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A bumper bushcare day

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On Sunday 18th August 2019, MCCG hosted a working bee in Tuckett St. Park, Kenmore Hills for 14 students who are enrolled in Environmental Science or Environmental Engineering (SCIP) courses at QUT.

The event was coordinated by Andrew Wills from Brisbane City Council (BCC) and Mark Creyton from QUT.

It was hosted by MCCG Chairman Jim Pope, ably assisted by Bryan Hacker and Keith Schaeller (a member of the Huntington/Tuckett bushcare group).

The aim was to give the students some practical experience of bush-care work, including weed identification and clearing, use of herbicides (cut and paste) for the removal of woody weeds, planting of natives from tube-stock and basic health and safety considerations.

The group was blessed with good weather and the students learned to identify and remove numerous weed vines including glycine, madeira vine and balloon vine, as well as castor oil plants, wild tobacco trees and small Chinese elms.

They also planted and watered-in approximately 80 native plants supplied by the MCCG Nursery. The event finished with an excellent lunch provided by BCC.

Overall, a good time was had by all and the MCCG hopes to host a similar event next year.

The hardworking SCIP student team – © Kate Wilson 

Talking Tallowwood

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We are putting a callout for anyone who has any information about local Tallowwood trees.

These eucalypts have an important place in our local history and we would like to feature a story about them in our next newsletter.

We’d love to hear from you if:

  • You have any info about local Tallowwoods and/or info about their local history 
  • You know of any notable Tallowwoods that are suitable for photoing
  • You have a Tallowwood floor of know of a building which features this timber.

If you can help, please contact Michelle at [email protected] or by phoning 0400 795 767.  

RSVP’s due now for WHAT training 8 September

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Come join a member of the Queensland Urban Utilities SAS Laboratory team and Creek Catchment Officer, Anna Bourke, to explore the options for storing your water quality data and how to interpret and make sense of what you have collected.

The August Waterway Health and Assessment Training (WHAT) will get you thinking about your water quality monitoring program and drill down to really clarify the purpose of your program.

This is critical info for anyone interested in monitoring creek health and providing and protecting aquatic habitat!

RSVP’s are due via email by 31 August! Check our Creek Monitoring Calendar for all the details.

 

It’s Keep Australia Beautiful week!

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Keep Australia Beautiful Week is held late August each  year to raise awareness about simple things we can all do to reduce our impact on the environment and encourage action.

This year it runs from 19-25 August.

For more info, head to the Keep Australia Beautiful website.

The beauty of Gold Creek Reservoir ©
Malcolm Frost

Woo-hoo! Tracking the Powerful Owl

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“Last evening we went up and watched the male Powerful Owl bring a bat to the butchery tree and feed the female and then she flew into the nest hollow and fed the young.”

The Powerful Owl (Ninox strenua) is Australia’s largest owl.

These impressive birds are being seen in suburban locations more often these days and many call our catchment home.

Birding enthusiasts Ian Muirhead and Jim Butler are tracking the behaviour of a particular breeding pair of Powerful Owls. Our opening sentence gives an indication of just how special this experience is.

In their latest Bush Bites article, Ian and Jim share some of their tracking methods and invite you to contribute to the Birdlife Australia Citizen Science Powerful Owl Project.

To read more, please click here.

Join the Wild Macadamia Hunt!

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Could you have a WILD MACADAMIA TREE  on your property?

There are potentially thousands of wild macadamia trees hidden away on private properties or in bushland so Healthy Land and Water, in conjunction with Brisbane City Council, is calling for your help to find them! 

If you know of an old macadamia tree that could be more than 100 years old, they would love to hear from you!

While plantation macadamia trees are abundant in Australia, their once-plentiful wild relatives are under threat, with estimates suggesting 80 per cent of all wild macadamia habitat has been lost since European settlement.

So Healthy Land and Water has launched ‘The Wild Macadamia Hunt’ which is calling on Brisbane residents to find and register macadamia trees. Leaves will be genetically analysed to help determine the best way to conserve the species for the future.

This is a citizen project you can be part of from your home!

For more information visit the Healthy Land and Water website.

