minibeasts on show at birdsland

Yes it's that time of year again, where young and old can learn all about our local little creatures at the Minibeast Festival. It's a great way to find out more about our local environment, particularly those creatures who inhabit our waterways and provide a valuable food source for our local icon, the platypus.

Where: Birdsland Reserve, Belgrave Heights
When: Sunday 27 April, from 11am to 3pm
Food: BBQ provided by Selby Primary, vegetarians and coffee lovers catered for
Cost: Free!
Activities: Platypus walk and talk, exploring minibeasts, giant yabby lantern making for the Lantern Parade.

Thanks to Southern Dandenongs Landcare Group for coordinating and Melbourne Water and Yarra Ranges Council for support.

The Minibeast Festival is an annual favourite, at last
year's festival I was delighted to add this lemon tree to
the sustainable garden at Birdsland.
Pictured left to right: Vicki from SDLG, Gavin from Yarra
Ranges Council and me, Cr Samantha Dunn.

minibeasts mesmerize

I was delighted to be able to launch the Birdsland Environmental Gardening Group, also known as the BeeGees as part of the second Minibeast Festival at Birdsland.



To celebrate the launch I planted a lemon tree, no home
should be without one! Pictured left to right: Vicki Boyle -
Southern Dandenongs Landcare Group, Gavin - Yarra
Ranges Council and Cr Samantha Dunn - Lyster Ward.

The BeeGees is intended to teach kids and their parents about growing food, the importance of a healthy environment and have fun doing it too. It’s aimed at children of all ages and it’s great to see the education centre gardens at Birdsland being used to demonstrate the backyard gardening.



Parks Victoria had a great display of native animals, Ranger
Andrew Van Vloten delighting kids with the Wedge Tailed
Eagle display.

Events offered as part of the Minibeast Festival included water watch, discovering all the mini beasts that live in healthy waterways. Melbourne Water also had a great interactive display to explain what happens with water runoff in the city versus the forests. There were nest box displays, talks on a Monbulk Creek local, the platypus and a waste tour were kids were taken into the depths of the tip.

Glenn Brooks-McMillan is our resident expert on platypus,
he capitvated young and old alike with his presentation
on one of our cutest locals, the platypus.

Kids had a great time turning into scientists undertaking investigations into exactly what creatures they’d discovered in the Monbulk Creek water.

Local artist Glenn Scolyer was there for a lantern parade workshop, a very popular activity, Glenn was run off his feet helping kids with their lanterns (the lantern parade will be held in Belgrave on Saturday 22 June – on facebook here).

Glenn's lantern making skills are extraordinary, this
Sherbrooke Amphipod is an amazing replica, although
a little larger than the real thing!

Glenn is currently working on his own lantern the very special, endemic to the Dandenongs, Sherbrooke Amphipod. The Sherbrooke Amphipod has been listed as a threatened species in the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988. The amphipod has a very restricted distribution in Victoria only occurring in the Dandenong Ranges.

Belgrave Pre School supplied the catering, doing a roaring trade on the sausage sizzle and of course the Southern Dandenong Ranges Community Nursery were a key participant giving every child a free indigenous plant to take home. Southern Dandenongs Landcare Group were out in force, raising awareness about weeds, the environment and domestic cats and their harm to the environment if not well managed.

The always breathtaking, wedge tailed eagle. The live locally
and are an impressive sight, it was terrific to see this
one fly by as part of the festival.

It was a great collaboration between volunteers, agencies, community groups and council and I thank everyone who volunteered their time to make it a great day out at one of the shire’s key conservation reserves.

friends of birdsland - its official!

I couldn't think of a better way to launch Friends of Birdsland than at the Mini Beasts festival held out at Birdsland this weekend.

Southern Dandenongs Community Nursery
President, Garrique Pergl and Cr Samantha
Dunn stake out the Sheoak Cr Dunn
planted to celebrate the day.

It was wonderful to see a diverse range of community members visit the Education Centre and Southern Dandenongs Community Nursery to be enlightened about our local Mini Beasts.

It was terrific to learn about the importance of wetlands
in maintaining healthy waterways. This region of
Birdsland has had extensive work to revegetate it
back to its natural state. It's a wonderful habitat for
mini beasts and their predators.

Children had a great day out as Junior Scientists exploring our waterways for mini beasts. It was a delight to see the joy as they discovered boatmen, baby dragonflies and other waterbugs. Beth Wallis, Yarra Ranges' Water Management Officer was on hand with our microscope monitor, so children could see an enlarged view of their mini beasts on the TV screen. 

There were playtpus talks with Glenn Brooks-MacMillan, the new Southern Ranges Environment Alliance facilitator. 

It was wonderful to be able to launch the Friends of
Birdsland at the Minibeast Festival. It's a
bushland reserve that's very dear to people
in the region.

I had the great pleasure of launching the new Friends of Birdsland group and talking about the upcoming masterplan consultations for the reserve. To celebrate the occasion I planted a Sheoak (Allocasuarina) amongst the Landcare for Singles plantings.


Birdsland was originally a farm (owned by the Bird family),
there are still many relics of the old farm, Garrique found
this old farm tool whilst we were wandering around
 the heritage orchard.

Garrique Pergl, President of the Southern Dandenongs Community Nursery, spoke about the history of the reserve and led participants on talk, walk and gawk down to the wetlands and around the historic farm house and orchard. 

This palm tree is part of the original
farm cottage garden. The cottage
is part of the heritage on the site
and is protected with a heritage
overlay.

There were family plantings on the creekbank of Monbulk Creek, a waterway that is considered significant due to it's population of platypus and proximity to Melbourne. These plantings will assist in the health of the waterway to encourage 'mini beasts', food for platypus.

Kids had a ball playing games, being ably assisted by Southern Dandenongs Landcare President, Jackie Glen and the "Selby Fairy". Wonderful to see TVAG there, making sure there was food on hand with their sausage sizzle. 

Michelle Jones from the Community Food Harvest Group gave a talk on planting out a herb garden and growing your own garlic, whilst Tamara Griffiths with her assistant "Ducky"  talked about swales and heritage fruit trees. 

It was a wonderful day out, I commend the organisers for putting it together, it was lovely to see this part of Birdsland used as it was intended, for Environmental Education.