October 2013 | Vol. 34 No. 9

Registered by Australia Post. Publication No. VBH4462

MONTHLY NEWSLETTER OF THE BENDIGO FIELD
NATURALISTS CLUB

Bendigo Field Naturalists Club Inc.
Address for correspondence: PO Box 396, Bendigo 3552. Web address: www.BendigoFNC.com.au

ISSN 0812-423 e-mail address: info@bendigofnce.com.au
Office Bearers for 2013 - 2014
President Richard Goonan
Vice President Bill Holdsworth 5443 4063
Secretary/Public Officer Matt Comer 0409 162 627
Minute Secretary (gen meet’gs) Kerrie Norris (still require a back up) 5447 8017
Minute secretary (committee) Anne Bridley 5442 6188
Treasurer Ben Goonan
Membership Officer Anne Bridley 5442 6188
Excursion organiser John Lindner/Joy Clusker 5448 3406
Syllabus organiser Ben Goonan
Librarian Diana Collier & Maryann Hill 5443 0137
Garden Convenor/Secretary Jan Orr
Hall Management Maurie Lewis (assisted by Rob Moors) 0407 427179
Whirrakee contact/editor Sabine Wilkens e-mail: s.wilkens@latrobe.edu.au 5443 2797
Co-editor Richard Goonan

Whirrakee mailing coordinator Gemma Candy
Website coordinator/Webmaster Ben Goonan

Membership of the Bendigo Field Naturalists Club is open to all those interested in Natural
History. The subscription rates are: Single $40; Family $50; Concession: Single $35; Family $40.
Whirrakee subscription only is $40.

General meetings are held on the second Wednesday of each month. The venue for General
meetings is the Golden Square Senior Citizens Building, Old High Street, Golden Square. The
meeting starts with a 10 minute thing-of-the night natural history segment. The invited speaker
starts at 8:00pm and meetings conclude with supper. The Annual Meeting is held in September.

Committee meetings are held on the third Wednesday of each month at 6:00pm. Members of the
Committee are the Office Bearer listed above and the following members: Anne Bridley, Kerrie
Norris, John Lindner, Jenny Shield, Diana Collier, Devi Shanty

Excursions are conducted regularly and are advertised on the diary page of the Whirrakee. The
assembly point for excursions is the Golden Square Senior Citizens Building, unless otherwise
specified. Several interclub field naturalist campouts are held every year.

The Bendigo Field Naturalists Club has one sub-group (the Fauna Study Group) and is actively
involved in local conservation issues. An indigenous garden has been established around the
Golden Square Senior Citizens Building. Working bees are advertised on the Whirrakee diary page.

Fauna Study Group: Chairman: John Burtonclay, Fadersons Lane, Mandurang (5439 5710)
Secretary: Bill Holsworth, 13 Nabilla Crs., Bendigo (5443 4063)
Equipment Officer: Maurie Lewis (0407 427179)

Regular fauna excursions take place most Fridays. See page 11 for details.

Bird Observing: Club members conduct regular bird surveys. Please contact Anne Bridley 5442
6188 or Glenise Moors 5439 6254 for details. Special bird observations should be reported to Anne
Bridley 5442 6188. To propose bird observing excursions please contact Kerrie Norris 5447 8017.

Front cover photo?...see page 2

WHIRRAKEE

Monthly Newsletter of the Bendigo Field Naturalist Club
Vol. 34, No. 9, October 2013
Whirrakee takes its name from the Whirrakee Wattle (Acacia williamsonii), which is virtually

endemic to the Bendigo region

CONTENT

Item Contributor Page
Short notices 3
Colour photo section various contributors 4
Call for help with field work Renae Forbes 8
BENC October campout notice John Lindner 8
The Warby Ranges... and other memories Peter Ellis 9
Some July and August Observations M. Lewis via K. Norris/Rod Orr 10

Authors are responsible for the accuracy of the information they use and also for any opinions
expressed in their articles. Contributions should be posted or e-mailed to the editor at least two days
prior to the last Wednesday of the month. They will be included as soon as possible after they are
received, although space restrictions occasionally require shortening of articles or holding them
over till the following edition of Whirrakee.

Articles in Whirrakee may be reproduced, but permission should be obtained from the Bendigo
Field Naturalists Club, and acknowledgment should be given to the author and the Club. Some
back issues are still available on request.

