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CONSERVATION
NEWS
August–September 2020
Meetings
Third Wednesday of the
month, 1.30 pm
September meeting:
Caloundra Power Boat
Club, 2 Lamerough From the August Meeting
Parade, Golden Beach September Meeting
Executive With the warmer and possibly wetter weather on its way, and
mosquitoes already on the prowl, we are moving from Ben
President: John Roberts Bennett Bushland Park. John has arranged future Covid-safe
meetings at the Caloundra Power Boat Club at Golden Beach,
Vice-Presidents: Jill with plenty of room and easier parking.
Chamberlain, Paul Smith
Secretary: Jude Crighton Isabel Jordan Bushland Reserve
(Ph: 5491 4153) Our meeting with Cr Baberowski (Div 1) to discuss the
Queensland Air Museum plan to extend into the Reserve on 25
Treasurer: Judy Burns (Ph: August will be re-scheduled due to his present illness. We have
5441 3913) indicated our support for a Council-facilitated community
Minutes: Jenny Gursanscky consultation involving all parties.
We received positive feedback from MP Mark McArdle and LNP
Contact candidate for Caloundra Stewart Coward following their walk-
through of the Reserve with Jill, Jude and John; both MP and
PO Box 275, CALOUNDRA candidate expressed a wish to see QAM re-plan their proposed
Q 4551 facilities, allowing a ‘win-win’ for the environment and the
museum. The other candidates for the seat of Caloundra will also
Email be informed.
sunshine@wildlife.org.au If you haven’t yet signed our petition to State Government,
which closes on 5 September just prior to the last sitting before
Faunawatch the October election, here is the link:
https://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/work-of-
Coordinator: Paul Smith assembly/petitions/petition-details?id=3374
Ph: 5443 8315: email: Jude informed key ministers (Environment, Treasurer and
faunawatch@wildlife.org.au Infrastructure & Planning) as well as our local MPs and the
DNRM&E of this counter-petition to QAM’s. All parliamentarians
will be advised before its presentation.
Our thanks to Caloundra Following articles in the Sunshine Coast Daily promoting the QAM
MP Mark McArdle and staff viewpoint, we approached the Daily and were given the
for their generous support opportunity to present our case. Reporter Ashley Carter walked
in the photocopying of with Jude and Helen in the Reserve and wrote a balancing piece
Conservation News that acknowledged the environmental value and the significance
of Isabel’s community work. SCEC’s media release on the issue,
which prompted another news article and alerted other
environment groups to the precedent being proposed is much
appreciated. A small piece including a link to our petition was
Page 2
featured in the free publication MyWeeklyPreview. We are also
grateful to Head Office and other groups and individuals who
Advance Dates have shared our petition. In particular we have heard from Isabel
Wildlife Qld AGM Jordan’s daughter Lyn, who has written a heartfelt letter to MP
Mark McArdle, speaking of the human and plant and wildlife
Saturday 26 September at communities that draw sustenance from the Reserve.
Redlands Lions Club. Trevor Shelton of the Gold Coast Branch of Native Plants
Details on wildlife.org.au Queensland, with an interest in the bee flora of IJBR and other
website. reserves in the Caloundra locality, has very kindly funded the
printing and distribution in the Caloundra West area of 8000
Faunawatch Outings flyers supporting our case; the first response from a resident,
offering assistance, has been most encouraging.
Any cancellation of
outings due to Covid-19 Shelly Beach
will be notified by email. Following Council’s report (1087 pages, two-thirds of which were
There is no outing in blank or redacted ‘in the public interest’) John is seeking an
internal review via a meeting with the Manager, Corporate
August due to the
Governance.
Wildflower Festival walks.
Sunshine Coast Wildflower Festival walks:
The Ben Bennett Bushland Park walk was a success, with 18
28 September, 8 am: attendees, guided in small groups by Jill, Sue, Jenny, Jude and
Isabel Jordan Bushland Helen with additional expert assistance from Allan Carr of Native
Reserve, Pathfinder Drive Plants Queensland, and author of the excellent A field guide to
native plants of Bribie Island and nearby coastal South-east
(off Caloundra Road),
Queensland.
Caloundra West The highlight at Isabel Jordan Bushland Reserve will be masses of
We will look at this heath Boronia; at Kathleen McArthur Conservation Park we hope to see
area, one of the last on the the usual glorious contrasting yellow and white blossoming along
coast, and its surrounds. the broad fire-breaks (recently made wider prior to prescribed
burns), despite missing out on some of the beauties along the
Meeting point: Parking narrower tracks due to social distancing.
along Pathfinder Drive Sue Aspland has kindly built on lists of plants from previous
years, and Covid-safe groups of five are perfect for effective
demonstration and will be the model for future walks.
