Blog Posts

Don’t go into the woods without it!

16/10/2025

Powerful owl, Gurdies Nature Conservation Reserve. Photo: Dave Newman

By Catherine Watson

WHEN the pandemic clipped their wings, a couple of Lang Lang birdoes turned their binoculars closer to home. Jackie and Dave Newman discovered the Adams Creek Nature Conservation Reserve was just within their five-kilometre bubble, and found a treasure trove of birds almost on their doorstep.

Their stunning photographs have since become the face of the Western Port Woodlands and the campaign to protect them. Now they are collected in Birds of the Western Port Woodlands, a pocket guide that captures the richness and magic of this rare habitat and the animals that call it home.

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The grevillea whisperer

14/10/2025

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In a sea of concrete, lawn and yucca trees, David Binch's garden is a sanctuary for
birds, bees and humans.

By Catherine Watson

WALK down the quiet streets of this newish Dalyston housing estate and you’ll see the usual rows of tidy lawns, yuccas and concrete driveways. One garden bursts into view: a dense, layered wilderness alive with colour and movement. Honeyeaters flit between scarlet and apricot blossoms. A grevillea the colour of sunset leans companionably towards a pale yellow cousin.

When David Binch and his wife Cathie built their new home in Dalyston six years ago, he knew a standard lawn and hedge wouldn’t satisfy him.

“I actually wanted 10 acres of gardens,” he says. “We realised we couldn't get that so I had to settle. I thought the only way I could live in a housing estate is if I have a bit of breathing room with space for my garden. So we bought two blocks, one for the house and one for the garden.

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Encounters

18/9/2025

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By Catherine Watson

SEPTEMBER is the cruellest month, mixing memory and desire, T S Eliot wrote, or would have if he'd lived in the southern hemisphere.

Suddenly nature is stirring around us and unexpected encounters are bound to occur.

Cockatoo lovers
The birds of Tank Hill Reserve mostly get along, but spring has stirred up a noisy war of words. The ravens reckon we don't have the infrastructure to cope with any more blow-ins.

Small flocks of yellow-tailed black cockatoos are regular visitors. They never stay long. The grass always looks greener over by the cemetery where the pine trees grow. But lately a few pairs have lingered for a little quiet canoodling in the tree tops near my house. Their amorous chatter drives the kookaburras bonkers.

So too the wood ducks that turn up searching for nest sites. Usually they arrive in pairs, but last week a threesome spent several hours perched peacefully, ignoring the insults hurled by the local rednecks, before deciding the neighbourhood was too rowdy for them. I suspect they moved to North Wonthaggi.

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Calling citizen scientists

20/8/2025

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The Spurred Helmet Orchid is endangered in Victoria.

By Catherine Watson

IT WASN’T me who found the orchid in the Gurdies but I happened to have my phone handy so I took the photo. We knew it was an orchid but we were no experts so I uploaded it to iNaturalist for identification.

When I showed the photo to Marg Lee, our resident orchid expert, she got excited. “A Spurred Helmet Orchid! I haven’t seen one of those in here for 10 years or more.”

By that evening the orchid had been named on iNaturalist, and the identification confirmed by several orchid experts. It was then accepted as “Research Grade”.

Meanwhile I had learned that the Spurred Helmet Orchid is listed as Endangered in Victoria under the Flora and Fauna Guarantee and there were no previous iNaturalist listings from the Gurdies.

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The Birdman of Cape Paterson

23/7/2025

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Incoming ... Pacific Black Duck! Photos: David Hartney

By Catherine Watson

WHEN David and Jeannie Hartney moved to The Cape, they downsized their home but expanded their connection to the natural world.

David had long been interested in nature, a passion that blossomed during the couple’s years on a 20-acre eucalyptus woodland property in central Victoria. “That was when I finally had time to see things,” he recalls. “I started taking a few photos of orchids and birds.”

