TOP NOTES and for Wildlife Top End L Newsletter - DEC 2014 in This Issue
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TOP NOTES and for Wildlife Top End L Newsletter - DEC 2014 In This issue nspiration from living in the bush I- stories from land for wildlife members; including painter photographer Jacinda Brown, new Adelaide River region. ear about Ray and Sue’s Hassessment process in Dundee Beach. ew members join in Adelaide NRiver ildlife photographer Jacinda WBrown tells her story. eature plants of the season- FBush Tucker- Red Apple and Cocky Apple and calendar plants in the bush orkshops reviews- Trees for WWildlife and Aquatic plants ildlife Feature - the black footed Wtree rat. onservation Action plan for the CGreater Darwin region asmine Jan, well known Top End watercolour artist and Land J for Wildlife member hosts our latest LFW aquatic landscapes and propagation workshop- Page x From the coordinator would like to thank properties in Howard Springs and Humpty Doo (see articles I Dr Greg Leach for on pp. 11 and 12) and 15 new properties fully registered, all his work on Land two other properties assessed and working towards for Wildlife over the rehabilitation and 12 new applications lined up for next year. last couple of years It is also great to welcome members with properties in the and handing on some Adelaide River and Dundee Beach areas, and we would like to of his vast botanical focus o growing hubs in these and other areas, so eventually knowledge of the we can have the opportunity to run appropriate workshops Top End region, further afield, as well as continue these in the immediate for his sharing and rural area and encourage networks of land managers to work patient nature and and communicate together in sub groups. Next year I will also to acknowledge his be looking at a focus on neighbouring properties working lifelong work in the together in Land Management and linking members that are field of conservation in proximity to each other. and botanical science. Greg has e now have nearly 200 members and it has been just retired and has Wencouraging to get high attendance for workshops and handed over the some great contributions for articles. We are keen to receive Land for Wildlife feedback on the program and hear from members about program over, he did his final official LfW assessment with what they would like to receive in the way of resources, me last week in Humpty Doo on the property of an ex Parks workshops and interaction; some people we understand and Wildlife ranger. We have a feeling we will see him from prefer to be quietly working away and enjoying their block time to time and he will help out with some occasional and are happy to just display their Land for Wildlife sign to field work and assessments.. I will take this opportunity to acknowledge their commitment to the management of their introduce myself as the new coordinator, and will run the land for wildlife conservation. We will be sending out a survey program with the assistance of other Greening Australia in the next few months to gauge everyone’s interest and that staff. members are still out there and happy with their involvement in the program. have been helping with LfW behind the scenes and have I been slowly taking on more involvement. I have been e also have been working on a new website and working as a project officer at Greening Australia for over Wfacebook page. The website is slowly growing in content a year, mainly with the Howard Sand Sheet Project (with and holds all the previous newsletters, it has some land rehabilitation research and management of this sensitive management tabs to assist members to access information and significant Landscape type). Before all this I have worked about various land management issues, we will be adding a with both native and productive plants with a focus on catalogue of native plant and animal species, publish news educational gardens and urban sustainability in the Darwin and events and a membership form and information about region and studied a Bachelor of Environmental Science at the program can also be found. CDU. I am passionate about the conservation of our native hope you enjoy the articles in the newsletter, this issue is ecosystems and feel blessed to live in this region with large I full of members’ stories. We look forward to hearing from tracts of relatively undisturbed landscapes, which I am you or seeing you in the future constantly learning more about. I especially love meeting the people that live within and care for theses amazing landscapes and look forward to further assisting in the management of them mma t has been a busy 7 months for LfW with a presence at the E Lupin Tropical Garden Spectacular, two successful workshops at I Land for Wildlife Newsletter 2 | December 2014 Inspiration from the bush- A bird Lover’s story, Denise Goodfellow, LFW member and author; of Darwin River tells her story arrived in the Top End in early 1975 and new husband, Michael Stott, I managed to international birders are delighted to see I immediately set about trying to learn complete the plates for Birds of Australia’s this bird, now so difficult to find in Kakadu, the fauna and flora. As a member of the Top End. Launched in 2000, this book within spitting distance of the house. Uniting Church’s Aboriginal Women’s contained much Aboriginal information Resource Centre committee I spent much from my adoptive family, Kunwinjku eeds have been our biggest time hunting and gathering with the people of western Arnhem Land. In that Wbugbear. The next door neighbour women. Together we tried to introduce same year we collaborated on the Lonely has a wonderful crop of mature Gamba schoolchildren and others to Top End Planet’s Guide to Aboriginal Australia, my and Mission Grass. We realised it would wildlife in the form of mangrove worms relatives writing about bush medicine, always keep seeding into one area of our and longbums - shellfish with green flesh. weaving and Dreamings. property and so we planted trees, and covered the rest of that area with old n 1981 I was elected to Darwin City y 2004 our Parap house was being corrugated iron and sisalation. ICouncil on the platform of conserving Bcrowded in by development. mangroves. The only way I won that International birders had loved visiting our owever, a more insidious weed argument was by highlighting the value large yard with its little patch of monsoon Happeared just before last Wet of mangals to fish stocks. It was quite forest, but I could see the day coming Season - Rat’s-tailed Grass, Sporobuls sad to learn that our City Fathers (and when surrounded by tall blocks of units, jaquemontii… This tough species is Mothers) seemed to care so little about we would be an island. So we moved difficult to mow or pull up, and having Top End habitats. After leaving Council to Bakewell, Palmerston. But alas the sticky seeds it hitches a ride on birds, I became a biological consultant and wonderful forest and mangroves where wallabies, dogs and humans. It is hard to birdwatching/natural history guide. In I took my birding clients and researched identify when not seeding, and so people the former role I spent much time alone my books, was rapidly disappearing. And might easily miss it. But having seen the in remote areas surveying fauna and flora. so in May, 2013 we shifted again, buying rate at which it has taken over part of our I often worked alone and unarmed, which 20 acres at Letchford Road, Darwin River. grassland, I don’t think this grass augers really honed my skills at reading wildlife well for our native granivores. behaviour. immediately fell in love with the almost I pristine open forest, the native grassland, o control fire we used a three-prong n 1987 my then husband, Hilary and the braided wetlands. Patersonia was Tattack. First we rid our open forest of IThompson, and I produced the NT’s first flowering in the forest as were a selection all Mission and Gamba Grass. Then I raked bird book. That Territorians knew little of grevilleas, and the grassland was dotted speargass from large areas of our open about their wildlife was brought home to with pinks, purples and yellows of various forest, concentrating, in particular, around us when the book was seized by customs wildflowers, and over a dozen species of hollow logs and old trees. We only burn in on return from our Singapore printers. native grass. But what really took my eye the Wet Season, not large areas, but just The title, Common Birds of the Darwin was the morning sunshine in the braided sand palms and pandanus and discrete Area, convinced those worthy people that woodland. The rays penetrated the areas of speargrass. Those burnt areas we were importing pornography. Only in canopy of Swamp Mahogany to highlight will then be left for up to five years before the Territory! an understorey of yellow-centred, mauve repeating the process. Burning in the Wet Osbeckia australiana growing among still takes caution, and juggling with wind fter Hilary and I separated I followed tall grass, Eriachne sp. In the Wet Season and rain. this up with other fauna books. One, the braided wetland is alive with native A ut to be out in the forest, the sky Fauna of Kakadu and the Top End, has fish and prawns and frogs. At that time blackening under huge cumulo- been a core text of the University of NSW one can see Black Bittern stalking the B nimbus and backlit with sheet lightning; for fourteen years.