26 October, 8 am:
Wild / Flower Women III
South River Park – East, In the footsteps of the Festival, Dr Sue Davis, who in 2017 was
South River Drive, inspired to honour Kathleen McArthur and Judith Wright as Wild /
Mooloolah Valley Flower Women, is co-curating with Nina Shadforth a new
After another two years of exhibition of work by 11 women artists at the Gympie Regional
Gallery from 8 October to 28 November.
re-growth since our last
https://www.wildflowerwomen.net/2020-exhibition.html
visit it will be interesting
to see how this area is Ben Bennett Bushland Reserve
progressing. Caloundra Residents Association (President Brady Sullivan) is
Meeting point: By the writing to MPs and the Department of Transport & Main Roads re
playground on South River the proposed off-ramp through the southern end of Ben Bennett
Park.
Drive, Mooloolah
Following the Sunshine Coast Council QFES-approved prescribed
burn in the north-eastern area beside the Caloundra High School
Conservation News August/September 2020
Page 3
in May, regeneration is happening well after the rain, with a
23 November, 8 am variety of understory plants emerging.
The Friends of Ben Bennett Facebook page is attracting much
Upper Coochin Creek interest:
Environmental Reserve, https://www.facebook.com/groups/friendsofbenbennett
Caralan Way, Beerwah
USC Environment Studies student prize
Reaching from Tower Hill We are again providing $500 as a prize for a high-achieving Year
to the west, along Upper 2 ES student at the University of the Sunshine Coast.
Coochin Creek to the
Beerwah High School The possibility of WPSQ Sunshine Coast & Hinterland Inc
bushlands and train tracks becoming a co-sponsor of a realistic wildlife artwork was raised
to the east, this remnant by member Anne Wensley as an alternative to the now no longer
old growth and riparian funded Bird artwork prize shown annually at the Caloundra
zone can produce over 55 Regional Gallery over some years. This privately funded prize and
species of birds. the associated Junior Bird artwork prize have attracted entries
from across Australia, but a broader-based wildlife subject could
Meeting point: be an opportunity for WPSQ to achieve a greater public profile.
We would need to attract other sponsors to support this
Corner of Caralan excellent idea and welcome your thoughts.
Way/Emma Place next to
Caralan Way Park (this is
different to the meeting Faunawatch with Paul Smith
point for previous surveys). Acquittal of the 2019-20 grant has been completed, however
funding may not materialise this financial year for our
Community Partnership Wildlife Project due to Covid-19.
Second Wednesday Walks See ‘Advance Dates’ for the September, October and
(8 am) at Maroochy November Faunawatch walks. Faunawatchers will be notified
Regional Bushland Botanic by email closer to the time of each outing if there are any
Gardens on 9 September, changes.
14 October and 11
November. August/September
Kathleen McArthur’s pieces from The Bush in bloom for these
months engage with the abundance of local pea flowers and look
further afield to the wildflowers of Queensland’s western dry
lands. Speaking of August, Kathleen notes, ‘Officially winter it
may be, but spring comes early here.’
‘While the flowering of August gives us every colour in the
spectrum, all others are dominated by the yellow pea-flowers, of
which there are so many genera: Dillwynia, Aotus, Pultanea,
Phyllota, Platylobium, Gompholobium, Oxylobium, Jacksonia,
Viminaria, to name the more showy…Visitors to the Midyim
wildflower shows would come to me to tell me that I had
incorrectly named a bush pea, so I would alter as instructed, to
please. Then someone else, with a worried expression, would
inform me that name was wrong, so it would be changed again,
until it became my private joke.’
‘In this part of the world, the islands of Moreton Bay have their
pink Coast Boronia; the Wallum plains their red Wallum Boronia;
Conservation News August/September 2020
Page 4
Fraser Island and Cooloola have their Wide Bay Boronia—all gifts
of September.’
Council wants your Those of us lucky enough to get away during these Covid
views on pet lockdowns and visit the western plains can recognise species
management Kathleen describes and illuminates with her September stories of
those European explorers who gave their names to plants, or to
Sunshine Coast Council is botanists honoured for their work. Rated highly by Kathleen for
seeking your input as a pet his ‘effort, skill and results’ and his care for his co-explorer
owner (or not) to their Gibson, ‘Ernest Giles would probably have seen most of the 110
Domestic Animal species of Erempohila [desert-loving], covering the widest range
Management (Cats and of colours, on plants from small shrubs to trees.’ Kathleen
Dogs) Strategy. Their goal painted the Eremophila gilesii or Charleville Turkey Bush.
is to ‘create harmonious
co-existence between
people, pets and places’,
and we hope ‘places’
includes the natural
environment.
