National Tree Day      

A most successfull morning with fifteen Landcarers attending even though the morning was cold and occasionally wet. We cooked the tradional sausage in bread for passing island visitors, handed out lots of literature on bird life, plant life and how to keep them.  lots of  We gave away lots of trees and understory plants too.   Pam donated a box of limes to hand out to one and all.  Coffee was very welcome on a cold morning. The highlight of the morning was a young femal koala climbing down from a nearby tree and walking accross the park, with a very young joey clinging on, to the delight of a couple of Indian families and a French couple. The Sun even came out.

NATIONAL TREE DAY

Once again it is the time of year when we celebrate our wonderful trees in all their diversity of form and foliage, flower and bark.  As you walk among them look closely at the way they “twist” out of the ground, or lean into the wind; at the many different ways they cloth themselves with bark.  See how many insects and birds move among them, feeding and sheltering.

Our region has many lovely drives enhanced by beautiful trees to shade us, look at Forge Creek Road, what a joy it is to drive down, sunlight dappling the road as we go. 

 

The large gums in the township area are the remnants of the original old forest.

How poor would our island be without them

 

 

CATHY DOES IT AGAIN FOR RAYMOND ISLAND LANDCARE
Saturday night was the celebration dinner for East Gippsland Landcare Network to mark twenty one years of Landcare.  What a great night it was with attendance from Landcare Groups all over the district.  There was a lovely meal, there was great music, provided by the Briagalong Bush Band, and the climax of the evening was the presentation by the four finalists in the Ditty Challenge. 
The Ditty Challenge was issued to all groups to write new words reflecting their Landcare Group, to the Wild Colonial Boy tune.  The four finalists were two entries byTambo Bluff, Pest Plant and Animal Sub Committee, and Raymond Island, penned by Cath Woods.  After much hilarity as all the entries were sung and judged by applause - our entry won. 
Congratulations Cath you did it again.

 

Flora Report June 2018

We have worked very hard planting out about 6000 new plants on the island in the last month, mostly at The View, Corner and The Track.

In this report, I went to see how The Wedge is looking as we have not had a working bee there for a long time. Apart from a need to spot spray the very small amount of bracken now coming through, there is no work needed as the Wedge is fully revegetated and doing very well. The plants are a combination of our planting and self sown or regenerated understorey. There is a huge proportion of burgan and aotus pea filling up the area. Also a lot of platysace, broom spurge, dampiera, heath and trigger plants. Many of the self seeded mannas are reaching good heights as well as the wattle trees, and a lot of those we planted are quite healthy. I noticed that there is a lot of moss covering the ground especially at the wider tip site end where the ground is fairly damp although there is moss at the narrower end but the ground there is drier. Probably a problem that should be addressed at some stage is that the grass from the tip site continues to encroach on the top end of The Wedge and we don’t want it to spread through the site.   

Claire

GREAT DAY AT ROBS RUN

a busy day planting out the last of our seedlings for this year.  Eleven islanders,and five Guunaikurnai Rangers worked togeher to ensure a great future for the Islands wild life and, human residents.
It was very exciting to see the patch of Beauty Bush Rob has protected.  This notoriously difficult to propogate plant has come up spontaniousely from seed dormant in the the soil waiting for the braken to be removed.

Fauna:

Four Rakali (native water rat) have been seen along the boardwalk.  There have been big pods of dolphin around in both the lakes and the straits, the seal hasn’t been spotted for a few weeks, though the occasional Rakali carcase indicates it is still around. Rabbit numbers are reduced but there are still plenty around.

Birds: a flock of 30 Brown Headed Honeyeater have been seen, also a Royal Spoonbill on the boardwalk.  Also seen was the Australasian Darter (snake bird).  At the corner of ninth two Pacific Herons (White Necked Heron) flew over, but I was unable to photograph them. On this morning’s walk I saw a swamp Harrier try and fail to take a Coot.

Rob Wright

 

                   

WORKING BEE 14th June at The Corner
a near perfect sunny winter morning for twelve Landcarers to get out there and get dirty. Holes were dug, guards laid out , plants distributed then planted and guarded and , finally, watered in.  Now pray for gently rain to give them a good start.