Castlemaine Field Naturalists Club
Natural history studies in central Victoria
The CFNC excursion on Saturday 9th February, following Gayle Osbourne’s talk on Friday evening, will be to an area of the Wombat Forest near Spargo Creek, where the leafless bossiaea can be found. The weather forecast is for 20 degrees. We will leave the Octopus (Duke St, Castlemaine) at 1.30 pm and drive to Daylesford to meet Gayle who will guide us to Spargo Creek. Bring afternoon tea.
The first speaker for the Castlemaine Field Naturalists Club in 2019 is Gayle Osborne.
Gayle has been involved with Wombat Forestcare for many years, and will present a talk titled ‘Fauna surveys in the Wombat Forest’. Gayle will describe the group’s motion-sensing camera projects, searches for Powerful Owls and spotlighting for Greater Gliders, and explain why entering data on the Victorian Biodiversity Atlas is essential for conservation. Gayle will also mention the new fungi app and who to contact for more information.
The talk will be held in the Fellowship Room behind the Uniting Church Hall on Lyttleton St, Castlemaine (next door to the Art Gallery & Museum). The evening’s event will commence from 7.30pm on Friday 8 February. Members and visitors are all welcome, and there is no cost for entry.
Everyone is also welcome to attend an excursion on the following day (Sat 9 Feb). Meet at the Octopus building on Duke St (opposite the Castle Motel) ready for a 1.30pm departure. Bring afternoon tea, and car-pooling will be available.
As per Castlemaine Field Nat tradition, the December 2018 general meeting is a chance for any member (or visitor) to make a short presentation. People are encouraged to talk for up to 5 minutes about a topic related in some way to natural history. It might be photos from a holiday to an exotic location, video footage of birds in your backyard, an analysis of recent weather patterns or reciting a poem about a forest. It is only limited by your imagination. There will be a projector, PC laptop and screen available for use.
The evening commences from 7.30pm on Friday 14th December in the Fellowship Room within the behind the Uniting Church on Lyttleton St (next door to the Art Gallery). Members and visitors of all ages are welcome, and entry is free.
If you’d like, bring along a plate of food to share with everyone afterwards.
The Castlemaine Field Naturalists Club are currently using the free version of WordPress for its website and associated blogs. A downside of this ‘free’ version that we’ve recently discovered is that our emailed blogs are often reaching the recipients with added advertisements at the bottom of the page.
WordPress.com states ‘we sometimes display advertisements on your blog to help pay the bills‘ and also that the ‘displaying ads from the Automattic Ad Network. The ads you see change depending on factors like your location and the type of site you’re visiting, and may come from a number of ad partners.‘
The Castlemaine Field Naturalists Club do not endorse any of the companies or products advertised at the bottom of any of our blogs that you receive by email, nor do we receive any financial benefit. We are investigated our options to return to an ad-free website and blog service as soon as possible.
As a follow-on from the November 2018 presentation by Deanna Marshall (Trust for Nature), Zoos Victoria has just released this video of some captive-born Plains-Wanderer chicks. Enjoy!
The talk by Deanna Marshall of Trust for Nature about Plains-Wanderers is being moved slightly due to the high school exams taking place in the usual venue. This presentation to the November 2018 meeting of the CFNC is now to be held in the Chapel room at the back of the main Uniting Church building. Entry to the Chapel is from near the rear of the building, on the western side (towards the train line). Start time remains the same, as do all other details (Click here for the original post about this presentation). Apologies for the late notice!
Deanna Marshall is the guest presenter at the November general meeting of the Castlemaine Field Naturalists Club. Both members are visitors are welcomed and encouraged to come along, and there is no cost for attendance.
About her talk, Deanna writes ‘Plains-wanderers are nationally critically endangered. They share a physical resemblance to quail, but in evolutionary terms, they are one of a kind – there’s no bird like it in the world. In Victoria, 95% of native grasslands that Plains-wanderers formerly occupied have been lost to cultivation and urban development. The protection and maintenance of the habitat of the Plains-wanderer is vital for the conservation of the species, but will this be enough?’.
Deanna is Trust for Nature’s North West Area Manager. For the past 7 years both her and her team of 5 have overseen the delivery of Trust for Nature programs and projects in the North Central and Mallee CMA regions. Prior to this, Deanna worked in the Biodiversity Group for the state government in the Loddon Mallee Region for 11 years.
The evenings event commences at 7.30pm on Friday 9 November in the Fellowship Room, located in the building behind the Uniting Church on Lyttleton St, Castlemaine (next door to the Art Gallery and Museum). Following Deanna’s talk and questions, tea and snacks will be available.
