Biorich plantations – mimicking nature to integrate conservation & production
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    • Biorich design principles and silviculture paper - Lismore AFG 2014
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Heard but not seen – plenty of spring breeding activity for 2024

10/10/2024

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PictureFan tailed cuckoo. PHOTO: Gary Featherston
Windy but we still saw (mainly heard) 38 bird species as spring breeding activity picked up.

Ornithologist lecturer from Federation University, Grant Palmer, led five of us, with three new participants, two of them, Sue and Glen, being new Lal Lal residents who wanted to learn what was in their patch. Jodie from Mollongghip also joined us for the first time.

Despite the wind, a rufous whistler gave a long and strong display. Gary had, once again, cleared a path through the gorse on the west bank.

Fantails out in force in the north block, which is really starting to open out to become more like a natural forest. Surprisingly, the grey everlasting bushes there seemed to have escaped the hammering of their cousins in ImLal South by roos. 

A fan tailed cuckoo topped a bare stag branch in the north. No noisy miners were sighted. The surviving sequoias are at last undergoing a growth spurt.
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Grant has provided a fuller report, which you can read in the Monitoring menu – visit Bird surveys at ImLal

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Debriefing session at the end of the transect.
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Resident birds start to dominate over migrants in in the autumn bird survey 2024

30/4/2024

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Fine but windy – still we saw 31 bird species as the resident birds started to dominate over the departing migrant species.

Ornithologist lecturer from Federation University, Grant Palmer, led seven of us, with  the numbers bolstered by a keen family of four – Gary Featherston's son, wife and two young daughters.

Best views were of fantails and LBBs like thornbills and scrub wrens. A butcherbird topped a bare stag branch in the middle section usually dominated by noisy miners. None were sighted, nor were the eastern rosellas, galahs and only a few crimsons.
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Gorse has overwhelmed the west bank of the dam, so Gary and I had to clear a pathway through in the days prior.

Grant has provided a fuller report, which you can read in the Monitoring menu – visit Bird surveys at ImLal

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Early summer bird survey for ImLal in 2022

23/12/2022

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A little windy but we still averaged over 30 species – 31 to be exact. Highlights were a sacred kingfisher and a breeding pair of pallid cuckoos. No noisy miners, which must constitute another highlight.

Made an early start of 8am. Very wet underfoot after weeks of incessant rain. Only three of us – Grant Palmer from Federation University, Louise Humble from BirdLife Ballarat and myself from BRT. 

Amazing plant growth – particularly noticeable on the banksias as well as the callitris and hakea on top of the hill. Three of the sequoia survive in ImLal North and two of them look like they may outstrip the roo attacks and grow to maturity. The weeds are of course not being left behind. Gorse and blackberries threaten to overwhelm in places.

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Tanya back for 2021 spring bird survey – 33 species recorded

18/10/2021

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PictureTanya Loos (on right) with BRT President, Gary Featherston.
Seven of us took part in the spring bird survey led by ornithologist Tanya Loos. As enthusiastic and competent as ever.
It was a still cloudy day with a couple of serious birders joining us. While only 33 species were recorded, these were present in large numbers, such as sighting of seven or more yellow faced honeyeaters – the first-ever species we recorded at ImLal.
The plant growth this year has been truly remarkable, with even the shrubs now towering above us. One pronounced change was the dieback of the silver wattle, under serious attack from a mite.
​It's been a very wet spring and there was a lot of water laying about.

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Silver wattle dieback.
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A record 46 species seen on the 2020 spring bird survey

4/11/2020

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Hopes were always high for a very productive spring bird survey at the ImLal Biorich site following the wet winter and pleasant survey conditions on the day, and the small group of birdos were not disappointed – a huge tally of 46 species was recorded along our usual 90-minute circuit! This is an impressive number of species for a single survey – for context, our previous visits in spring and winter 2019, yielded 28 and 22 species respectively.

Firsts for the spring bird survey included a Sacred Kingfisher and a Musk Duck on the dam. We watched a pair of swamp harriers  hunting without harm among the Lal Lal Wind Farm turbines. For a full report of the spring bird survey by leader Grant Palmer, visit the menu for the Bird Survey.
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Wattle and gorse out for spring 2019 bird survey – windy and only 28 species

8/10/2019

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Boobook seen on roost in plantation

12/9/2017

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The boobook owl was seen flying out from a roost on a young swamp gum within the biorich  plantation on the winter bird survey. That was a first! Phil has previously photographed it in the pines on the edge of the plantation (see below). That's where we've seen it a couple of times  in the past.

​Gary Featherston, who came on the winter bird survey,  is going to lend us a camera to monitor the boobook's roosting site within the biorich plantation. That way we can see if we can claim it as a regular visitor. 
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Tanya revisits ImLal South and is impressed

26/6/2017

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Prickly moses seven years on.
PictureAcacia paradoxa and Tanya.
After three years since she last visited, Tanya and I had a pleasant walk through what have become the avenues of trees and shrubs on ImLal South. She was impressed by the growth rate. The trees and shrubs are really ameliorating the wind, creating calm pockets. It was a cold, windy day, so not a lot of birds around – just the usual suspects of wrens, thornbills, white-eared honeyeaters, wattle birds and a grey shrike thrush.

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Early summer bird survey

16/12/2015

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Only Phil and I  ventured forth on the early sumner season bird survey. Swamp harrier and two cormorants were the birds of note for the day. Lots of LBB amongst the shrubs in ImLal South.

Cassinia out in force – even witnessed three impressive clumps in ImLal North (pictured). Also pictured below are the poa grass clumps  in ImLal North.
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Not much going on in winter on the bird front

31/7/2015

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Down to a hard core for the mid-winter bird survey on a bitterly cold (there was flurry of snow!) and windy day. Migrants are all away so only the usuals except for a golden whistler. Magpies are supposedly becoming less common but we sighted 21 of them. Four noisy miners but all in ImLal North, not the centre remnant.

We're at last getting some serious dumps of rain over July. It was soggy around the foot of the hill and in dips on the proposed biolink. Some of the spotted gum on top of the biolink has escaped the ravages of frost (pictured below) as was hoped when we planted 20 or so up there last spring.


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    Gib Wettenhall is interested in how  we carry out large scale landscape restoration that involves the people who live in those landscapes. That, he  believes, would build truly resilient landscapes.

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