Education activities for February and March 2019

On Wednesday 13 February, Pat Bingham gave a talk entitled “Early Birds” to the Deepdene U3A. Twenty-two people attended. The talk was all about early European explorers’ records (c. 1600-1800) of their encounters with Australian birds. Some of these were apparently similar to those they were familiar with and so they were called robins, wrens, magpies and the like (but, in reality, were from biologically quite different families). Others were confusingly ‘mixtures’ like the Anomalous Hornbill, the New Holland Bird of Paradise and the Slender-billed Merops.

On Friday 15 February, U3A Hawthorn began their 2019 monthly bird walks with Pat Bingham. There were 19 attendees including 8 newcomers this year. The bird walk was around the Sinclair Street Wetlands in Glen Iris. Twenty one species were seen including Crested Pigeon, Little Black Cormorant, Masked Lapwing and a feather from an adult Nankeen Night-heron, though sadly, this year we didn’t actually see the bird itself.

On Friday 15 March, bird walk for U3A Hawthorn members was with Pat Bingham to Karkarook Park. It was a dull, cool morning and because of our poor summer rain, the water level in the wetlands was very low.

Fourteen members attended, with 33 species seen, of which the best were an Eastern Great Egret with lovely breeding plumes, a single Black-winged Stilt, a Hoary-headed Grebe carrying a stripy youngster on its back, and several noisy White-plumed Honeyeaters. Sue Wilson has kindly supplied the photographs in this article.

The Doncaster Valley Probus Club, which meets in Doncaster East Invited Janet Hand to talk about the local birds found around Manningham. This is a new club and about 45 members were present on Thursday 21 March. Questions were raised about the large numbers of corellas (Long-billed) in the area at the moment. 80 were seen in one flock earlier in the month.

Thank you Pat and Sue for your contributions.

Janet Hand, BirdLife Melbourne Education Coordinator (Phone 9842 4177)

Education report – May 2018

Wednesday 2 May

23 members of U3A Deepdene came to hear Pat Bingham speak about “Australia – Land of Parrots”.  The lecture covered historical records, old World Maps, modern genetics and recent taxonomy, and stimulated lots of discussion and personal experiences (with both positive and negative comments) of interactions with the Australasian representatives of the family.

Ten ladies from Mercy Place Boronia made their way to the Yarran Dheran Nature Reserve in Mitcham for our annual activities morning. This involved watching a PowerPoint presentation by Janet Hand on ‘Same bird, different feathers’ – the different appearance of birds due to their age and sex. This was followed by a craft activity of making greetings cards using bird photographs and then morning tea. Later, the ladies went for a short walk in the Reserve. Thank you Gay Gallagher and Sonja Ross for your assistance, and Gay for arranging the use of the Yarran Dheran Education Centre.

Sunday 6 May

As part of this year’s Mullum Mullum Festival, Geoff Russell gave a presentation and a short talk in the Information Centre about the history of Yarran Dheran Nature Reserve and the birds that have been recorded in the Reserve. He had a group of 28 people which included a couple children. Weather wise it was a perfect day for birding –  18C, fine, sunny and most importantly no wind. After the talk, he took them on a 3 km walk through the Reserve and along the Mullum Mullum Creek. This lasted just over two hours and they recorded 29 species. They had several good views of Common Bronzewings and King Parrots. Spotted Pardalotes were heard many times but were very difficult to see because of their small size and the tall, dense forest.

Tuesday 15 May

On a cold day, 25 ladies of the Ladies Guild braved the elements at the Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Doncaster. Janet Hand gave a PowerPoint presentation on how to attract birds to their gardens naturally.  This presentation was well received and was followed by a lovely afternoon tea.