Editor’s Note

Some things usually change after an AGM and some things stay as always. As you can see from the
inside front cover, some office bearers and committee members have. changed. If you. were
wavering whether to throw your hat in the rink, but hesitated in the last minute, there is still time. A
couple of vacancies on the committee and any number of ‘assistants’ jobs are still open, so just let
someone know of your interest. I hope you have time to enjoy the ‘sea of purple’ (not from the foot-
ball fans, but) from all the waxlip orchids and chocolate lilies. For me, it is one of the best sights of
Bendigo in spring (see page 4).

Front page photographer: Rod Orr

Jan & Rod checked out the Diamond Hill/Spring Gully section of the forest South of Bendigo at the
end of August and were very pleased to see that the Boronia Patch had been protected from the
forest burns conducted earlier this year, following a last minute special request. The Boronia was
flowering beautifully then and so were the small number of Globe Parrot-pea (Dillwynia
glaberrima) plants that grow there among the much more numerous Boronia plants (Boronia
anemonifolia)....Continued on page 10

Short Notices

Altered Whirrakee mailing format

You may have been surprised to receive your
Whirrakee in an envelope this month. This
has been a necessary change to previous mai-
ling arrangements to offset the increased cost
of producing the newsletter. Current costs ex-
ceed club revenues and this situation severely
limits the clubs financial position. It could be
argued that the limited resources available
should be better utilised. Although member-
ship fees have been marginally increased this
year, Whirrakee production remains a finan-
cial loss. Changing the mailing arrangements
and limiting the number of copies produced,
will bring expenditure closer to a neutral
position. A simple change to using envelopes
will mean that no alteration to the Whirrakee
format is required, so you can continue to
enjoy reading the usual monthly newsletter.
Unfortunately posting Whirrakee in an enve-
lope will require folding, so you may need to
practice your origami skills to successfully
unfold it before reading. I would suggest a
few hours tucked under a large fat book
(something the size of the Flora of Victoria)
will un-crease your Whirrakee enough for
pleasant handling.

If you treasure your newsletter, the future

success and viability of Whirrakee relies on -

member’s contributions! Please consider
writing a short article or sending in a photo. If
you have any concerns or queries about the
changes to mailing arrangements please don’t
hesitate to contact Richard Goonan.

Membership Fees for 2013 — 2014
Just a reminder that our new membership fees
are as follows:

Single membership $40
Family membership $50
Single concession $35
Family concession $40
Subscriptions $40

A renewal slip was included with your
August Whirrakee. Please pay promptly if
you have not already done so.

Email Notifications

If you wish to be advised promptly of interes-
ting sightings, events or other special commu-
nications you may wish to subscribe to our
club’s email notifications service. Subscribers
to the service who make an unusual or inter-
esting sighting in our region can email all
other members of the service.

Email subscribe in the subject line to
info@bendigofnc.com.au if you wish to join
the service. Include your full name in the
body of the email.

To be added to the list you must first send _an
email to the address provided. This is the
easiest way to manage the system.

Notice of a special general meeting

A special general meeting will be held at 7:30
on Wednesday 9th October (prior to the gene-
ral meeting) at the Golden Square clubrooms
to consider the following special resolution
which has been moved by the club committee:

"That the Bendigo Field Naturalists Club
adopt the proposed new rules of association."
It is necessary for 3/4 of those voting to be in
favour for the resolution to be passed.

"A member who wishes to vote by proxy may
inform the club secretary, Matthew Comer, of
their vote no later than 24 hours before the
time of the meeting.

Copies of the proposed new rules will be
available at the September and October gene-
ral meetings, by email from info@bfnc.com.au
or by using the following web address:
http://www.bendigofne.com.au/fNatsNewRul
es.html. There won't be a link to this page on
the public view BFNC web pages. The
proposed new rules contain the club's new
statement of purpose (see August Whirrakee)
and are an amended version of the new Model
Rules for an Incorporated Association as
contained in the Associations Incorporation
Reform Act 2012.

If the special resolution is passed, Consumer
Affairs need to give their approval of the
proposed rules before they become the club's
tules.

Spring Orchids in gorgeous colours Photographer: Joy Clusker

Glossodia major in white (above)
Caladenia caerulea and purple (below). Is this fly just resting there

Or is it looking for a reward? Do the white
flowers of this species ever get pollinated...?
Does anybody know?

Caladenia carnea
(pink fingers)

Family Nature Club — an afternoon with the birds Photographed by Joy Clusker

B

Nicole Howie, who organised the activity with a captive audience. It was nice of Nicole to also
organise the beautiful weather. Below, the participants made bird nests, almost as good as the birds

.

