Bass Coast Post
  • Home
    • Recent articles
  • News
    • Point of view
    • View from the chamber
  • Writers
    • Anne Davie
    • Anne Heath Mennell
    • Bob Middleton
    • Carolyn Landon
    • Catherine Watson
    • Christine Grayden
    • Dick Wettenhall
    • Ed Thexton
    • Etsuko Yasunaga
    • Frank Coldebella
    • Gayle Marien
    • Geoff Ellis
    • Gill Heal
    • Harry Freeman
    • Ian Burns
    • Joan Woods
    • John Coldebella
    • Jordan Crugnale
    • Julie Statkus
    • Kit Sleeman
    • Laura Brearley >
      • Coastal Connections
    • Lauren Burns
    • Liane Arno
    • Linda Cuttriss
    • Linda Gordon
    • Lisa Schonberg
    • Liz Low
    • Marian Quigley
    • Mark Robertson
    • Mary Whelan
    • Meryl Brown Tobin
    • Michael Whelan
    • Mikhaela Barlow
    • Miriam Strickland
    • Natasha Williams-Novak
    • Neil Daly
    • Patsy Hunt
    • Pauline Wilkinson
    • Phil Wright
    • Sally McNiece
    • Terri Allen
    • Tim Shannon
    • Zoe Geyer
  • Features
    • Features 2022
  • Arts
  • Local history
  • Environment
  • Bass Coast Prize
  • Community
    • Diary
    • Courses
    • Groups
  • Contact us

​Close to home

19/7/2022

8 Comments

 
PictureLace monitor, Adams Creek Nature Conservation Reserve, 2021.
Photo: Dave Newman
By Catherine Watson
 
COVID changed all our lives. For Jackie and Dave Newman, it put a stop to their annual wildlife safaris around Australia. During the long lockdowns, their world was constrained to a 5km radius around their home in Lang Lang.
 
But as their world got smaller, they made a magical discovery. The nearby Adams Creek Nature Conservation Reserve was a biodiversity hot spot.
 
They’d visited the reserve once or twice in the past but perhaps they were looking the wrong way when something amazing flew past. They didn’t see much of interest and forgot all about it while they explored more exotic spots around this great continent.


Confined by the lockdown, they discovered the northern tip of the woodlands was just within their orbit. (Actually, Dave admits, it was within their orbit as the crow flies, or walking there via the old railway line, but it was 13kms by road.)
 
When they revisited during the lockdown, they were blown away by the diversity: colonies of sugar gliders, antechinuses, snakes, skinks, multi-coloured moths, gorgeous orchids, and two-metre reptiles.
 
And the birds! Bassian thrushes, brush bronzewings, a rufous fantail. “We saw an olive whistler,” Dave says. “That really blew me away. We went all the way to Port Fairy to see an olive whistler! The closest I’d seen one was Tarra Bulga. And here they were just down the road!” 
PictureOlive whistler. Photo: Dave Newman
“You’re talking about two people who are interested in wildlife and we had no idea what was all around us.”
 
They are not alone. Until a year or two ago, very few of us had been into the woodlands. There are no signs on the highway pointing out nature conservation reserves or walking trails. The approach to the Adams Creek NCR is particularly forbidding. You pull off the South Gippsland Highway and travel down a dirt road between vast sand mines.
 
Dave says they were initially interested in finding powerful owls. Some of the terrain looked promising and they found three or four hollows that were suitable for powerful owls. Then as the weather got better they started to see and photograph the huge diversity of birds and animals.  
 
Dave’s photo of a lace monitor (tree goanna), taken last year, is an astonishing portrait of a rarely seen animal in an even rarer pose, its long tongue flicking ahead, its eyes apparently fixed on the viewer. Every detail is sharp: the armour-like hide, the immense talons, and something more. We can feel the essence of the animal, its dignity. We know we are a visitor to his world.
 
“Usually you come across them by accident and they shoot up a tree,” he says. “We were really lucky with this guy. We had stopped and we happened to look up the track and he was wandering towards us.”
 
Luck plays a big part in getting photos like this, he says. And dogged persistence. Recently, on a trip to the far north, they managed to see and photograph some palm cockatoos, a holy grail of bird watchers. “It was our seventh attempt,” Dave says. “We joke that that’s our $20,000 photograph.”

Then there is Jackie’s photo of an agile antechinus. Dave and Jackie were showing a group of us around Adams Creek Reserve.  Walking with them was a chance to see the world anew. Every now and then they would stop, the chatter would die down, and we would listen. Initially there was only silence and then there was a growing chorus of birds. Over many years of bird watching, they have developed acute powers of observation – a flicker here, a 
cheep there. Nothing goes unnoticed.