Friday 18 May

Hawthorn U3A’s monthly Birdwalk this month was at Norton’s Park & Shepherd’s Bush. As usual this group was led by Pat Bingham. They had 14 attendees and saw 22 species.  The parks were rather quiet except for a very noisy mob of about thirty Sulphur-crested Cockatoos.  Several Eastern Rosellas were feeding in the short grass, a quiet Kookaburra looked for prey in the longer grass and a Grey Currawong having called, moved off quickly.  Once again, the group had good looks at young male Superb Fairy-wrens in non-breeding plumage, but, sadly, the Scarlet Robins, seen well last year, were missing in 2018.

Thank you everyone for your contribution to our program.

Janet Hand, BirdLife Melbourne Education Coordinator (Phone: 9842 4177)

Education activities October 2017

Pat Bingham gave a talk to the East Burwood Probus on 2 October entitled ‘Birding with BirdLife’ – so it was both a bit of history of the formation of the organization and what it does, including advertisement of Bird Week activities. 80 people attended on the day.

On Friday 6 October, Sally Heeps spoke to the Greensborough Salvation Army Triple L Club (Laughter, Lunch and Leisure). Approximately 25 people attended on this day. Her PowerPoint presentation was about the birds of the area with special reference to the Doreen wetlands.

On Saturday 7 October, the Whitlesea Council planned a walk through the Quarry Hills Park, South Morang covering both the Hunters road and Granite Hills sections. This same walk was planned last year but cancelled because of the dangerous windy conditions. This year it was cancelled because of lack of numbers. I thank Sally Heeps for volunteering both years to lead the walks.

A Kinglake West Birdwalk was held on Sunday 8 October. This was the seventh annual birdwalk since the 2009 bushfires which burnt much of this property. Strong winds made it very difficult to hear or see birds this year. I thank Graeme Hosken and Peter Dynes for leading the bird walk this year. Eastern Whipbird was added to the list this year. The total species seen on the property on survey days is now 66.

Janet Hand made a trip to Kilmore to set up an information stall on Saturday 14 October, at the APS Mitchell Plant Expo and Plant sale. The weather was kind and over 200 people attended. Country people certainly are very interested in their gardens and the birds that live in them. It made for some very interesting discussions.

On Sunday 15 October, Graeme Hosken led a Spring Bird Walk at Wilson Botanic Park in Berwick. This was a Breakfast with the Birds event starting at 8am. Although the attendance number was low Graeme tells me the supplied breakfast was lovely. The group saw 24 species and added a Yellow-faced Honeyeater to the Park’s list.

About 40 ladies attended a PowerPoint presentation on Monday 16 October, for the Templestowe Ladies Probus Club. Janet Hand gave this presentation about the ‘Birds found in Manningham.’

On Friday 20 October, Pat Bingham had the U3A Deepdene walk at Jells Park; 20 people, 40 species and a good time was had by all as the Freckled Ducks (two females) sailed past; a pair of Sacred Kingfishers called and were seen briefly; the breeding White Ibis, Cormorants (Great and Little Black) and Reed-Warblers were cacophonous. Attached photos, by Sue Wilson, are fun, especially the Wood Duck with attitude – ‘What a big breast I’ve got!’.

The next day, October 21, Ian Moodie and Pat Bingham led the Spring Bird Survey at Blackburn Lake Creeklands. They had about 25 people and 21 species. Lots of breeding – including Chestnut Teal with ducklings, Magpie-larks building a mud nest, Grey Butcherbird, Kookaburras and White-browed Scrubwrens feeding young, and three Tawny Frogmouths on nests but no sign of young on these nests yet.