Down memory lane — the Warby Ranges in 1967 (see page 9)

Photographer: Peter Ellis"

Recording the sounds of the bush... Andrew Skeoch ready to record bird songs (photo by
Sarah Koschak) and Yellow-tufted Honeyeater in Golden Wattle Gece by Andrew Sea"
Andrew will be giving a talk in October 10 (see back page)

oe _ Dillwynia glaberrima
Stes _ ~~. Flowering well in late
-- August in the Spring
28 Gully/Diamond Hill

Anthracobia muelleri ‘Charcoal Fungus’ at Diamond Hill area (see page 10).

see observations on page 10 (photos by Rod Orr).

Call for help with field work

Effects of host-plant quality on the trophic
structure of insect communities

Renae Forbes

La Trobe University, Bundoora, VIC, 3086

A number of forces such as host-plant quality
influence the abundance and diversity of
insect species within an ecosystem. Although
ecologists have investigated the functional
role of host-plant quality in insect communi-
ties, they have primarily employed a manipu-
lative approach and so the importance of
natural variation in plant quality is poorly
understood. My project aims to determine the
influence of:

(1) Spatial variation in edaphic and plant
factors on the insect diversity of two
native Australian shrubs, Gorse Bitter
Pea (Daviesia ulicifolia) and Drooping
Cassinia (Cassinia arcuata)

(2) Host-plant quality on the abundance
of insects within related taxa

This study has important implications for the
revegetation of degraded ecosystems and the
potential of plant species to support native
insects.

Field work will be conducted within a number
of Trust for Nature covenants (between 10-12
sites), around the Bendigo-Seymour region
from October to January. I am looking for
some individuals to assist with the collection
of leaf, soil and insect samples throughout
this time. Leaves will simply be collected
using scissors and stored in bags for nutrient
content analysis and core soil samples will be
taken using a stainless steel soil probe. Insect
abundance and diversity will be assessed
using either sweep-netting or insecticide
spraying. Other measures to be taken include
plant size and leaf weight.

No prior experience is required and it is up to
the individual how much time they can invest
and how often.

If you are interested in helping Renae, please
indicate your availability to the BFNC email

address at: info@bendigofnce.com.au

Ben Goonan will then get back to Renae with
a coordinated response.

Bendigo Field Naturalist Club Proposed
Spring Campout

Date Weekend 26 — 27 October 2013

Location Warby Ranges, Warby-Ovens
National Park. This elongated park is located
West of Wangaratta and north of Glenrowan
Organiser John Lindner, telephone 54483406
Notification. Please notify me if you intend
to participate. If I am not at home, please
leave a clear message with your phone
number and the number of people who will be
coming with you
Campsite | Wenhams Camp, at the southern
end of the range. (Note: if it is very wet, at the
advice of the ranger, we may have to move to
Forest Camp at the northern end of the park.
But hopefully not... .)
Distance Via Goornong, Colbinabbin, Rush-
worth, Murchison, Violet Town and Glen-
rowan, the distance to the campsite is 212km
Allow 2.5 to 3 hours.
Map A sketch map of the route from Glen-
rowan township (32 kilometres) to the camp-
site will be supplied at the club meetings in
September and October
Facilities
eWater tank attached to the (pit) toilet block,
which is probably quite OK but may be
stained brown by leaves. Hopefully there will
be enough for washing and cleaning.
¢Fireplace/barbeque
ePicnic tables
eSpace for camping
Please bring *Your own drinking water

eFirewood, if you want a

barbeque or a campfire

eWet weather gear

eWalking boots

Camera, binoculars

eAll your food

Information You can download and print
the information and map for the Warby-
Ovens National Park from the Parks Victoria

website at www.parks.vic.gov.au

Attractions Vegetation communities:
Woodland on granite on the Warby Range,
box-ironbark in the Killawarra Forest.

Interesting plants — eg. Austral Grass-tree,
Spurwinged Wattle, orchids, Birds, particular-
ly the Turquoise Parrot if we are lucky

Activitiess planned: Rather than an un-
structured program where everybody does as
they please, we may try to formalize some of
the activities (eg. botany) so that we have a
leader with a group interested in that subject
for a set time

Walks: There are several walking tracks,

around which other topics could be structured

e Salisbury Falls, 8.0 km return approx.

