Regent planting days 2005 - 2

BIRD: linking the biodiversity community

Category: Regent Honeyeater Project

Perfect spring weather blessed the second Regent Honeyeater Project community planting weekend of the 2005 season. About 70 volunteers returned to a magnificent site we first began planting in 2004. It sits between two of the most important reservoirs of biodiversity in the district: the Winton Creek with its remaining River Red Gums, and a big granite hill with largely intact tree cover.

Neville, the landholder, bought the property in a very run-down state two years ago, and has taken on a huge task in restoring it to health. He has shown extraordinary generosity with the land he has made available for habitat restoration. In 2004 Neville and the Regent team started with a major planting straight up a bare rocky spur leading from the creek to the bush behind the property.

Because of land clearing, over-grazing, and the ravages of rabbits in the worst years before Myxomatosis and Rabbit Calici Virus, most of the topsoil on the bare hills around Lurg is long gone and in places we planted into little more than bare rock, but by selecting tough native species from the local district and planting them with well-proven methods, Ray and the team were confident of a successful long-term result.

That was last year's planting. This year, the team set about doing the same thing — link the creek and the bushland — in a very different way. Instead of planting the barren ridge that connects Winton Creek with the bushland, this year the plan was to revegetate a pair of small, ephemeral creek lines that parallel it to the north.

The first step was to find alternative ways to water stock. With the help of the Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority, Neville was able to install tanks, troughs, pumps and pipelines in more suitable locations. With this taken care of, it is possible to fence off the creeklines and start restoring them to health.

Neville's creeks, eroded and degraded as they are, run through the best soil on the property (much of it washed down from the bare hillsides above). Very little of their old diversity remains, however, just weeds and pasture grasses and, in places, a thin thread of beautiful big Blakely's Red Gums (Eucalyptus blakelyi). Even standing alone without natural understory, these remnant trees still harbour wildlife, most noticably the tiny, brightly coloured Striated Pardalotes that call cheerily from them all day long.

The task for this second community planting weekend of the season was to reproduce something as close to the natural vegetation along the creeks as we could.

Despite wonderful rich soil, the planting wasn't always easy: the better the soil, the more significant a problem weeds become, so it was particularly important to scalp a generous area around each seedling.

The flats were well-prepared with riplines and weeds sprayed, but the banks themselves are too steep to use machinery on and had to be dug by hand. No matter: the volunteers set to work with enthuasiam and by afternoon tea time we had finished the larger of the two creeks (around 2000 plants) and were ready to make a start on the smaller one.

As always, the locals laid on an excellent dinner and those who still had energy to burn attended the bush dance. Sunday's crew was smaller, around 50 planters, but carried on with the second creek successfully. All up, the team planted about 3200 seedlings, around 40 different species, including Blakely's Red Gum, Yellow Box, White Box, Long-leaf Box, Lightwood, Rough Wattle, Prickly-leaf Tea-tree, and the rare Silver-leaf Tea-tree.

Key species for this area are the threatened Brush-tailed Phascogale, which is thought to survive on the hill above, the Squirrel Glider, and more generally a wide range of woodland birds. Streamside habitat is particularly important for the retention of biodiversity. Bushland close to a river or a drainage line typically has more individual plants and animals, and greater diversity of different species. Good soil produces the rich nectar flows that the endangered Regent Honeyeater depends on — though we will have to wait 20 or 30 years before the boxes are mature.

[edit] See also:

• Regent planting days 2005 (1)
• Regent planting days 2005 (3)
• Regent planting days 2005 (4)
• Lurg Hills bird survey
• Regent Honeyeater Project planting days