Small native mammals of Cape Liptrap

Everyone is familiar with the larger native mammals of Cape Liptrap – koalas, wombats, echidnas, kangaroos and wallabies

However there are many more creatures that are largely unknown

Find out about some of these animals:

• What they look like
• Where they may live
• What they eat
• How you can help them survive.

Guest speaker: Jim Reside, a wildlife expert with 30 years experience of surveying & monitoring wildlife in Gippsland

7.00 pm to 9.00 pm
Thursday 9 June 2011
Tarwin Lower Community Centre

Contact to register and for more
information?bronwynt@wgcma.vic.gov.au
jimr@wgcma.vic.gov.au

 

Surf Diatom Blooms

The cold weather often bring extensive surf diatom blooms to the waves along Venus Bay. The strong winds have been whipping up plenty of foam to help the blooms spread. The surf diatom and a very large number of small crustaceans washed up overnight are likely to make great food source for the grazing shellfish under the sand. That is if there are enough pipis left!

Foam & More Foam

Today the swells as pounding in, the wind almost gale force but the waves do not appear to be eroding the dunes (they might tonight with a high tide corresponding with a low pressure and very strong onshore winds). What is most amazing is the surf foam racing across the sand and on up the dunes.

The 3rd Kingdom.

Autumn rains have triggered the fruiting for many of the fungi in Cape Liptrap Coastal Park. They make great photographic subjects besides their importance in recycling nutrients back into the food chain.

Identifying them can be a challange, though. The top picture is Geastrum simulans, the genus often being know as "Earth Stars ". The others I don't know, can anyone put a name to these?

Coastal Ecology & Managemant Workshop

This is a panorama looking across to Wilsons Promontory from Walkerville taking during one of the field trips on the Coastal Ecology and Management Workshop of April 9th & 10th.

The workshop was an excellent weekend and well attended. We were treated to so many great guest speakers I wont mention them all because you'd be jealous. Suffice to say that Bruce Atkins ran an informative, useful and fun event that I would highly recommend that environmental volunteers look out for next year.

Special mention to the Friends of Venus Bay Peninsula. Janet Carey gave a presentation on the Friends successes with fox control on V.B. From 2007-2011 they have trapped 189 foxes and 7 feral cats. The picture below from Pt Smythe today shows unfortunately there are still a few out there to catch.