Locating powerful owls by triangulation – Ian Muirhead & Jim Butler

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The eerie “whoo-hoo” calls of the Powerful Owl can be heard across the ridges and valleys of our catchment, especially during the evenings and nights of Autumn and Winter when they breed.

These birds hold a special fascination for birdwatchers and the general public because of their large size (Ht. 65cm; Wt 2Kg), their booming calls and their fondness for relatively large prey including possums, sugar gliders, currawongs, magpies, lorikeets and flying foxes.

They also have the peculiar habit of roosting quietly and in complete stillness during the day, with their previous night’s prey dangling from a claw below the branch they have roosted on.

But they are also a species that is classified as “vulnerable” in Queensland.

The magnificent Powerful Owl – © Chris Read

For these reasons, Birdlife Australia is conducting a Citizen Science Project to establish numbers, distribution and breeding success of this magnificent bird. The Project Manager is Rob Clements.

The project is only possible because these apex predators are moving into the suburbs of our cities to exploit the numerous prey available. They have become easily detectable by their calls.

It is easy to hear the calls but far from easy to locate the birds themselves, especially if the call is coming from up to half a kilometre away in a very bushy area where they roost and breed!

This is where triangulating can be useful – locating a bird calling at an unknown point by accurately measuring the compass directions from known points A and B.

The following Google Earth image shows a hypothetical implementation of the triangulation procedure:

The location in the image is Gap Creek Reserve. It has been used for illustration purposes only. It does NOT show the actual location of a known spot where a Powerful Owl is located.

Triangulation explained

To commence the triangulation process, two birders in phone contact stand at points A and B, which are 97m apart. When each of them simultaneously hear the Powerful Owl call they measure the direction with the compass on their smart phones. A measures the call coming for 73°E and B measures the call coming from 31°NE.

When these measurements are taken home and plotted on Google Earth, they can mark the location of the calling Powerful Owl.

In this illustration the owl was 136m from birder A, and 133m from birder B. The wavy lines plotted on the map follow the terrain and show the “ground length”, the length one would have to walk, climbing the hill to the Powerful Owl point.

The map length is the direct straight length between two points and is not plotted in this image.

How we use triangulation

Local birders Ian Muirhead and Jim Butler know the general location of a breeding pair of Powerful Owls along Moggill Creek from recordings of the owl’s calls at night.

Ian and Jim recorded their calls twice in March, 7 times in April, four times in May, and then they did the triangulation process on 10 June.

Within two days Ian and Jim found the Powerful Owl near the nest hollow on private property, having gained the enthusiastic cooperation of the land holder.

Since that time they have visited the nest site on a number of occasions.

On a day during the second week of August Ian and Jim were near the nest at 5:30pm. They saw the female first as she arrived at the “butchery” tree roost.

Minutes later the male landed beside her with a fruit bat dangling from its claw. The male then proceeded to rip the bat apart and feed sections to the female, beak to beak. After about ten exchanges, the female flew to the nest hollow and Ian and Jim could hear the chick trilling as it was fed.

Like to learn more?

If you would like to receive a recording of the Powerful Owl call by email, and/or you can hear Powerful Owls in our catchment and would like to contribute to the Citizen Science Powerful Owl Project, please contact Jim Butler at [email protected]

Return to Bush Bites

Start tracking roadkill!

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Can you contribute to a road kill map of Brisbane?  

Alex Vanek from the Bulimba Creek Catchment Coordinating Committee (B4C) is developing an app to allow people to report wildlife road injuries and deaths.

Alex is encouraging us to attend workshops and download the app, which provides insight into exactly where wildlife road crossing actions need to be implemented across Brisbane.

The intention is to gather enough data to send to Brisbane City Council, providing them with concrete data about road kill and crossing hot spots in order to build fauna infrastructure in these areas.

The workshops will be held at 3:00pm Tuesday 13th August and 9:30am Friday 16th August at the B4C Sustainability Centre Carindale.

If you are able to find and take a picture of road kill, please bring the image and location to the workshop on your electronic device to upload during the demonstration.

For more info, please email Alex at: [email protected] or phone him on: 0457 576 907.

You can also visit the Bulimba Creek Catchment Coordinating Committee website.