Category Archives: Nature Observations

Update to FOBIF Chewton walk

Posted on 26 September, 2016 by fobif

Elaine Bayes and Damien Cook who were the leaders on our recent Chewton bush walk showed us that by looking closely at a small area you can often see an amazing number of plants. They identified 25-30 in the square metre they selected. … Continue reading →

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OK: Now it’s a lake, sort of…

Posted on 14 September, 2016 by fobif

Another 40 millimetres of rain on Monday, added to the previous week’s drop, gave a bit of extra push to local waterways, which at the time of writing had approached, but not quite reached, the levels of the flood years. … Continue reading →

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Water

Posted on 12 September, 2016 by fobif

Forty five millimetres of rain fell at the Castlemaine Prison over the two days September 9 and 10. After good winter rains [63 mls in June, 73 mls in July and 63 in August] the streams were ready to run, … Continue reading →

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Fire

Posted on 12 September, 2016 by fobif

DELWP seems to be expanding and varying its community consultation processes on fire. A ‘listening post’ was conducted by fire officers in Castlemaine on Saturday; and last Wednesday representatives of the Castlemaine Field Naturalists toured the district with the Department’s … Continue reading →

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Yes! It’s spring!

Posted on 5 September, 2016 by fobif

…And there are plenty of reasons to get out into the bush. Here are a couple:    

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What’s eating our red gums?

Posted on 15 August, 2016 by fobif

For some months now, local Red Gums, especially around Mount Alexander, have been looking pretty bedraggled, attacked by some leaf eating insect we’ve been unable to identify. It seems to prefer only Red Gums: many Australians are unable to tell … Continue reading →

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Find out about wetland plants

Posted on 20 June, 2016 by fobif

Local environment experts, Damien Cook and Elaine Bayes, are running two wetland plant ID courses this year: This course is aimed at anyone interested in wetland plant identification and ecology. The course will run over 3 days and each day will … Continue reading →

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Some dog park questions

Posted on 21 March, 2016 by fobif

FOBIF has written to the Mount Alexander shire regarding the off lead dog park proposed for the Botanical Gardens. The relevant parts of the letter follow: ‘While FOBIF believes that an off lead park is a good and common sense … Continue reading →

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A dump here, a dump there, but rainfall is well down

Posted on 1 February, 2016 by fobif

A summer storm caused flash flooding in parts of Castlemaine on Thursday, putting the railway station underpass under water, and creating a brief swamp on the Western Oval, but, like its predecessors, leaving plenty of areas dry. Figures for 2015, … Continue reading →

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A great local archive

Posted on 25 January, 2016 by fobif

Webmaster of the Castlemaine Field Naturalists Club, Chris Timewell, has put the newsletters of the Club from 1976 online. They can be found here. This archive is a fascinating record of Field Nats observations and reflections on our region over … Continue reading →

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