Picture
Walking with Jackie and Dave, Adams Creek, 2021. Photo: Laura Brearley

On this occasion, Jackie saw it first. An agile antechinus. Such a shy animal. You occasionally see a dead male (they die after mating) but rarely a live animal. This one was  carrying leaves up a tree to a nest in a hollow. One at a time, up and down. Our group stood spellbound for 15 minutes or more watching and listening. And Jackie got the photo of the day.
PicturePhoto: Jackie Newman
Dave and Jackie’s photos have become the face of a community campaign to save the Western Port Woodlands between Nyora and Grantville from a surge in sand mining. You can tell people what’s in the woodlands but until you show them they’re really not interested.
 
“I just found it mind blowing that there are lace monitors so close to where we live,” Dave says. “We know there are at least two in Adams Creek. I hope there are more. And we know they’re in The Gurdies and Grantville. But they’re functionally extinct unless we maintain the linkages throughout the woodlands.”
 
They are mapping their walks as they go to introduce more people to the woodlands. They walked for six hours last week. But there are still large parts of the woodlands they haven’t explored and new discoveries to be made. They are constantly scanning the tree tops – which is how they made one of their most recent discoveries: a koala in the Adams Creek reserve.
 
They had heard koalas growling before but they had never managed to spot one. Jackie was following some crimson rosellas when she saw the bundle of fur high in a tree.
 
They collected some nice fresh scats and sent them to koala researcher Kelly Smith for DNA analysis. Kelly is searching for remnant populations of Strzelecki koalas, ie. not descended from the koalas that were sent to French Island in the early 1900s when koalas had been hunted almost to the point of extinction.
 
Koalas were once plentiful in the woodlands but they are now rare. However, recent sightings in Adams Creek and Grantville reserves are cause for optimism that they may be making a comeback. Koalas are now listed as endangered in Queensland, NSW and the ACT so it’s a significant find. They are confident there are more there.
 
They’ve looked back on some of the old records and species lists. Now they’re on the lookout for firetail finches and perhaps even a barking owl. They continue to look for evidence of powerful owls.
 
They have seen blue winged parrots at several spots in the woodlands and a large flock on a nearby private property. “Blue winged parrots are a big attraction for birdies. They come across from Tasmania. They are also notorious for hanging around with orange bellied parrots.”
 
This critically endangered parrot is one of the holy grails of bird watchers. Of course they would love to find one – or preferably a flock – in our woodlands. They’re also cautious. If they did find one they wouldn’t publicise it. “That might sound selfish but I’m not sure we want too many people trampling over sensitive areas.”  ​

8 Comments
Carmen Bush
22/7/2022 12:34:44 pm

Thanks for sharing your lovely photos which highlight the biodiversity of these Woodlands. What a great discovery in our own backyard! A real treasure worth preserving.

Reply
Tim Herring
22/7/2022 01:54:35 pm

Great photography Dave and Jackie!
Thanks for letting me join in a couple of those adventures; there is more out there and we just have to look more carefully - as you both do so well. This is a beautiful part of the world and I, for one, find it fun exploring.

Reply
Dave Newman
22/7/2022 06:49:47 pm

Thanks Catherine for your great article . We are very pleased to think our photos are contributing to raising awareness of our amazing woodlands . The more people that become interested , the more chance we have of saving our beautiful plants and animals in the Westernport region . Public opinion is definitely swinging towards environmental issues and the recent Federal election highlights that . As suburbia continues to spread , these remaining sections of bushland are increasingly crucial , and must be saved ! Look forward to doing more walks , and meeting and spending time with like-minded people .

Reply
Daryl Hook
22/7/2022 07:09:20 pm

Thanks for the great photos and friendly words Catherine.Our nature is very rewarding.

Reply
Linda Cuttriss
23/7/2022 11:21:42 am

So many extraordinary natural treasures, so close to home and increasingly under threat. Amazing photos Jackie and Dave. Another great article Catherine. Let’s hope our state political parties got the message about the shocking state of Australia’s biodiversity decline from the State of the Environment 2022 report released this week and pledge to protect the Western Port Woodlands from future sand mining.

Reply
Gill Heal
23/7/2022 05:47:02 pm

There's still hope for us when we can be surprised by wonder.

Reply
Linda D
24/7/2022 02:39:23 pm

Thank you for sharing, so amazing to know we have lace monitor lizards and tawny frogmouths nearby, never knew. Beautiful photos.

Reply
Jan Fleming
5/8/2022 10:20:31 am

Fantastic photos, thanks very much, nature is wonderful.

Reply



Leave a Reply.