Nature notes

New hope for curlew comeback

2/7/2026

The bush stone-curlews are fitted with tiny GPS backpacks. Photos: Phillip Island Nature Parks

By Lisa Gilbert

FOURTEEN bush stone-curlews were released into the wild on Phillip Island (Milawul) this week in the latest phase of a re-introduction program for a species that’s critically endangered in Victoria.

They joined the birds already in the wild with the hope they will breed and increase genetic diversity in the population. The goal is to eventually have a self-sustaining and robust population.

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Humpback Highway

18/6/2026

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By Mika Peters

EACH year, as the weather cools in Victoria, humpback whales begin one of the longest migrations in the animal kingdom. After spending the summer feeding in the icy, nutrient-rich waters of Antarctica, these giants start travelling north along Australia’s east coast toward warmer tropical breeding grounds.

Scientists believe migration is triggered by a combination of changing water temperatures, daylight hours, food availability, and instinctive memory passed through generations.

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Sea Country

19/5/2026

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Helen S. Tiernan: Humpback Connecting

By Colin McHenry

THE dark, cold blue. A shape emerges from the murk, huge and grey. Somehow it is almost on top of you before your brain works out how big it is. A flash of white as a fin is raised, the leviathan turns with a grace that belies its size, and then it is gone, into the never-ending ocean.

The largest animals that have ever lived call the ocean their home. Most people never see them – those that do glimpse them from a cliff or a boat, a puff of white above a dark curve cutting the water's surface. Only a few have experienced being in the water next to them and felt the emptiness of the ocean suddenly filled with the presence of the gentle giant as its path briefly intersects your own.

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The final journey

1/5/2026

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Short-finned eels swim more than 3000kms against the current to reach the Coral Sea.
Photo: Arthur Rylah Institute

By Catherine Watson

SHORT-tailed shearwaters are not the only local animals setting off on an epic journey. Short-finned eels are also embarking on a long and arduous trek to the seas north of Australia.

While most of the shearwaters will make it back to Phillip Island next spring, the eels are making their final journey.

Short-finned eels are common, though rarely noticed, in estuarine rivers and creeks across mainland Bass Coast. They usually begin their migration unnoticed in mid-to-late autumn, but when estuaries are closed you can sometimes see them gathering at river mouths, waiting for a high tide to carry them across the bar.

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Autumn nature notes

3/4/2026

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The Eastern Curlews are preparing for their epic migration to the Northern Hemisphere.
Photo: Dave Newman

By Lisa Gilbert, Phillip Island Nature Parks

AS AUTUMN settles in, on Phillip Island (Milawul) the busy shorebird breeding season begins to wind down. While some devoted parents are still tending eggs or guiding their fast-growing chicks, many birds are already starting to gather into winter flocks. Before long, these fledglings along with their parents will begin moving off the island in search of new feeding grounds.

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The world in miniature

2/4/2026

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Dick Wettenhall’s monumental study of orchids in the Gurdies uncovers a complex web of life.
Photos: Warren Reed, Coast magazine

By Catherine Watson

AT FIRST it was the birds that attracted Dick Wettenhall to The Gurdies reserve, opposite his winery. Over time his gaze shifted to the orchids for which the reserve is known among Australian native orchid lovers.

A former professor of biochemistry at Melbourne University, he became increasingly fascinated by the complex functions, adaptations and associated biodiversification of orchid ecosystems in a single nature reserve.

In 2024, he published The Guide to Orchid Paradise: The Gurdies Nature Conservation Reserve. At 270 pages, it was a substantial work, but that was just for starters. Dick calls it "a guidebook".

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My hoodie season

18/3/2026

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There is always a special story for the volunteers. LB is part of Paula Street’s.

By Paula Street

THE hoodie season starts in August with an annual preseason debrief and update with all the volunteers and associated organisations. It’s always a buzz to catch up with the tribe.

Then out we go checking all our breeding sites with great enthusiasm, looking for which hoodies are pairing up this season. Usually the same pair claim the same territory each year, but sometimes there are new pairs when old ones simply don’t return.

By September we are looking for nesting behaviour and the first eggs, always a bit of excitement. Eggs are so well camouflaged and just sit in a “scrape” in the sand – easy to miss and takes a bit of training to know how to find them.

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Welcome, stranger

16/2/2026

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Spotted on Reef Island, the Eastern Yellow Wagtail is a long way from home. Photos: Dave Newman

By Dave Newman

RECENTLY birder Abby Hayes spotted a bird on Reef Island that she was unable to identify. It turns out it was an Eastern Yellow Wagtail, a very rare bird for Victoria.

Eastern Yellow Wagtails are a species that breed from Europe to Siberia, as well as Alaska. They are quite small being around 17cm long. They migrate through Asia, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea and a few individuals end up in northern parts of Australia and are reasonably regular to places like Broome and Darwin.

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Return of the wild

13/12/2025

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The trees – and animals – are returning to a windswept patch
near Wonthaggi that was grazed for decades. Photo: Geoff Glare

By Catherine Watson

IN THE space of a month, three different people told me about the miracle unfolding on a windswept patch called West Area. “You should see what the Friends are doing out there,” they said.

They meant the Friends of the Wonthaggi Heathlands and Coastal Reserve, of course, so one recent morning I joined long-time president Geoff Glare and secretary Anne Looney to see the miracle for myself.

I soon understood why this is such a challenging site. A hot northerly wind tore at our hats and snatched away our words. If it's not the hot northerlies, it's the icy south-westerlies straight off Antarctica. Most years we experience the beastly easterlies; this spring it was those relentless westerlies.

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Just mucking around

9/12/2025

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By Catherine Watson

STEP into Barbara McNulty’s garden and you feel as though you’ve entered a miniature botanical garden. There are frog ponds and potted jungles, a chook palace, tiled garden beds and shady tunnels framed by a massive banksia.

It's only a quarter of an acre but appears much bigger because there is always more to see, around every corner: salvaged garden fountain pieces, bromeliads thriving in the shelter of a roofless shed crushed years ago by a falling tree. A damaged clawfoot bath she pulled out of her previous house has found new service as a pond. A chipped terracotta fish she carried home from Vietnam many years ago made a perfect spout.

It seems that everything in Barbara's world gets reimagined. “I collect all sorts of bits and pieces," she says. "One day I find a use for them.”

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