Have your say on what you
would like Council to focus
on in relation to
'responsible pet ownership' Eremophila gilesii at
over the next 10 years by Kilcowera Station, south-west
Qld; photo Helen Kershaw
completing the online
survey:
https://haveyoursay.sunshinecoast.qld.gov.au Brunonia australis or Blue Pincushion is ‘a gem…with brilliant
blue flowers with yellow style-tips, grey-green stem and sap-
green leaves’. The flower honours Robert Brown, ‘who by his
The survey closes at 4 pm detailed and original studies of Australian plants contributed so
Monday 31 August. conspicuously to the scientific results of Flinders’s voyage to
You might like to refer to Terra Australis’—words of a noted authority at the British
the Threatened Species Museum of Natural History, quoted by Kathleen.
Recovery Hub study
mentioned in our
June/July Conservation
News:
https://www.nespthreatenedspecies.edu.au/
Select the News tab and
scroll down to ‘Each
roaming pet cat kills 110
native animals per year on Brunonia australis at
average’; lots of other Kilcowera, south-west Qld;
photo Helen Kershaw
studies on cats also.
The Bush in Bloom: a wildflower artist’s year in paintings &
words, by Kathleen McArthur, Kangaroo Press, 1982
Conservation News August/September 2020Page 5
And more…
Sunshine Coast Council is Wildlife Queensland has entered the Richmond Birdwing
moving to reduce the Butterfly into the The ANiMOZ Aussie Wildlife Vote 2020.
printing of wildlife
information leaflets (that The vote runs until 31 August and supports an Australian-made
often end up in the bin) by trading card game that aims to make people of all ages—
revising their printed and particularly our future leaders—fall back in love with Australia’s
unique native fauna, facing extinction from climate change,
DVD materials and placing
habitat destruction and more. Wildlife Queensland is one of 20
up-to-date information on organisations working hard to stop species from disappearing
their website (go to the forever. If WQ’s Butterfly is voted in, it will have its own card in
Council website, choose the the game and WQ will receive funds from the sale of the ANiMOZ
Environment tab, then
packs. https://animoz.world
Education Resources & Events
to reach Environment
‘The Richmond birdwing butterfly is one of Australia’s largest
Resources & Publications).
and most beautiful butterflies. Unfortunately, due to habitat loss
However, we have access and fragmentation and the introduced plant Dutchman’s Pipe,
to a couple of older lists which is toxic to the larvae of the Richmond Birdwing, they are
that are great for carrying listed as a vulnerable species in Queensland,’ says Wildlife
with you when looking into Queensland Projects Manager Matt Cecil.
our coastal rockpools:
WQ works to preserve the habitat of this Butterfly through its
Rocky shores species list,
Richmond Birdwing Conservation Network (RBCN)
and Marvel at the magic of https://wildlife.org.au/rbcn/
life among the rocks. Let
us know at ‘The Richmond Birdwing Conservation Network (RBCN) is an
sunshine@wildlife.org.au if affiliation of individuals, groups and organisations dedicated to
you’d like us to email you a the conservation of the Richmond Birdwing
copy. Our member Sue butterfly (Ornithoptera richmondia) and its host plants, the
Aspland had an expert Richmond Birdwing vine (Pararistolochia praevenosa) and
hand in compiling these mountain aristolochia (P. laheyana).
when working with The RBCN strives to achieve this by establishing vine refuges, as
Council, along with Coolum well as creating awareness and support for conservation in the
broader community.
& North Shore Coast Care.
The Network partners with other like-minded organisations and
provides members with science-based information to cultivate
and care for birdwing vines.’
Conservation News August/September 2020Page 6
Birds with Phil Bender
Variegated Fairy-
wren (Malurus
lamberti)
Australia's Fairy-wrens are
amongst the world’s most
colourful species and the
local Variegated is no
exception. The intense
blue on the head of the
male attracts attention
from even the most casual
of observers and once seen
is never forgotten. These
wrens inhabit areas of
thick undergrowth and
coastal heath and will
readily visit gardens if
covering vegetation is
available. They live in
small family groups of
about half a dozen
individuals, feeding
together on a variety of
small insects. Communal
sunning and preening is
often observed and is a
wonderful sight. Females
build the nest close to the
ground and incubate the
eggs without assistance,
but once the young hatch
the entire community helps
with feeding. Always a
delight to see, these wrens
are amongst my personal
favorites.
Picture taken in Kathleen
McArthur Conservation
Park, Currimundi.
Conservation News August/September 2020You can also read
