STEP Matters Number 120, October 2003 In this Issue Walk to Middle Harbour AGM and Talk on Lord Howe Creek Island’s Weed Program Diary Dates .............................. 1 Walk to Middle Harbour Date: Sunday 19 October Date: Tuesday 28 October Creek .................................. 1 Time: 9 am to 11.30 am Time: 7.45 pm AGM and Talk on Lord Howe Place: End of Barrie Street, Place: St Andrews Church Island’s Weed Program....... 1 East Killara Hall (Vernon Street, Report of Bantry Bay Walk ....... 2 Grade: Moderate (a few steep, South Turramurra) Middle Harbour Map ................ 3 rocky and tricky bits) Contact: Neroli Lock What’s Special about Contact: John Balint (9489 5794) Native Bees? ...................... 3 (9498 7527) Rezoning of B2 Corridor .......... 4 Lord Howe Island is one of Would You Like to Become There is still real wilderness in Australia’s most popular ecotour a Committee Member? ....... 4 East Killara. We will walk destinations. Situated 700 km off Pam Morse Environmental through the land of the Guringai Sydney, Lord Howe Island is Education Awards ............... 4 people and see how we are world heritage listed for its Landcare Events ...................... 4 trying to reverse the unique geology, bird and plant environmental degradation of life. About 85% of the island’s this amazingly beautiful land. natural forest remains and STEP Committee seabirds nest in tens of The walk will take a circuit thousands each year. President through the East Killara Michelle Leishman peninsula, to follow the One reason Lord Howe Island Treasurer spectacular shoreline of Middle has remained a gem of natural Thérèse Carew Harbour Creek. Along the way history is because of the low Newsletter Editor we will look at eight Bushcare number of permanent residents. Bruno Krockenberger sites where bush regeneration However this also means that work is being done, and discuss there aren’t many local people Publicity the unique difficulties at each who can take part in Jenny Schwarz site. environmental programs. Web, Membership, Publications Helen Wortham Although the walk is not As with most other places in the strenuous, there are some steep world, some introduced plants Committee Members tricky bits, where care is have become weeds. The local Neroli Lock required. We will need to do a management agency, the Lord John Martyn small amount of walking on local Howe Island Board, has a small Tony Morrison streets to complete the circuit. team of locals who carry out a Kate Read range of environmental programs Hopefully there will still be some including some weed control. wildflowers out! However, since 1995 local Diary Dates Remember to bring water and a naturalist Ian Hutton has also been 19 October Walk to Middle hat as it can be quite hot at this organising ‘weeding’ ecotours. Harbour Creek time of year. Also, children are Here people pay to visit the island very welcome. for a week to assist with weed 28 October AGM and Talk on control programs in the mornings, Lord Howe Island’s and they spend the afternoons Weed Program exploring the island on guided 14 December Christmas barbecue walks. STEP Inc Community-based Environmental Conservation since 1978 PO Box 697, Turramurra, NSW 2074 [email protected] www.step.org.au ABN 55 851 3472 043 Newsletter of STEP Inc, Number 120, page 2 The program got a boost in 1998 The north end of Bantry Bay has Beside the latter we saw a when, through Rymill Abell, bush two of the more spectacular spectacular display of blue sun regenerators from the Lindfield and scenic and landform features in orchids (Thelymitra ixioides) that Lane Cove area became involved. the northern Sydney area. The seemed to go on and on. There Now there are six trips each year, Bluff is a splendid viewing spot, was even a pure white variant. with weeders from all states and looking southwards straight Nobody in the party, including even New Zealand. down Bantry Bay towards the several experienced amateur eastern suburbs. This was our botanists, had ever seen a white After our AGM on Tuesday first major stop on STEP’s spring one before. 