Activities – Page 11 – Friends of Tarra-Bulga National Park

What are we monitoring for?

by Tarra Bulga29/10/201214/06/2013Leave a comment

Tonight’s the Friends of Tarra Bulga National Park committee had one of their regular meetings. It is always interesting to make the evening trip up to Balook, as you are almost guaranteed to see an interesting array of wildlife along the way. Tonight was no exception on the way up in the last hour of daylight there were plenty of wallabies darting out in front of the car and a couple of lyrebirds doing their last rounds of the day.

Long- nosed Bandicoot - Perameles nasuta — Long- nosed Bandicoot – Perameles nasuta

After the meeting it was now a couple of hours since dusk, back in the car and around the first few bends we catch some eye shine and a shape at the side of the road, slowing down it becomes clear that it is a fox with something in its mouth. With light from the headlights and the full moon, I can see a short tail and on the other side of the foxes snout a long pointy nose, unmistakably a bandicoot, bit sad that my first live sighting of a bandicoot at Tarra Bulga had to be this way. The full moon seems to get the fauna out and about and a little further on we stop the car when we spot a brush-tailed possum on the roadside. With the car stationary it strides across, with a tiny offspring hanging tenaciously on to its mother’s back. Next sighting is a couple of rabbits, which surely would have been our preferred option for the fox to be dining on.

Before the friends started monitoring with remote cameras, there had been no official records of bandicoots in the park for at least a decade (wildlife surveys can be an expensive business). What impacts do fox numbers have on bandicoot or lyrebird populations or even rabbits? How common are other feral animals in the park and what impact could they be having e.g. cats? What else is out there that we don’t know about (Could there be any Tiger Quoll? We could guess but without some means of surveying we wouldn’t really know. The Friends of Tarra Bulga now have a network of remote cameras across the park, we aim to use them to the best of our ability to get a much greater understanding of what is happening out there with all them critters.

Sycamore Maple Revegetation Site

by Tarra Bulga26/10/201224/03/2013Leave a comment

Made the trek out to the re-vegetation site for the first time since the planting was done which was a bit over two months ago.

Fresh New Growth on Mountain Ash Seedling

From looking around the site there was both good and bad news. First the good, there was virtually no sign of any Wallabies managing to get to chew any of the new seedlings, despite the fact I heard one hopping away when I reached the site. There was good fresh new growth on all the seedlings that I found, hopefully when they become more conspicuous as they get taller the wallabies will still find them too difficult to reach. The bad news is that after seeing very, few new seedlings of Sycamore Maple

Awesome Effort at Planting Day

by Tarra Bulga18/08/201218/08/2012Leave a comment

The Friends of Tarra Bulga planting day last Saturday was a great event, which will hopefully result in the return of some towering wet forest in years to come. It will also greatly assist efforts to prevent the re-infestation of Sycamore Maple trees into this area of the National Park.

Getting Ready to Plant – The first of the volunteers arrive at the site and prepare to get down to business.

Volunteers managed to plant 600 Mountain Ash (Eucalyptus regnans) species across the site, which was no mean feat given that each plant needed to be carefully placed in a position where they will be guarded from browsing by hungry Swamp Wallabies. This involved scrambling over steep areas thick with fallen branches, while trying to avoid human hazards such as stinging nettles and leeches. While this may sound arduous there were no complaints from the willing and enthusiastic volunteers happy to be out making a difference to the park and enjoying the scenic (but muddy in spots) walk into this secluded planting site.

Richard in Action — Friends Group member Richard, putting in a big effort.

One of the 600 plants — One of the 600 Mountain Ash Seedlings that were planted on the day.

The group will now carefully monitor this site over the coming years to check that the newly planted trees are growing successfully and retreat any Sycamore Maple regrowth that sprouts from the treated stumps and pull out any new seedlings that pop up. Funding for this project has been supplied by the Victorian Government’s “Communities for Nature” Program.

Mother Maple — Friends Group President Peter Bryant, Standing next to the largest stump left behind from the forest of Sycamore Maples that had taken over the area.

A Job Well Done — Some of the Volunteers posing with their Hamilton Tree Planters after a great days effort to enhance Tarra Bulga.

