Property owners grant saves land

Recently our Wetland Watch co-ordinator Brett Brenchley visited a couple who had just joined the Wetland Watch program. However, an unexpected fire left them worried that their project to preserve the environment on their property was over before it began.

Last Thursday, I had an interesting site visit with our newest Wetland Watch participants - Wayne and Tina Goring. Wayne and Tina own and manage a 10 acre property right on the banks of the Ramsar listed Lake Clifton. They first contacted me back in July this year desperate for some assistance in their efforts to restore and enhance the vegetation buffering the lake on their property.

Following their successful application, I went out to the property to get them to sign their voluntary management agreement and accept a $6,000 grant, which will be used to implement their property management plan. The plan involves works such as fencing off the wetland buffering vegetation form stock, controlling the declared weed, narrow leaf cottonbush, and revegetating to create a continuous vegetated link along the entire width of the property.

Knowing Wayne and Tina’s great enthusiasm and passion for the wildlife on their property I arrived expecting to see a couple of jubilant landholders jumping at the bit to get stuck into some long held plans. However, while I received the usual gracious hospitality from Tina, Wayne was initially quite despondent.

He told me a fire had got out of control along the back of the property near the lake and most of the wetland buffering vegetation had been reduced to ash. By the tone of Wayne’s voice, it was clear he was devastated by the turn of events and was unsure how this would affect his future involvement in the project. After putting his mind at ease and discussing the potential benefits that a fire may present we went down to assess the damage.

It had been two weeks since the fire and in that time the property had experienced a couple of light downpours. It certainly wasn’t the thick, impenetrable vegetation that I had first discovered back in July but I saw some very encouraging signs. Already the ground was covered with regenerating sedges and the way was now clear for some thorough weeding of the declared narrow leaf cottonbush, typha and thistle.

One thing that did catch my eye was the amount of dragonflies hovering around the burnt area. Standing only about 50m from the lake’s edge, it’s not surprising to see them but the amount flying about was certainly unusual. It was almost like all the dragonflies of the lake had congregated to this burnt area, perhaps as the lack of vegetation/shelter made hunting easier.

There were a variety of dragonfly species flying around but I tentatively identified the most prolific as the scarlet percher, a species where the males turn a brilliant red. You would think being a brilliant red colour they would stick out like dog’s balls but have a look at the attached photo where I was lucky enough to get a shot of one which landed amongst the ash and debris.