Our 19^th Annual Breakfast with the Birds at Banyule was held on Sunday 22 October, 2017. With 116 people enrolled we were ready with our leaders at 7.30am. As light showers passed Janet Hand sent off groups of eight with each leader. Towards the end it was obvious that many of those who had booked failed to attend. I thank my leaders on the morning – Susan Bailey, Pat Bingham, Emma Bond, Alan Crawford, Peter Dynes, Lyn Easton, Anthea Fleming, Robert Grovenor, Sally Heeps, Meg Houghton, Owen Lishmund, Richard Loyn, Ian Muir, Geoff Russell, Scot Sharman. Thanks also to Daphne Hards, Bill Ramsay and Sam (Banyule Council employee) for their assistance with the telescopes at the wetlands. Special thanks to Jim Mead, his assistants and the Banyule City Council for a beautiful sit down breakfast. 73 species were seen in Banyule and 37 in the Warringal area. Three Warringal species were not seen in Banyule so we had a grand total of 76 species for the morning. A dozen species were observed breeding in Banyule and two in Warringal. Eastern Whipbird was added to the Banyule list this year. Our list now totals 123 species for this one day in October. Well done everyone.

My thanks to the many people who have helped with these activities.

Janet Hand, BirdLife Melbourne Education Coordinator (Phone: 9842 4177)

Education report: September 2017

September and October are traditionally the busiest months for education activities and this year is no exception. We started with three different activities on Friday, 8 September.

Firstly, on 8 September Pat Bingham led members of the Deepdene U3A on a birdwalk through Banyule Flats. 11 people attended and 32 species were seen and a good time had by all. Lyn Easton (who happened to be doing her regular morning walk in the area) showed them a Tawny Frogmouth on a nest.  At the swamp they saw Hardheads, Chestnut Teal and Australasian Grebes. Several pairs of Red-rumped Parrots disputed over nest hollows in the old trees in the swamp.  Along the Main Yarra Trail they saw a Fan-tailed Cuckoo and had a pair of Gang-gang Cockatoos fly over.

Also on Friday, 8 September Janet Hand addressed the Hawthorn Glen Combined Probus Club in Camberwell. About 60 members were present to hear about the birds found in the area. Many expressed their surprise at the large number of species around.

That afternoon Janet Hand, Bill Ramsay and Ron Hand set up our display and information stall at the Eltham Plant Expo at the Eltham Community Centre.

The Expo ran on Saturday and Sunday 9-10 September and was run by the APS Yarra Yarra branch of the Australian Plant Society. Many other ‘plant related’ organisations were present as well as many plant sales and displays. Over 700 people attended over the weekend. This number did not include the organisers and helpers at the different displays. Janet Hand was assisted over the weekend by Elizabeth Ainsworth, Daphne Hards, Susan Bailey, Sally Heeps and Anthea Fleming.

The monthly Hawthorn U3A Birdwalk on 15 September was at Wattle Park. 14 people attended on this warm morning with lovely wattles and a big patch of Nodding Greenhood orchids but rather few birds (11 species).  They saw a Tawny Frogmouth on a nest and found another pair, surviving, but their nest had been destroyed and broken egg-shells were on the ground beneath the nest site.  Once again Pat Bingham led this walk.

Also on 15 September Graeme Hosken led a group of 12 people on a bird walk to celebrate the 40^th Anniversary of Fairy Dell. This area was part of the old Healesville Freeway reserved land behind the Wantirna shops. Much of the land was sold for development but this section was saved.

On Monday 25 September Susan Bailey addressed the members of the Darebin U3A.  She spoke about the birds found in that area of Melbourne. With over 50 people attending it was the second largest crowd at a function this year. The topic obviously created a lot of interest and discussion.

‘Attracting birds to your garden naturally’ was the subject of Janet Hand’s Powerpoint to the ladies of the Yarra Valley VIEW Club at Chirnside Park on Tuesday 26 September. Fifty ladies were present for this luncheon and presentation.

On Thursday 28 September Janet Hand made her annual visit to the ladies at the Mercy Hostel in Boronia. This hostel is a member of BirdLife Australia and they are blessed with a range of birds visiting their gardens. The topic changes each year but it was back to the basics of talking about local birds again this year.

My thanks to all those who have assisted this month.

Janet Hand, Birdlife Melbourne Education Coordinator (Phone: 9842 4177)