Category: 2015

Birds and Mice in the Grampians

February Saturday 21st 4pm

FOGGs donated some money to the Museum of Victoria some time ago to help with student research projects. Phoebe Burns and Kara Joshi are a couple of these students, working on Smoky Mouse and bird detection. They came and presented their findings to a good group of FOGGIES and other interested locals.

BIRD DETECTION METHODS

Kara’s presentation was on her work trialling a new bird detection method using an audio recorder. Currently bird surveys are carried out by live humans listening to, and looking for, birds out in the field. It is usually very accurate, but time consuming and depends on people having easy access at suitable times of day. It is hard to make it comprehensive and unbiased. Is there a way to use the technology of recording bird calls and then machine reading them? Kara set up recorders and got many hours of bird … Read the rest

Clean Up The Pinnacle

FOGGies gathered on Saturday 21st March for our contribution to Clean Up Australia.

A nation this big needs more than one day a year to keep it clean, so our dedicated group gathered on a day of our own choosing to do our bit. 7 of us met at Wonderland car park, left a few vehicles there and shuttled on to the Sundial carpark. Armed with packed lunches, sustaining fluids, garbage bags, gloves and various tools for picking up any unpleasantness we were yet to learn of, we set out. A beautiful morning, good company, on a very picturesque walk. What a great way to spend an autumn day.

We dawdled along to The Pinnacle, picking up the occasional can and bottle, tissues and other small items. Along the way various plants and flowers were spotted, to be photographed and discussed. As were several friendly rock skinks. The views … Read the rest

Guides To The Grampians: What New Ones Are Needed?

As you probably will have read in Rodney’s account of our walk and cleanup day in the Wonderland area, we started to discuss whether there was a need for a new book on the Grampians, and if so what format, what would it encompass, and whether a book is now old hat and we need to look at tablet or phone appliances. The discussion emerged out of frustration some of us had in what books we use when out walking; there are several backpack size books but all are quite old, and each has its strengths and shortcomings. But it is also true that no comprehensive book on the Grampians has appeared since Jane Calder’s “The Grampians: A Noble Range” was published in 1987 but long out of print. Clearly before we start thinking whether we, together with other local interested groups, could seek funding  to produce a new resource, … Read the rest

Platypus in the Wimmera River

Two related interesting articles in local papers.

April will see a survey in the McKenzie river by the Wimmera Catchment Management Authority. Among others they hope to find the two baby platypuses first recorded last April, the first time in a decade that juveniles had been detected. The survey will also provide valuable information about the impact of environmental water releases in the river.

The researchers will also be trialling a new technique called eDNA  which tries to pick up traces of DNA in the water (from hairs, faeces etc) . This can indicate the presence of platypus without actually trapping them or even seeing them. At this stage it can’t pick out individuals, or how recent the activity is, but it can be a basis for where it is worth taking a closer look.… Read the rest

Advisory Group Report

The Advisory Group met on 18th March with the new convenor Kevin Bolwell in the chair. Once again we had a full agenda.

We first looked at how things are going with fire recovery works from last summer’s fire in the northern part of the Park.

McKenzie Falls Precinct

There are currently no plans to re-open the kiosk, but the option for someone to apply to do so will remain open. In the meantime, a mobile coffeecart has permission to serve coffee there when it is busy. The cottage will not be rebuilt. The toilets will be repaired, where they are currently. Power and telephone will be restored. (Currently there  is no mobile reception so a fixed line will be needed- how best to do this is still to be decided). The question of parking is a real problem and we looked at some of the options. The current … Read the rest

Round Table Report

Wendy Bedggood

The last roundtable was held on 24 March and we had a full and varied agenda. Just a few of the topics covered follow:

  • Russell Manning gave details of the last six months fire season. The Wimmera had a very busy fire season with more individual fires than we have experienced for many years. The dry conditions since winter last year lead to the country being very dry and high fire risks even under relatively mild conditions. Between September and November there were 30 fires. Fortunately we had a fairly mild late January, February and March. However the start of January saw DELWP managing 51 fires between Jan 2 & 7. With only 8 dozers and 8 aircraft, resources were stretched. The 2 big fires which impacted on the Grampians Region were the fire at Moyston and near Rocklands. As we had our meeting at the Moysten CFA
… Read the rest

2015 Grampians Wildflower Show

Reluctantly the Community Association of Halls Gap has made the decision not to have a show as such this year. Several of our more knowledgeable workers will be unavailable for a variety of reasons and we couldn’t find a suitable person to take on the co-ordinating role. We haven’t quite let it disappear though. We will have a limited display of flowers in the foyer of the new hub building with free access, and hope to conduct guided walks in the local Botanic Garden and possibly bus tours too for which people will pay. We will sell up to date notes for selfdrive tours too. This means that if some new enthusiastic folk emerge to revive the show they will have some sort of framework to start with.(Pomonal’s native garden show will be on the same weekend, October 3 & 4 ).… Read the rest

From the Editor (also From the President)

Welcome to the Summer edition of the newsletter. Once again I am writing this summer newsletter with worrying news coming in of fires in our neighbourhood, including in our park yet again. The Moyston fire was scary with quite a lot of farmland burnt.  And the Rocklands/ Black Range fire was in that most important state park, under the management of our Grampians team and containing quite a few important cultural heritage sites. The change brought lightning strikes within our park, and a few small but worrying fires, but also rain. It has been a torrid start for the year for our Park staff and still several months of fire weather to go. For Stawell, the whole year was the fifth driest on record,and was the third successive year of below average rainfall, with a particularly dry Spring .

However visitor numbers have improved, and it is good to see … Read the rest

From the Park Desk

David Roberts

I hope all Friends of the Grampians Gariwerd had a wonderful, safe and rewarding Christmas period. The Grampians National Park lived up to its reputation as a great holiday destination with crowds flocking to the area and enjoying the best we can offer. The team here were kept busy servicing the facilities, responding to visitor enquiries, providing customer service and trying to manage the huge crowds particularly through the central corridor.

Over these periods we are fortunate to have 2 additional Rangers join our team to assist in the increased workload. As always, the Grampians have attracted 2 excellent Summer Rangers, Amelia Travers and Matthew White, who are invaluable over the December and January period. They work across the range of our teams functions, provide weekend capacity for customer service and business continuity during periods of extreme weather and bushfires. We thank them in advance for their tireless … Read the rest

Activity Survey Report

Wendy Bedggood

Last year I sent out a survey to help us better plan our activities. I would like to thank all those who responded, around 2/3 of our members which I was very pleased with. One third of our members live in Melbourne or other regional areas and 1 interstate member. Nearly half  the respondents indicated distance or lack of mobility meant  receiving the newsletter  was their priority. We will plan to have a mix of activities on both weekends and a few on weekdays as sometimes that is the best time for our guest leader or speakers. The ‘Nature walks’ was the most popular activity selected, so we will make sure we have several of these throughout the year.… Read the rest

Friends of Grampians Gariwerd