WELL, with all the wonderful rain over the past weeks, it's been a bit hard to get out on the tracks too often to spot echidna, but, at last, we have an image of one that visited a house near the Dawn Road Reserve ... thanks to Woodlands' Neighbourhood Watch’s Mark R.While this photo was actually taken in 2001 beside his front fence (near the western edge of the Dawn Road Reserve), his neighbour has told Mark and his family about subsequent evening visits, at least two of them in the past 12 months!
These shy little critters are pretty scared of dogs, so for those of us with canines, we’ll have to look for any echidna a bit further afield when we’re out walking.
Speaking of the rain, it sure has begun to soak in and do some good after such a long drought.
The BushCare group - under the capable supervision of the Pine Rivers Shire Council's Adam Christison - met last Sunday morning and managed to have its monthly, two hour get together on one of the only dry days in the past few week.
The 12 or so volunteers found extracting identified weeds a much easier task because the vines were coming out of the soft ground without anywhere near as much effort as when it's dry.
If you'd like to join this monthly activity - it's open to volunteers aged 10 to 70+ - for the next few months the group will be working under the PRSC's supervision along a pretty gully at the end of Hengis Court (in the Woodlands estate) every second Sunday of the month. February get-together will start at 7.30am, but it's likely to drift out to 8am as the days shorten and the weather cools.
One really wonderful piece of news we got from experienced BushCare representative Janet is that, after the recent rains, she and another volunteer saw a platypus frollicking along Sandy Creek (not that far outside our Reserve area, it passes the state school at AC). Janet's also had a couple of visits from a young koala in a gum tree at the back of her yard.
Who knows what you might see over here in around the Dawn Road Reserve, because one of our FCD neighbours reported one visiting gum trees at the back of his home a year or so ago.
Happy wanderings
TrinaMcL