28 October, hear Ian Hutton bushwalk led by Gerald Holder present a talk on how the Further on we began to descend on Sunday 30 August. program has evolved, and how it towards the water as we is contributing in a major way to The newly cut steps make it approached the magazine preserving the unique flora of more easily negotiable, where complex. The beautiful heath Lord Howe Island. previously the only descent, or plant Leucopogon setiger was ascent of the cliff was via an common here, and in full bloom, intimidating cleft or fissure. We with its massed, tiny, pendulous, Report of Bantry Bay Walk did not descend here, but back- delicately fringed bell-like John Martyn tracked to follow the newly flowers. It was one of many defined Harbour to Hawkesbury flowering shrub species we There are many reasons for the route down to the Natural Bridge. encountered between here and preservation of bushland, but the This is exactly as its name Flat Rock Beach, along one of exclusion of the public from an implies, a massive natural bridge the most beautiful walking routes area at risk to explosives blasts of sandstone under which Main in the Sydney area. is not usually among them. Creek has cut a tunnel. However much bush around The beach itself is a gem of the Fortunately it didn’t collapse Bantry Bay between Castle ‘best-kept secret’ variety. It is under the weight of the party. Cove, Killarney Heights, sandy, sheltered and features a Forestville and Seaforth is still Walking progress slowed on the backdrop of waterfalls. with us for that reason. Natural Bridge section because The return to the start of our of the frequency of wildflower Most is now part of Garigal walk was quite straightforward viewing stops on the fairly National Park, and so is the but there was no real let up in recently burnt valley slopes, dry historic explosives magazine the interesting flowers we and exposed on the east side complex on the western encountered, and we got to visit and more shady and damp on shoreline. The eastern part of some more beautiful lookouts. the west. the Castle Cove peninsula, with The walking route will be featured its expensive houses and views, We joined the Currie Road on our forthcoming Middle Harbour was also preserved from Track, a firetrail, and headed map series (see next page). housing and is now part of a south, still following the Harbour bushland reserve. to Hawkesbury route, eventually to join with the Magazine Track. A group of volunteer weeders on Lord Howe Island Newsletter of STEP Inc, Number 120, page 3 Middle Harbour Map Plant evolution has determined A few cuckoo bees will parasitise Bruno Krockenberger insect pollination. Flowers that other bees. Native bees do not are open and shallow make die after they sting as introduced In our last newsletter we advised access to their nectar easy and honeybees do, but go on to sting that the launch of our maps of so are pollinated by a number of again. walking tracks in Middle Harbour bees. would be delayed to February or Social bees prefer Turpentines March next year. That schedule The nectar from deeper, more in which to build their nests but still holds, but your editor got a complex flowers like those of the will nest successfully in artificial little bit too enthusiastic in stating pea family can only be reached hives. Semi-solitary ground that the map would be available by bees with special nesting bees may have several before Christmas! adaptations. For example hundred entries to a big Euhesma has long palps and leg underground chamber where the The extensive and intensive hooks to enable it to feed on pea pupae may spend up to two-and- checking work of the tracks has flowers. Long-tongue bees, like a-half years before emerging. proved to be a mammoth, time- the beautiful blue-banded ones, Reed Bees and Carpenter Bees consuming job and we are are generalists while short- are mainly solitary but nest determined not to compromise tongues are more often communally. Every female can the quality of the finished specialist feeders. product for the sake of a few be queen and there are equal weeks. Anybody who has seen Some flowers e.g. Solanacae numbers of males and females, the mapping team at work (which includes tomatoes and unlike the honeybee where the cannot doubt their enthusiasm capsicums) and Hibbertia have queen is the only female and all and must admire the dedication pollen stored in sacs and native the workers are male. invested by them in this project. bees can ‘buzz’ it free. Persoonia are pollinated by a few bees with very short tongues What’s Special about and very long hairs. Native Bees? Flower-bee interaction may not Jenny Schwarz be of mutual benefit. The male of On 26 August Dr Michael Batley one bee species hovers around gave a fascinating talk on the flowers of Lambertia formosa Reed Bees, Australia's least because they attract the females Australian native bees. For the known social bees 25 or so people present walking but he doesn’t transfer pollen or working in the bush will never while doing so. Bees are often seen but not be the same again. Only one local bee species recognised, but after this (Trigona carbonaria) forms a wonderful presentation more of We learnt that Australia has over us are aware of a new and 1500 species of bee. They range social hive and this is also the only one that doesn’t have a varied world of interactions in in length from 24 mm to a tiny our bushland.