Are you up for the challenge?

by Tarra Bulga15/07/201226/03/20132 Comments

Friends of Tarra Bulga have a big new project and we are looking for some enthusiastic helpers to get things off to a great start. A couple of years back a huge infestation of Sycamore Maple trees, which can grow up to 30m tall, was discovered in the park. These trees produce winged seeds which can spread in the wind, so the plant has the potential to invade further into the surrounding Mountain Ash forests.

Contractors were used to cut down the Maples and poison the stumps, and the result so far has been a big success. The canopy has opened up and native understorey plants are taking advantage of the light and space and popping up everywhere. To be a complete success however and to help prevent re-growth of the Maple, canopy species such as Mountain Ash need to be re-established. The friends group has secured funding from the Victorian Government’s, Communities for Nature Grants to do this and are holding a planting day on Saturday August the 11th.

The friends are keen for as many helpers are possible on the day but please note the task is a bit of a challenge. Access to the site is 2.5km along a walking track from the nearest road. The planting site itself is covered in logs and branches of what remains of the dead Sycamore Maple trees. While these branches are an obstacle we also plan to use them to our advantage, by planting amongst them we hope they will act as natural tree guards, keeping the new seedlings out of reach of hungry Swamp Wallabies that are notorious for eating newly planted trees. So if you are ready willing and able please come along. The meeting spot will be at the Tarra Bulga Visitors Centre Carpark at 9am on Saturday August the 11th. Please RSVP to Friends of Tarra Bulga – Activities Co-ordinator David Akers at dakers@activ8.net.au or by phoning 5189 1330. (BYO lunch)

Wet Forest — This is what we hope the planting site will eventually look like.

Communities For Nature Grant

by Tarra Bulga02/07/201224/03/2013Leave a comment

The friends of Tarra Bulga are happy to announce that they have been successful in obtaining a grant from the Victorian Government’s Communities for Nature Grants for a major restoration project in the park. The project site is one that is tucked away in a remote section of the park and was only discovered by chance when some contractors were doing some minor control of what was thought to be only a minor incursion of Sycamore Maple (Acer pseudoplatanus) on the edge of Diaper Track.

Communities for Nature - Project Site — Communities for Nature – Project Site in Tarra Bulga National Park

Once they began it became clear that the task was much bigger than first thought and in the end it was found that this plant was dominating the canopy in a large thicket about 2ha in area. Much expense was spent destroying these invasive trees but the site has now been left with no overstorey species and the potential for the weedy Maple to return.

Thankfully securing this grant will enable the friends group in partnership with Parks Victoria to work to restore this area, by establishing a wet forest overstorey with species including Eucalyptus regnans (Mountain Ash) and also allowing the understorey to recover while destroying re-germinating weed species.

Maple Resprout — Sycamore Maple – Re-shooting from the base after the initially felling and poisoning of the stump.

The friends group are planning a tree planting working bee on Saturday August the 11th. For further details or to register your interest in attending please contact David Akers at dakers@activ8.net.au

Lyrebird Survey Map

by Tarra Bulga07/06/201224/03/2013Leave a comment

To all of those people who did the Lyrebird Survey this map can give an indication of what was going on this year.Geographic Information System (GIS) software was used to plot the location of all of the monitoring sites. Then the lines coming out from each site were drawn using the information that all the volunteers recorded during the survey. Once all the lines have been drawn we can then find points where several lines from different monitoring points intersect. At these points we can be confident that there was a Male Lyrebird calling during the survey period.

2012 Lyrebird Count

by Tarra Bulga04/06/201224/03/20131 Comment

We were happy to have perfect weather for Lyrebird Counting, still calm conditions meant that Lyrebird calls would be easy to detect. We had an excellent turnout with 32 helpers including a contingent of Scouts. Ranger Craig briefed the early morning crowd about their roles and passed on his knowledge in terms of taking a compass bearing. We then raced out to our monitoring points, in order to be in position before the first birds began calling at the break of dawn. After only a quarter of an hour or so all groups recorded several different birds calling and there were a number of live sightings. It was then (as is the custom) time to migrate to the guesthouse for a hearty breakfast. After all the recordings were logged and mapped we can confirm at least 6 birds were present in the target area, which thankfully shows that the Parks Lyrebird populations are still going strong.

Pre Count Briefing — Everyone paying attention to the instructions before going out to their positions.

Two young helpers ready to start the Lyrebird Survey

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