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.

By Catherine Watson
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A couple of years ago, when I learned that my new neighbour Miriam Ford was Victorian president of the Australian Plant Society, I was intrigued. The house was an unremarkable brick veneer but the block was treeless. The previous owner liked it that way. He used to practise his golf on the lawn – no trees, no shrubs, not even a flower bed, to interrupt his chip shots.
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Clearly Miriam had plans. But she was recently separated, juggling the APS presidency and organising its national biennial conference, so the transformation began slowly. For the first year, the only sign was the pots of plants that began to appear along the fence line, then dozens more, down the driveway. 

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.