Greater Sydney Landcare Network

A network for those who care for Land in Greater Sydney

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Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC Act)

SUBMISSIONS DUE BY 17TH APRIL, 2020

The Environment and Protection Biodviersity Conservation (EPBC) Act is Australia’s national environment law. The EPBC Act is meant to be stopping iconic threatened species like the Koala from going extinct. According to the Wilderness Society, however, our current protections and laws leave many of Australia’s animals facing extinction. Shockingly almost 99.7% of all developments are approved except for 2% that get knocked back in court (https://www.wilderness.org.au/work/nature-laws-that-work)…

A review of the EPBC Act every 10 years, which is coming up this year, can evidently be a vital chance for us to opt in to a discussion about Australia’s extinction and deforestation crisis.

[Read more…]

Help our wildlife in drought and fire with Water4Wildlife

Water4Wildlife is an initative of Greater Sydney Local Land Services, and Greater Sydney Landcare Network to help care for our native fauna – as droughts and fires cripple our landscape.

Water is the best thing you can do for our native animals. Stations placed with fresh water (with landowner permissions), 500m apart and suitable for small animals and large macropods alike will provide our native species with the best chance of survival.

Find all the tips and tricks below, and why feeding our local species won’t help them recover. Tag your watering points with #water4wildlife and #gsln.

Thanks to Peter Ridgeway for being the driving force behind this fantastic community initiative.

With thanks to Peter Ridgeway and Gen Kyi for the information, photos and facts behind this article. Graphics created and posted by Clare Vernon, 13 January 2020. For more information please contact Greater Sydney Landcare here or check out this WIRES post on helping our native animals in an emergency here.

Regents return to the Cumberland Plain

Mulgoa community welcomes the threatened bird species with the arrival of chick, writes Clare Vernon.

Just in time for the festive season, the Mulgoa community welcomed the arrival of it’s newest resident – a baby regent honeyeater chick.

One of two nesting adults at Mulgoa, in western Sydney. Photo (c) Genevieve Kyi, 2019. Follow Genevieve on Instagram here: instagram.com/nightg0at.

The chick is just one of only eleven known chicks in NSW to have been reared in 2019. Unfortunately, a second chick did not survive.

Previous nesting attempts in 2009 at Mugloa were unsucessful.

The Mulgoa site represents optimal habitat with quiet, undisturbed grassy woodland with ready access to a farm dam. Both parents were observed bathing and drinking every hour, thanks in part to the abundance of branches and shrubs providing perches to drink.

The greyish-brown chick has fledged, and now joins it’s parents in a nomadic existence.

Image result for freshwater creek mulgoa

Adjacent vegetation, such as this weir bushland at Henderson Street, Turrella (NSW) provides perches allowing birds to drink from local waterways.
Photo: Wolli Creek, NSW by Voren O’Brien, 2007.

Regent honey eaters are charismatic, colourful and once common species is native to south-eastern Australian grasslands. Such habitats once provided the abundant omnivorous diet of insects, lerps and flowering mistletoe.

Despite the good news, regent honey eaters still face an uphill battle to reestablish. Development coupled with drought and the recent bush fires in the Capertee Valley – a stronghold of the species – has seen the significant loss of habitat. Further competition and aggression from other native birds (noisy miners), predators (lace monitors, greater gliders, possums and currawongs) and wind (which can blow away nests) means that 66% of all nests fail.

It is one of Australia’s rarest birds, with only 1,000 known wild individuals.

Numerous re-vegetation programs across the Capertee Valley, and Greater Western Sydney aim to increase the grassy woodland habitat of this bird.

You can help turn around the story of the regent honey eater, and indeed support all of our Greater Sydney wildlife. Planting local species, retaining fallen logs and old hollow trees, and providing water in a sheltered spot with perching and protection from cats are ideal ways to create habitat, provide water and food for these iconic species. Local nurseries such as the Hawkesbury Community Nursery at Windsor can supply locally native species.


Acknowledgements
The author thanks the kind generosity, facts and notes provided by Genevieve Kyi and Peter Ridgeway. Photo (c) Genevieve Kyi, 2019.

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