Flora and Fauna – Page 2 – Friends of Tarra-Bulga National Park

Working Bees Switching to Sundays

by Tarra Bulga25/03/201925/03/2019Leave a comment

This year we are switching to hold most of our on-ground activities on Sundays. The first one is coming up this Sunday morning (March 31st). We will be meeting at the Tarra Valley Carpark at 9.30am and then heading down to our project site a bit further down the road where we will spend a couple of hours hand weeding sycamore maple, ivy and tutsan.

BYO, gloves etc but please let us know via friendsoftarrabulga@gmail.com or phone 0488 035 314 if you intend to come along in case any plans need to change on the day.

Photo of Tutsan — Tutsan with some fruit ready to spread more seed into the park.

Lyrebird Mound in the Tarra Valley

by Tarra Bulga20/07/201820/07/2018Leave a comment

Thanks to group members Martin and Bernadette for letting us use this great camera footage they captured from a very busy Lyrebird mound just near the park in the Tarra Valley. The video catches a male Lyrebird at the peak of the breeding season, strutting his stuff in a full display.

Cats in Tarra-Bulga National Park

by Tarra Bulga12/07/201813/03/2022Leave a comment

Although they are not often seen by visitors, feral and domestic cats are established predators at Tarra-Bulga National Park and our remote camera results suggest they are becoming more common.

The table below shows results from five years of remote camera monitoring carried out by the Friends of Tarra-Bulga Park. Cat numbers as a percentage of total species recorded rose dramatically from 0.7 to 3.9%.

Year	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017
No. of Cats Records	16	33	64	59	41	64
Total Records	2208	2898	4827	3804	1352	1638
Percentage of Cats	0.7%	1.1%	1.3%	1.6%	3.0%	3.9%

The impact these cats are having on the birds, small mammals and reptiles is a real concern. Although there are many variables in the ways we set up our cameras, the general trend in the last few years is for them to be detecting greater numbers of cats and less small native mammals (e.g. Antechinus and Bush Rats). Sadly we have also been detecting less of the smaller birds such as Pilotbirds and White-browed Scrubwrens. (For a summary of sightings of others species download this Percentage of sightings per year for commonly detected species captured in remote camera photos )

The gallery below shows that cats in Tarra-Bulga range from large ferals and panther look-alikes to small (some might say cute) looking kittens, some even have collars. What is undeniable though, is that their presence has a major impact on the ecology of Tarra-Bulga National Park.

Lyrebird Survey 2018 Results

by Tarra Bulga14/06/201810/06/2019Leave a comment

Another great turnout of 34 volunteers for this year’s survey, our annual Lyrebird Survey is by far our most popular activity and once again we were able to cover all 16 monitoring sites.

Weather conditions were quite good, at 5.30am heading up to Balook there was a substantial amount of moonlight with a clear sky and some cold air, At Balook however it was darker because of cloud cover blocking the moonlight and there was a slight breeze in the treetops.

Our full crew of volunteers arrived in good time and by 6.30am everyone had arrived and signed in and by 6.45am everyone had been briefed on their tasks and had headed out in the dark to their assigned monitoring stations.

Once in position there ended up being quite an unexpectedly long wait until Lyrebird calls were first heard, only a couple of locations recorded birds calling before 7am; which was when the majority of the sites started hearing birds, the latest any group had to wait to record any calls was 7.10am. Last year (2017) every site had birds calling by 6.55am.

The official sunrise time for Saturday June 2^nd at Balook was 7.22am and first light was scheduled to appear at 6.52am which was almost identical to last year.

From our results we detected 8 birds calling in our search area, this figure was slightly down on recent years. It is hard to read too much into one years results but potentially the dry summer and autumn we have experience may be having an impact. Most birds appeared to be calling from forest areas with established Eucalyptus over-storey or rainforest. It would be great if some action can be taken to re-establish the original canopy species into areas of the park that have been degraded.

As usual we only count birds that are detected by at least 2 monitoring stations and some stations heard birds calling that were not in our survey area so are not included in the final tally.

Thanks again to AGL who generously supported the breakfast provided for the early rising volunteers.

Lyrebird Survey Results Summary Table 2010-2018

Year	Number of Males Calling	Monitoring Points Covered (out of 16)	Weather Conditions
2010	4	9
2011	9	13	Windy making it hard to hear calls, especially in the more exposed sites.
2012	9	12	Still and Calm
2013	3	10	Wet, may have discouraged birds from calling. Several males sighted feeding but not calling.
2014	14	15	Perfect calm morning
2015	6	12	Windy
2016	9	15	Ideal – slight wind, relatively warm
2017	11	16	Ideal – slight wind, relatively warm
2018	8	16	A little overcast with a slight breeze.