : Bunbury, Bunyips, and Bunjil: the family letters of Capt Richard Hanmer Bunbury of Barton Station

2018 Professor Ian D. Clark, Federation Business School, Federation University Australia, Ballarat

Professor Ian Clark, a Western Victorian local now at Federation University Ballarat, gave us a fact-filled afternoon talk on the 1840 accounts of Capt. R. H. Bunbury of Barton Station, south of Moyston; the origins of the Bunyip as recorded by early settlers in conversation with local Aboriginal people and from Aboriginal ground drawings in Western Victoria. The Bunyip also was a key player in the story of Bunjil and in the interpretation of the painting of Bunjil in the Black Range near Stawell. Bunyips have been recorded from most areas of Victoria, and while all are associated with waterholes or rivers, the descriptions vary considerably: from a giant emu to a fur seal to an extinct Palorchestes (that died out some 40,000 years ago). The best description, however, comes not from verbal accounts but from a depiction … Read the rest

Grasses Day

Leigh Douglas

SEDGES HAVE EDGES
RUSHES ARE ROUND
GRASSES HAVE KNEES (nodes) THAT POINT TO THE GROUND

Amphibromus, Lachnagrostis, Austrostipa, Chloris, Themeda, Neurachne ….. or, Wallaby Grass, Blown Grass, Spear Grass, Windmill Grass, Kangaroo Grass, Fox-tailed Mulga Grass – just some of the native grasses identified by Alan Bedggood at our home near Lake Lonsdale, as he led about 20 of us on a fascinating tour of discovery on our November activity. Ask Alan if you think I’ve got some names wrong …. because it’s quite likely ….. a new learning curve, and definitely a new passion.

Alan brought along samples of grass for us to handle and look at closely, with and without using little powerful illuminated magnifiers for studying the finer points of grasses, such as their awns, lemmas, and glumes, the only way in which to speciate many grasses; the more closely we could look, the more … Read the rest

Mt Difficult Drive and Walk (14 Oct 2017)

Geoff Stratford

As members gathered at the Boroka Lookout mid-morning in mid-October the lookout was shrouded in cloud giving very limited possibility of catching a glimpse of a view. No matter to FOGG’s, a dozen of us pooled vehicles to tackle the gravel road which had claimed a Parks vehicle, bogged, earlier in the week.

With some hastily arranged road repairs by Parks Vic our group encountered no hint of a problem. In fact the amount of interesting plants and interactions between those present meant we travelled only a small distance compared to that which had potentially been planned. Rodney and Margo had mapped out perhaps five to seven locations which we might stop and observe the flora and environment.

Our first stop seemed less than two kilometres along the Mt Difficult track and it became obvious that we were blessed to have the company of Neil Marriot for … Read the rest

Annual General Meeting

We were lucky to have nice weather for our AGM on Saturday 16th September.

Thirteen members attended and we covered all the usual business, the president gave his report and it is covered elsewhere in this bulletin.

Our committee for the next twelve months was elected and is:

  • President – Rodney Thompson
  • Vice President – Leigh Douglas
  • Secretary – jointly Bill and Judy Gardner
  • Treasurer – Judith Thompson
  • Committee Members:
    • David Steane
    • Mabel Brouwer
    • Charles Kerr
    • Wendy Bedggood
  • Newsletter Editor – Margo Sietsm

Activities for the coming year were discussed and the new committee will work towards organising many of the good suggestions.

We had lunch then went for a walk to Fish Falls, along the way we checked out some potential spots to install a seat. Some time ago it was decided to have a seat installed along the walk to recognise the Friends of Zumsteins who folded … Read the rest

Friends of Grampians Gariwerd