Victoria – Page 15

One journey’s end …

I have just got back from a spin around my beautiful home state with Mark Brazil and Mayumi Kanamura as well as my current dearly beloved. Gayle and I have travelled with Mark overseas, this time it was his turn to travel with us, and there could be no better excuse to have a fresh look at Victoria.

We started in the Dandenongs and headed west via Werribee Sewage Farm to Port Fairy. Then north into the Goldfields, west into the Little and Big Deserts and the Sunset Country. Then down the Murray Valley Highway, over the Alps and east to Mallacoota, coming back to Melbourne via Wilson’s Promontory. The round trip was nearly 2,500 km in fifteen days and took in every National Park, forest and sewage pond in reach. The weather was all that one could expect … everything from torrential hail, heavy rain and cold wind to uncomfortably hot, but nothing that could stop us having fun.

The objective was to see as much of Victoria’s natural heritage as we could find in the time available.

Mark managed to level his Swarovski 10X32’s on 214 species of bird and a dozen species of native mammal. He was impressed by the birds whilst I was impressed with the binoculars, I am currently using the much heavier Swarovski 10X42’s and as lovely as they are, they are not worth the extra weight in these days of restricted hand luggage.

After the first few days had passed Mark and Mayumi began a fascinating debate on their top ten, the only criterion for consideration was the impact the bird made on them. Some gorgeous birds had their moment in the sun, stunning views of Brush Bronzewing, for instance, put it in real contention for a few days. For a while Major Mitchell’s Cockatoo was in top spot but fine feathers are not always enough to beat off the opposition. Mark and Mayumi’s final top ten were :-

Laughing Kookaburra
Splendid Fairywren
Major Mitchell’s Cockatoo
Red-kneed Dotterel
Turquoise Parrot
Gang-gang Cockatoo
Red-capped Robin
Varied Sittella
Variegated Fairywren
Rainbow Bee-eater

My highlights were somewhat different, I really did enjoy seeing all four Victorian Treecreepers in one trip and I was thrilled that the visitors so enjoyed the Kookaburra, it is the bird I miss most when I am away from Australia for any length of time.

They put together a similar hit parade of native mammals :-

Sugar Glider
Echidna
Yellow-footed Antechinus
Swamp Wallaby
Wombat
Koala
Brush-tail Possum
Ring-tail Possum
Red Kangaroo
Dusky Antechinus

It’s nice to see the little creatures beating out the Grey Kangaroos and pushing the over-rated Koala well down the list.

Mark was kind enough to give us a copy of his latest book, The Nature of Japan, and Mayumi gave us a beautiful furoshiki and a calender. We look forward to catching up with them again…

Victoria …

My apologies, dear reader, or maybe, even to both of you, for the current lull in my instruction of how you should think.

I am part way through a grand tour of Victoria with Mark and Mayumi Brazil. Mark is a well known ornithologist and author of some good books on birds, a resident of Japan and regular contributor to the Japan Times. It is the couple’s first visit to this neck of the woods. So far we have waded through the mud in the pouring rain in the Dandenongs, enjoyed the great pleasures of the Werribee sewage works, frozen in the bitter winds of Port Fairy and the Great Ocean Road, thawed out in the Goldfields and enjoyed every minute.

Our next leg takes us through the Little and Big Deserts and the Sunset Country. Then we head east.

I will post some photos and more detail when we hit some broadband.

Wyperfeld …

Spent a few days at Wyperfeld National Park in north-west Victoria.

It is the eastern fringe of the Big Desert and ranges from dune scrub to mallee with Black Box woodland in the parts that flood (on very rare occasions). There are two main camping areas, Wonga in the south and White Plains in the north. On this occasion I stayed in the south although I had a run up to White Plains to test out the recently acquired short wheelbase Prado on the desert track. It performed beautifully.

Also working as well as expected was the recently acquired Kwik Kampa.

The Pod Trailer is a delight to tow, I had a previous version that went all the way to the Gulf of Carpentaria with us but the first tent design was nowhere near as elegant as the trailer it was mounted on. This version is quick, simple, light and efficient. And Stockman Products are a delight to deal with.

The country was a riot of flower, the mallee sections especially …

The weather was kind and some of the locals were making good use of it …

Highlights of the bird list included good views of Mallee Fowl in the south and Orange Chat and Major Mitchell’s Cockatoo in the north.

Place …

As a kid growing up in the east end of London, places like Epping Forest had an almost magical effect on me.

Australia is rich in places that have much the same ability, a little shiver and a sudden sense of smallness within a vast universe, others might say numinous but that would admit the supernatural.

My place in the country finds ways of doing it to me again and again.

Saturday morning we had our first frost for the year, as the sun gots its edge over the trees along the creek it highlighted a mist suspended on an inversion about 20 metres above the ground with a red sky backdrop, by the time I got the camera the whole place was enveloped in fog.

My morning walk …

Birding …

Got back late last night from a quick jaunt to north central Victoria.

