Greetings all,
Well I visited Bronzewing Flora & Fauna Reserve again this week, as part of
the Victorian Malleefowl Recovery Group's ongoing monitoring program of
malleefowl breeding in north-western Victoria. Bronzewing is 20km south of
Ouyen, and over 80% of it was burnt in a fire in January 2014, including
virtually the entirety of our monitoring site that has been monitored every
year since 1990.
In 2014 we were very excited to find 2 of the 96 mounds we have on GPS being
used as breeding mounds - well down on previous years (our record is 32 from
memory), but after the fire we had not expected any. And the good news is,
the same 2 mounds are again active in the 2015-16 season.
Moreover, the bush is regenerating well - from the number of golden pennants
and burr daisies that have died off, I really wish I had been able to visit
in October for the Spring flower show, instead of copping the heat of
January.
I was rather lax about keeping a bird list but the Jacky Winters were back
in force, many wood-swallows seen overhead, and magpies, grey butcher-birds,
mulga parrots, yellow-throated miners and willie wagtails well in evidence.
And of course, Bronzewing and crested pigeons.
Anyway, here are a few photos from this year:
http://s1141.photobucket.com/user/rmacfarl/library/Uploads/Bronzewing%202016
%20January?sort=3
<http://s1141.photobucket.com/user/rmacfarl/library/Uploads/Bronzewing%20201
6%20January?sort=3&page=1> &page=1.
You can also look at last year's photos which I posted in my 2014 Bronzewing
Diary:
http://s1141.photobucket.com/user/rmacfarl/library/Uploads/Bronzewing%202014
?sort=3
<http://s1141.photobucket.com/user/rmacfarl/library/Uploads/Bronzewing%20201
4?sort=3&page=1> &page=1
(That post also led to this article in the Weekly Times, which has since led
me to repeatedly claim, on dubious evidence, that I'm now a "published
photographer" :-) :
http://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au/news/national/surprise-malleefowl-survivors
-found-in-the-ashes-of-a-bushfire/story-fnkfnspy-1227112510053)
My thanks to David, Alec and Sharon, Maria, Ted and my sons Lachlan and
Archie, who helped complete the work under trying conditions...
Cheers,
Ross Macfarlane
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