Why I bought the property

In late 1996, the farmer who owned the property as part of larger adjacent holdings, had fortuitously advertised the property in Wingspan, the then journal of Birds Australia. I hadn’t been in the market for a rural block of land, but a seed was planted in the back of my head that continued to grow until some month later I made the call, fully expecting the property to already be sold. It wasn’t, so arrangements were made for a visit.

On that first visit I fell in love with the Ironbarks and the Yellow-tufted Honeyeaters, whereupon the property was as good as sold. The fact that it was adjacent to forested public and private land on 3 sides added to the greater landscape attraction of its location.

Property description

The property had been partly cleared in the early 1900’s for stock grazing and the remainder had been subject to selective logging. Luckily, numerous old growth trees survived and provide critical habitat for hollow dwellers and nectar feeders.

When I purchased the property it could most simply be described as roughly equal areas of forest, scrubby regrowth and cleared paddocks. It has a couple of natural drainage lines that flow for some time following wetter periods. Now, 27 years later, the regrowth areas have roughly doubled in size at the expense of the cleared areas.

Additionally, a grant from the Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority (GBCMA) in 2018/19 has allowed a previously cleared area to be direct sown with local indigenous flora. With 2019 being very dry, initial germination was patchy, but later wetter years have seen this direct seeding turn into an outstanding success story.

What have we done

In the first few years after purchasing the property I collected seed from the many different tree and shrub species on the property and planted the seedlings mostly along the badly eroding drainage lines. As luck would have it, those first few years were reasonable in terms of rainfall and the plantings had a high success rate. When the millenium drought began in 2001, subsequent plantings hit 100% failure rate. At that point I stopped and have done very little revegetation since, apart from the direct seeding in 2018/19.

Following the passage of 25 years since those initial plantings, it is now extremely rewarding to see those plants producing seedlings of their own and thereby continuing with natural regeneration the revegetation that I had started.

Around 100 nestboxes have been installed over the years, including 60 in 2016/17 with funding through the GBCMA. Most common users of the boxes have been Owlet Nightjars and Sugar Gliders.