First stop was the Warby Ranges. I camped at Wenhams, which has had a bit of a face lift since I was last there, new toilets and some level camp sites. Some space has been lost in the process but level is good … I can only imagine the thought processes of the person who laid out the prior version.

The weather was kind and the birding magnificent. The Warby Range is a granite outcrop on the inland side of the divide, which gives it a lot in common with the inland slopes of New South Wales. Spurwing Wattle and some orchids are found in NSW and Warby but nowhere else in Victoria. Some of the birds too, are hard to find elsewhere in Victoria, Warby is a reliable place for Speckled Warbler. It is also the Victorian stronghold of the Turquoise Parrot. This is an absolutely gorgeous parrot, bright yellow breast, bright blue in the wings. It seemed destined for extinction between 1880 and 1920, perhaps due to competition with introduced stock in times of drought. It may have been introduced weeds that enabled it to recover.

The next day I headed about 30 km north to have lunch in the Lower Ovens Regional Park. This adds a few water birds to the list and it’s a spot that I particularly associate with Dollarbird. No Dollarbirds this trip, they are summer migrants, the adults leave as soon as the young are fledged, the youngsters follow when they can. It’s too late in the year this far south. The Ovens river floods here, the banks are forested with River Red Gums on black soil, best avoided in wet weather.

After lunch another 40 km and you’re in the Chiltern forest. Ironbark country with lots of Red Box and Red Stringybark thrown in. In spring this is the place to find the endangered Regent Honeyeater, not this week though. But plenty of Noisy Frairbirds, Little Lorikeets, White-throated Treecreepers and half a dozen honeyeaters.

Not only the common ones, at Cyanide dam I came across a flock of Black Honeyeaters. This is a bird that seems to be sparsely distributed throughout the arid region and irruptive into adjacent areas at the fringes. Your chances of finding it where it’s supposed to be are never high but if you’re in the right place at the right time you can’t avoid it in places where it may not be seen again for years. Cute bird.

And it’s not all about the rare ones, nice as it was to add Black Honeyeater to my Vic list (now 381) it’s always a pleasure to see old friends …

Mixed emotions …

I feel sorry for Jon Faine today … the very sad news of the death of Hugo Chavez will diminish the celebration of Ted Baillieu’s departure. Life is such a rollercoaster.

Mr. Shaw again …

You should have sacked him when I told you to, Ted.

That way you would have looked like a leader.

Recidivism …

I wonder what the people of Victoria would reply if asked whether the death penalty should be reinstituted. One thing we can be sure of is that we won’t be asked …

AUSTRALIA is among a record 110 countries which have backed a resolution voted on every two years at a UN General Assembly committee calling for the abolition of the death penalty.

It would seem though, that the rehabilitation of men who murder women is less than perfect. I won’t discuss a couple of cases awaiting trial but a notable recent case illustrates the point rather well …

A Victorian Supreme Court found Leigh Robinson guilty of murdering 33-year-old Tracey Greenbury at Frankston, Melbourne, last year by shooting her in the back of the head at close range.

She had been trying to crawl into the neighbour’s house to get away from him when he shot her from just over 1.5 metres away.

Robinson then left a mobile phone message for Ms Greenbury’s ex-partner saying: “Yeah, come and get your kids. They’ve got no mother.”

The jury was not told that Robinson in 1968 was sentenced to death for murdering his then 17-year-old ex-girlfriend at Chadstone.

Had Leigh Robinson been hanged in 1968 those kids would still have a mother …

When Leigh Robinson was sentenced to natural life for the shotgun murder of his estranged girlfriend, Tracey Greenbury, in October 2009, a heraldsun.com.au poll revealed almost 78 per cent of 3000 respondents voted for capital punishment.

Forty years earlier, Robinson had stabbed to death another girlfriend, Valerie Dunn, and was sentenced to hang. This was later commuted to 30 years’ jail, of which he served just 15.

“It is often said that with rehabilitation and counselling we are able to turn cold-blooded killers into normal human beings,” Valerie’s niece reflected after Robinson’s second murder conviction.

“This week’s verdict has proved us wrong.”

I have heard it said that severe punishment has little deterrent value.

But this is certain, after execution the rate of reoffending is nil.

A Vic Spring …

Spent a very pleasant weekend at my little farm in Victoria’s Goldfields.

The Flame Robins are long gone back up into the high country. The summer visitors are returning. The very welcome song of the Rufous Songlark was music to my ears on Saturday. It seems a little late this year but the weather has been a bit cold.

Grass is growing well, must have the firebreaks cut by the end of the month.

Hello possums …

As a scion of Moonee Ponds once said.

The Liberal state council has called unanimously for the Baillieu Government to investigate birth control for the “destructive, costly, dirty pests”, no not members of parliament who use their allowances to run their hardware businesses, possums.

You’ve got to hand it to Ted, big cats and possums … corruption will have to wait.