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Black Spur Creek Wetlands Project (BSCW) - Update 24 February 2021

We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of these lands and waters.

Link to our website

Platypuses are now officially listed as vulnerable in Victoria. This makes the Black Spur Creek Wetland Project, and other work of Landcare and the West Gippsland Catchment Management Authority (WGCMA), all the more important. Platypuses inhabit the Tarwin River and we see them in the Black Spur Creek Wetland project area.

Fortunately the 7th February landslip, which has caused partial (so far) closure of the South Gippsland Highway, does not seem to impact directly on the river or the fossil site. We may have more information on the implications in coming days and weeks.

As we undertake our monthly bird monitoring, Landcare members watch, with interest, the massive landscape changes being undertaken during highway construction. We’re hanging on to our long term vision of “a beautiful natural area” with “its unique ecological functions and features protected and restored.” We’re urging the various land managers – Major Road Projects Victoria, Vic Roads, South Gippsland Shire, and WGCMA to take a coordinated and integrated approach to weed control and vegetation restoration.

It’s great to see our president, Sue Miles, is recovering well at home and is still taking a keen interest in this project.

CPB have installed the first diversion on the rail trail this week so they can start the earthworks to build the underpass in this area. It will change a couple more times over the coming weeks as earthworks progress.

The adjacent photo shows one of the habitat logs that was removed and taken to the offset site.

An echidna still walks through the works area apparently.

In spring, a large swallows nest (Dusky Wood Swallow I think?) was successfully relocated to a nearby tree outside of the project area (see photo). Wood Swallows are not closely related to the Welcome Swallows that nest in our eaves and are familiar to most people. Wood Swallows are more closely related to Currawongs, Butcher Birds and Magpies.

Relocated swallow’s nest.

On the subject of Magpies, they tend to be taken for granted in our rural landscapes but to enhance your enjoyment and appreciation of these unique, intelligent, and complex birds, I recommend the book “Australian Magpie: Biology and Behaviour of an Unusual Songbird” by Gisela Kaplan (available from the West Gippsland Library). Gisela is a scientist who has spent decades studying and handling magpies.

Tuesday 4th February was World Wetlands Day which encourages the protection of all wetlands. In 2021 it is celebrating 50 years since the signing of the Ramsar Treaty to protect significant wetland sites.

This year’s theme shines a spotlight on wetlands as a source of freshwater and encourages actions to restore them and stop their loss.

We are facing a growing freshwater crisis that threatens people and our planet. We use more freshwater than nature can replenish, and we are destroying the ecosystem that water and all life depend on most – Wetlands.

The 2021 campaign highlights the contribution of wetlands to the quantity and quality of freshwater on our planet. Water and wetlands are connected in an inseparable co-existence that is vital to life, our wellbeing and the health of our planet.

(taken from https://www.worldwetlandsday.org/about )

Kate Walsh, Coordinator, Black Spur Creek Wetland Project, for Nerrena/Tarwin Valley Landcare Group.R

Nerrena Tarwin Valley Landcare Group News

Our Next Meeting

We have invited ourselves to a walk in Hamman’s Bush with the Arawata Landcare Group on March 5th.

We will meet in the car park at the corner of Fairbank Road/Leongatha Nth Road and Wild Dog Valley Road at 5.30pm and go for a walk through the bush looking at the Arawata Landcare Group’s pittosporum control work. We will have a BBQ tea, so bring your own everything.

National icon, the platypus, declared a threatened species in Victoria

A new citizen science project using eDNA technology to map the distribution of platypuses in Victoria will hopefully help reverse declines.

The proposed project will ask citizen scientists around Victoria to collect water samples from designated sites during the breeding season for platypuses (August-October) and to share the samples with EnviroDNA’s laboratory to be screened for platypus DNA. Victorians will also be encouraged to submit sightings of platypuses via the platypusSPOT web platform or app with all results to be shared online in real-time for the Victorian public to view.

Odonata and EnviroDNA are calling on Victorians to not only donate to the project but to sign up as a potential volunteer by visiting its website. The majority of funding will go towards providing more than 2000 free testing kits to be sent to citizen scientists and the analysis of all samples for the presence of platypus DNA.

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