What's New   Environmental Awards The Friends of Damper Creek Reserve was nominated as a finalist for the Monash World Environment Day 2008. Fauna Sighting in the Reserve Updated 27.7.09 Here is the latest diary entry extracted from the Damper Creek Newsletters over the years. July 2009 Birdbrain, me by Robert Yates Heading home around the corner of Belbird reserve from High Street Rd into Sunhill Rd a few years ago, I was approached by a clearly distressed black duck. It came within about a metre of me, appearing to be injured. When I tried to pick it up it backed away towards the storm water drain. There was no way it would let me catch it so I started to head home. Seeing this, the duck approached me again and as I started to head to the drain it moved even faster towards it. Clearly this was desperation on behalf of the duck as it approached me again when I started moving away. I began to notice it's wing was drooping and it was hobbling. I followed it all the way to the drain. This was no injured bird! It was desperate. Coming from the drain were these high pitched squeaks. When I looked inside, from the height of the guard rail, eight one day old ducklings were scurrying backwards and forwards, unable to get out. Yep, the old "bird with the injured wing" trick, and I fell for it. There's a sucker born every day I guess. No dumb bird this little black duck, it was a cry for help. Thanks to the local wildlife carer with an extendable pool scoop, a cat carry box and much effort, mum and the chicks received a chauffeur drive to be rehoused in Damper Creek. All true. Oh, and one more thing, the next day there were storms. If it wasn't for this quick thinking bird, all would have been lost in a deluge. New and Unexpected Visitors by Judy Borg Warm and sunny days in late May and June have made for much joy in bird life at Damper Creek. In late May I encountered my first family group of Yellow tailed black cockatoos: a family group of eight in the trees up from Tarella Bridge. I was on the mulch covered, high path opposite them across the creek and able to observe them closely, at tree top level. They were eight in all: parents and four young birds, with two juveniles on a bare tree beside. Their calling - a "creaky gate" sound, kept a regular beat. The female parent looked good natured but dowdy, with dark brown breast feathers and low, dull cream cheeks. Two young birds challenged the juveniles for their vantage point on the bare tree and were immediately shooed back. Family groups and larger numbers of the Yellow tailed black cockatoos visited through June - while on that wonderfully warm and sunny day June 19 (almost winter solstice) I came across perhaps 40 birds in the trees opposite the fern gully and the remnant bushland on the east side - a lovely sight as the afternoon sun caught the long yellow tail feathers and contrasting black of some birds that were constantly moving, joying in the sun and plentiful food. We've had other exotic visitors too - including a young Crimson Rosella on Queen's Birthday, her brilliant red and purple equal to any livery. (Our one only Crimson Rosella is overjoyed with his mate!) But the most exotic bird I noted that week was a beautiful LARGE duck with French-grey head and silvery collar and a brown and white body: certainly not a native. It was paddling in the lake with our resident breeding black duck pair and later flew with them to their favourite pool past Tarella Bridge. Next day I saw it sleeping on one yellow leg on a reed bed, beside a comatose chestnut teal! It kept company with Junior too, when he put in an appearance. (Junior's mate may have returned to her old haunt, since June is the one month between February and November when Black Ducks don't breed!). Let's hope the advent of the breeding season doesn’t disturb the blood line or serendipity on Damper Creek pond. January 2009 Tortoise Spotting by Judy Borg At Damper Creek, the summer of 08/09 might be called Year of the Tortoise, for everyone who stops to look across the lake from the new little fence will see the young long necked tortoise on the opposite shore, neck extended, sunbaking. (It is here, too, that the young duck, Junior, and his new mate, brought their brood of ten hatched ducklings down to try the water, for the first time.) Last year the young tortoise was a new hatchling and if you knew where to look on the opposite shore, you could see him warming himself in the sun beside his dinner plate sized parents. But I must admit I wasn't good at tortoise spotting initially. Often times, walking through the wetlands, I would pass the upper, breeding pool, to hear a splash - and sometimes glimpse a brown shape disappearing off a half submerged tree trunk. "Dash it! I've missed it again", I'd say, thinking it was a duck - but never thinking "tortoise"! Sometimes I'd see large bubbles near