They discovered The Cape in 2019 after hearing developer Brendan Condon talk about the estate’s environmental vision. Intrigued, they visited, and decided to move. A few months after their arrival, David published the first edition of Cape Chatter, a modest newsletter to document local flora and fauna. Issue No. 135 was published recently.

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Frequent flyers and vagrants

17/5/2025

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Red-necked Stint. All photos Dave Newman

By Dave Newman

WE’RE certainly spoilt for birds in Australia, including dozens of species of migratory waders. The life these birds lead is remarkable.

Take the Red-necked Stint for instance. These tiny birds, weighing no more than 30 grams, cover up to 30,000kms annually, an astonishing feat. They are currently preparing for their annual long haul flight, preening their feathers and feeding intensively to have enough fuel for the epic journey to summer breeding grounds in north-east Asia and Siberia.

Of course to do this, they need stop-overs on the way to feed and rest up, which is becoming increasingly difficult because of the loss of their coastal habitats (Australia included).

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Welcome home!

15/5/2025

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As the Gurdies forest begins to recover from fire, the animals are returning

A CURIOUS wallaby cranes its neck to peer into the camera. A wombat is caught wide-eyed in the flash. Butcher birds, grey fantails and yellow robin check out the bait traps. A fox puzzles over the bait trap and returns more than a month later to have another look.

All were captured by trail cameras placed in the council’s native vegetation offset reserve which was virtually razed in the Gurdies fire on December 19.

In late January the Victorian National Parks Association (VNPA) and the Save Western Port Woodlands Group began camera trapping to monitor the post-fire recovery.

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The miracle chick

16/4/2025

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The Waterfall Creek chick with parents on April 13, the day before fledging. This was the
mother's first fledge in 14 breeding seasons. All photos: David Hartney

By Catherine Watson

IT’S been a long and difficult summer for the hooded plovers and their minders, but a fairytale finish to the breeding season has local volunteers celebrating.

The final fledge for the season occurred at Waterfall Creek (Harmers Haven) on Monday. Once the fledgling leaves Waterfall Creek, the exhausted hoodie parents – and their human volunteers – are off duty until the breeding season starts again in August.

David Hartney, who co-ordinates the team of volunteers between Undertow Bay and Harmers, says this one was very special.

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Wombat woes

14/4/2025

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Pushed into an ever-dwindling corridor of habitat, San Remo’s wombats need our help. Photos: Eve Kelly

By Eve Kelly

I LOVE wombats. I marvel at their spectacular burrow networks that sometimes stretch up to 30 metres underground, their backwards pouches, their solid ‘bum plates’ and their square poo that they pile up in proud displays atop logs in their habitat! Even the scent of a wombat is as unique as their adaptations. They smell like the Australian bush - earthy, musty and herbal.

Over the years I’ve loved helping wombats, whether it be advocating for better protections, collecting grass for wombats in care at wildlife shelters, or feeding baby wombats in my care.

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Lights off for shearwater chicks

10/4/2025

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By Lisa Gilbert

PHILLIP Island Nature Parks is calling on the community to help protect the thousands of short-tailed shearwater chicks about to embark on their first annual 15,000km migration north.

This year, they have partnered with Bass Coast Shire Council, Phillip Island Conservation Society, WE-EF Lighting, Ausnet and the Victorian State Government –Department of Transport and Planning to stage the annual campaign, Dark Sky So Shearwaters Fly.

Shearwater rescue on Phillip Island

They are calling on residents and businesses in the birds’ flight path to turn off their outdoor lights at night from 19 April to 10 May to give the chicks the best chance of reaching their destination in the seas around Alaska.

Phillip Island Nature Parks Senior Scientist Dr Duncan Sutherland said bright light sources can be a deadly distraction for the young seabirds as they learn to fly. They are drawn to street lighting and land on roads, becoming a risk to themselves and to motorists, particularly on the San Remo bridge.

“As they learn to fly, they can become disorientated by bright lights. If they land on roads, they can be hit by cars and become a hazard to road users as well.”

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