¢ Summit of Mount Warby, 2.0 km return

e Summit of Mount Glenrowan, 9.0 km return
from Taminick Gap

e Pine Gully Nature Walk, 2.0 km loop from
Pine Gully Picnic Area

¢ Friends Track, 4.6 km loop from Wenhams

¢ Kwat Kwat lookout, 1.0 km return from
Friends Track, with views of the Ovens
River valley and the Alps

¢ Killwarra Forest (Red Ironbark) at the
northern end of the park

Program
Friday: Arrive in the afternoon or earlier
Saturday: You could come up Saturday but
this leaves you a lot less time
am Activities from 9.00 am onwards (tbd)
pm Activities (to be decided)
Sunday: am Activities (to be decided)

pm Pack up and depart

The Warby Ranges at another time and
other memories...
by Peter Ellis

With the Warby Ranges campout scheduled
in October I thought the picture (see page 6)
would be topical.

I took it June 1967 on a special trip I’d orga-
nised to the Warby Ranges after reading an
article in the FNCV magazine of the day
which had a photograph of Grass Trees in that
locality and showing they had never been
affected by bush fire their grass like skirts
reached all the way to the ground. The article

in the magazine centred around a Miss
Dawson of Wangaratta FNC who knew the
locality. I contacted Miss Dawson and she
obliged to show us the site. So Bob Allen,
Tom Patullo, Keith Handley and myself
travelled across to the Warby Ranges, it was a
wonderful day and we just marvelled at that
grove of Grass Trees.

Keith Handley was a new Chemistry Teacher
at the old Bendigo Technical College who had
immigrated out from England. He was
interested in natural history and wildlife
photography and actually replaced Redvers
Eddy who had retired in the September of
1965. I had Red as my practical Chemistry
teacher and of course there was much talk of
wildflowers, birds and geology, and it was
Red who nominated myself a member of the
club about 1964. Red used to draw up little
‘mud maps’ for me and I'd ride my bicycle
out to the Whipstick or to the Mandurang
Forest and Sedgwick Race on the south side
to explore for wildflowers and photograph
them. With Red’s advice I had purchased a
Practika camera and the latest Novoflex
macro lens that Red himself used for the
various photos that won awards in ‘Photo-
flora’. I made a special train trip to Melbourne
to Wagners in Elizabeth St to purchase the
equipment that Red and Frank Cusack had
advised me to do. When Red retired the
previous year, we senior chemistry students,
including Glenise Douglass (now Moors) and
Rob Moors presented Red with the latest
camera gadget bag as a gift. So I also pur-
chased one for myself from Wagners which I
still have.

So when Keith Handley arrived I knew some
of the key wildflower localities to take him. I
remember on one occasion at Ruedin’s Euca-
lyptus Factory site, Keith found a nest of blue
wren young, he set up his camera on a tripod
and was about to take the picture. The parents
were making a hell of a racket, I was concer-
ned Keith was too close to the next. But it
wasn’t that at all. Suddenly, Keith leapt in the
air with his camera and tripod, yelling and
doing half parabolas (a Red Eddy expression)
bounding away through the scrub. A brown

snake had slithered along, stuck its head in the
nest and ate the baby birds. I taunted Keith for
not pressing the button before he took off.

So that’s Keith Handley in the photograph
standing in front of the grass trees. He was a
keen member of the BFNC for a couple of
years, then with his homesick wife, daughter
and son, returned to England, but only for a
couple of years. They missed Australia and
returned to Sydney. But today, I don’t know
where they are!

A special July Observation

Platypus Ornithorhynchus anatinus
Observed by Maurie Lewis in early July.
Midday overcast weather Location Campaspe
River (Doak's Reserve/Eppalock). Maurie
was able to watch the platypus for quite some
time as he sat quietly nearby.

Some August observations ...cont. from p.3
...the Boronia is flowering beautifully at
present and so are the small number of Globe
Parrot-pea (Dillwynia glaberrima) plants that
grow there among the much more numerous
Boronia plants (Boronia anemonifolia) (see
front cover and page 7)

This is a very small area and deserves to be
protected from fire. The surroundings are
recovering very slowly but will remain devoid
of shrubs and ground-cover plants for several
years. Many of the eucalypts in the burnt
areas have been killed by the fires although
there are signs of recovery from several
species which are beginning to show epicor-
mic growth.

Much of the ground is covered with charcoal
which is providing suitable habitat for mosses
and some other species. We were able to find
a small patch of Fungi which is also favoured
by the charcoal residue from shrub and tree
destruction (see page 7).

As we walked further through the now ‘very
open' Open Woodland we found several large
patches of Scented Sundew, Drosera
whittakeri, whose bright white flowers
showed in very stark contrast to the blackened
and bare areas of poor clay soil.