the bank - though never a duck emerging. This year we've seen ducks aplenty, with now two breeding pairs of black (read "brown") duck and occasional visits from chestnut teal and even a pair of wood ducks. (Have you seen the male posing, halfway up a tree trunk?!) But where is the tortoise pair, I wonder? Could it be that with this year's slow beginning to mid summer heat, they haven't warmed up yet? Keep an eye open for more developments across the lake! December 2008 POBBLEBONK FROGS (Banjo Frogs) by Judy Borg A large number of pobblebonk frogs inhabit the lake (or large pond) 100 metres from the Park Rd. entrance. Through warm mid days in late spring and early summer, their off-beat "bopping" makes wonderful music. There is an increasingly urgent chorus as the noon days heat up and then a female chorus, higher and lighter, starts in over the top: wonderful music! (I wonder if their syncopated rhythms haven't been copied by bush bands.)I haven't seen the mating orgy, but noted the outcome viz. a floating island of fertilized pobblebonk eggs and sperm loosely threaded with vegetable matter, about 120 centimetres across. The frogs themselves are usually invisible, though there is one character that joins in early, with a loud bop from below the dam wall. But rain on a hot night recently (Dec.2008) brought the frogs out in force to feed along wet paths and banks. Probably the brown grubs (flashing orange), spilling from decayed branches - and so prevalent this summer, after four years of drought - were a special delicacy. There are a few other pobblebonk characters that inhabit small pools further along the track. You might wonder why they choose them - for the pools often dry out in summer. They don't worry: they just estivate (opposite of hibernate) ie. They bury themselves deep in sand and clay until heavy rain! November 2008 Bird Spotting by Judy Borg Today, as I looked closely at the colorful poster display of native birds (on the west side of the Stephensons Rd. board) I realised that, bar the lyre bird and the shrike tit and maybe one or two others, I'd seen all those birds on my walks through the Reserve in the past two years. What a bright display they make - though I think the Eastern rosella pair I saw today - brilliant scarlet flashing above green grass - outshone the ones on the poster. I think it was all of two years ago when I encountered the goshawk pair near their nest in a tall gum atop the Tarella Rd. bridge - and later saw their fluffy, French grey babies. More recently, I came across a blue wren and his mate along the high path just north of the bridge. With his quick movements and flirting tail he was a delight to watch - while I smiled to think that some of the early Friends group, who still talk of the blue wren's nest, safe in a big blackberry patch beside Middle Bridge, later cleared, would be pleased to see them too. A few days later I saw an elegant masked spinebill, sipping nectar from a yellow flowering bush along the path - then he flew to a branch nearby and burst into brilliant song. While at first I never noticed the larger red-brown pilot birds who feed on the slopes above the bridge, so well camouflaged against the mulch as they quietly dig for grubs and insects in groups of six or eight. (Frequently all you may notice is the cup sized holes, left behind.) One day recently I stopped short in my walk along the wetlands path to peer at something- then turned to look at the little waterfall on my left, just as a pipit popped out onto the rocks beside it. They must be shy, I thought - wondering how many little birds might wait for walkers to pass by. I'd never seen a pipit before and wondered how many shy small birds we might see if we suddenly freeze. But one unusual visitor to Damper Creek: a yellow crested bronze wing pigeon, was not shy at all - or, at least, not with me. I encountered him one morning in late summer, when I'd gone down to photograph the dawn ceremony at the lake. The ducks were scarcely visible in the dark, but the bronze wing, with his little floppy hat of purest yellow, certainly was. It seemed to me that he was humming a little tune too, as he worked away beside me, foraging in the leafy mulch, in a companionable way. I met him again later that week - foraging at noon on the path beside the gate down to the lake. But he didn't seem to know me - or, at least, went on working as before. Then the sun caught his wing as he rose in the air - and shot it with bronze and slate grey and pink - and I went on my way feeling privileged. "Common bronze wing"? Not to me! While now I'm thinking we should all feel very privileged for the beautiful Reserve we sometimes take for granted - and thankful for the brave ones who worked to save Damper Creek and establish the Friends of Damper Creek group long ago. Previous diary entries may be found at: Diary Entries all