Wildlife Australia - Spring 2004 - Victoria

As adults, common wombats (Vombatus ursinus) can be as aggressive as the large shaggy bears from which their Latin name is drawn. And yet, as youngsters, they are enormously appealing, and even as adults — well, there’s something strangely attractive in their determined and implacable behaviour. They will march through your tent, burrow under your campground and flatten your fences. They are also only found in Victoria and New South Wales, with small discontinuous populations in southeastern South Australia and southern montane Queensland. Is the rest of Australia lucky, or envious? A close encounter with a common wombat is one of many good reasons to discover Victoria, the theme of this issue of Wildlife Australia.

Many thanks to Steve Parish for the close encounter on our cover.

Contents...

Saltbush on the Murray: the story of Ned's Corner

By Elizabeth DeFriest

It's big, it's dry, it's riverine, it's a piece of Victorian history - and yet, it's a very unusual Victorian landscape.

The biggest chunk of private land ever bought for conservation in the state of Victoria is a holdover from the era of the vast, iconic, outback properties.

Because of flowers: birdlife of the Little Desert

Story and photography by James Scott

Early European settlers derided it as a desert, but birds and birdwatchers know better. Welcome to a land dripping with nectar and swarming with honeyeaters.

Wildflowers and insects attract 122 bird species and some dedicated bird banders to this honeyeaters’ paradise.

WildWatch Australia: reality TV is for the birds

An interview with Clare Thomson and Darryl Jones

But wait! It's not just TV - and it's not just birds. Imagine if we really looked at our own backyards - 20 million pairs of eyes across Australia looking at what's living there.

From this idea, the ABC Natural History Unit launched WildWatch Australia with an open invitation for Australian residents to report on the wildlife close to their homes.

 

A PROMenade with wildlife

Story and photography by Helen R. Wilson

In one of Victoria’s very special places, you’re close to Tasmania and also close to cheeky birds and shy marsupials. Just three hours from Melbourne is a place so unlike the rest of Victoria that a visit is almost like an overseas holiday. It could have been farmland but, thanks to the foresight of some campaigning naturalists, it's a mecca for wildlife enthusiasts.

Mornington's living lab

By Jan Oliver

Mix a variety of landscapes with cooks, surfers and other interest groups. Add growing population pressure and what do you get?

Biosphere reserves form an international network of programs researching how to conserve landscapes, ecosystems, species and genetic variation while fostering sustainable economic and human development. And it's happening on Victoria's Mornington Peninsula.

Lillies of the woodlands

Story and photography by Tim Low

Who needs orchids when you can delight in milkmaids, early nancy, blue stars and chocolate and vanilla lilies?

In late winter and spring, wildflower devotees are out and about in Australia's grassy woodlands, in Victoria especially, in search of the most revered of all plants - the ground orchids.

Avian ghosts and royal lingerie

By David Everitt

Technically, it’s the dilution of melanin, but the story of isabelline plumage, especially in penguins, explores some fascinating historical byways. Bird colouration is not all black or white, as this investigation shows. However, the state of the queen's underwear is not nearly as unsavoury as the story of how oil was collected on Macquarie Island.

Also in this edition:

Editorial, EcoMedia, Wildside, Comment, Scratchings and Rustlings, NatureWatch, Books Reviews, Seasonal Skies, Young and Wild, WPSQ in Action, Swamp Cartoon and our regular environmental crossword.

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