10

Of course, this species of Drosera is quite
common and widespread in our “surrounding
bushland although the other 2 species of
flowering plants in this forest are very rare
and localised in the Bendigo Region. The
charcoal-adapted fungus is interesting to find
but not at the expense of these locally rare
flowering plants.

August General Meeting: “The archaeology
of Arabia in the context of water and
landscape’ by Phil Macumber

Author: Sabine Wilkens

Phil Macumber is a well-known hydrogeolo-
gist with huge experience in the Central Vic-
torian region, but on the night of the Septem-
ber general meeting, he took us to the Arabian
peninsula, the rift valley and the Jordan River,
areas where early humans migrated out of
Africa, and locations recounted in biblical
stories. In this seemingly hostile mountainous
landscape, there are springs fed by ancient
groundwater, which have run continuously for
tens- and hundreds of thousands of years and
which have served as central points for human
settlements and are now treasure troves for
the study of early human civilizations. One
such area is at Pella, where broken layered
sediments reveal tools and utensils from tens
of thousands of years ago. This really spurs
the imagination! The most amazing thing for
me was that Phil had brought some of these
tools with him and you could see the stone

“axes and arrow heads that our forefathers

made and carried, perhaps when they were
first dispersing, to eventually colonise the

entire planet (see page 6). This was an

extremely interesting talk, and I thank the
speaker for sharing this incredible adventure.

Diary

All Club meetings are held at the Golden
Square Senior Citizens Building, Old High St
Golden Square, unless otherwise indicated.

Wednesday October 9 7.30pm
Associate Professor Graeme Coulson from
the Department of Zoology, The University of
Melbourne, will talk to us about ‘Living with

kangaroos: biology and management from
Melbourne to the Mallee’

Regular Fauna Excursions

Every Friday morning starting at around 9 to
9:30 the Fauna Group inspects nest boxes in
the Spring Gully area. The excursions are led
by Maurie Lewis, 16 Vains St. Golden
Square. Phone 0407 427 179. Phone Maurie
to confirm exact departure times and
location. If you don’t phone and go directly
to Maurie’s house and find nobody at the
house between 9 and 9:30, then the excursion
is not on.

It may be that these excursions are coming to
an end. Make sure you ring Maurie if you’d
like to go on such an excursion.

Family Nature Club

Sunday 20th October. Kennington Reservoir,
issues for local wildlife, which will include a
talk by a WRIN member about local wildlife.
Registration:

Bendigonatureclub@ gmail.com or 5443-1326
Check out their 2011 and 2012 activities at
http://bendigofamilynatureclub.blogspot.com/

Bendigo Native Plant Group meeting.

All interested people are welcome to come
along. Meeting starts at 7:30pm on the third
_ Tuesday of the month, Golden Square Senior
Citizens Hall.

Next meeting: 15th of October. The speaker
is Peter Miller, Proprietor, The Hanging Gar-
den. 'Culture and mounting of Australian
native epiphytes and lithophytes'.

11

Wildlife Rescue & Information Network
Inc.

W.R.LN. is an organisation dedicated to the
care of orphaned, sick or injured native
animals. It is fully endorsed by the Dept of
Sustainability and Environment.

Please call our Emergency Number for Help
for Fauna in Need. Phone: 0419 356433.

‘Understanding the Natural Soundscape' a
presentation by Andrew Skeoch

by Frances Cincotta
On Thursday 10th October Newstead
Landcare Group will hold their Annual
General Meeting, and we are delighted to
have been offered a presentation by one of
our members, Andrew Skeoch of Listening
Earth.
All Bendigo Field Naturalists and the
general public are welcome to attend this
event at Newstead Community Centre
starting at 8pm. We ask for a gold coin

- donation to cover costs.

Andrew describes his presentation thus: "The
sounds of our natural environment are com-
prised of many voices; birdsong, insect
choirs, frog choruses. Collectively, the songs
and calls of all these species form the
biophony; the living sounds of our natural
landscape. Studying how all these diverse
vocalisations interact in the acoustic environ-
ment, can tell us a fascinating story about
how our bushland ecosystems work and have
evolved”. ;

Featuring sound recordings and sonograms,
from local places to habitats around the
world, Andrew will explore the fascinating
understandings emerging from the new field
of soundscape ecology.

Many of you will be familiar with Andrew’s
recording of birdsong on a CD in the back of
the Wildlife of the Box-Ironbark Country
book by Chris Tzaros, and this event is a great
chance to meet with and learn from a local
expert.

For more information, contact Frances
Cincotta, Newstead Landcare President

Phone 5476 2691