August 19th, 2015
We own a lovely 142 hectare (350 acre) ex-grazing property called Thorpewood . Thorpewood is located north of Violet Town, in north eastern Victoria and has a mixture of Grassy Woodland and Box-Ironbark Country. Two like-minded families joined forces and bought the property. We were attracted to its range of diverse native species- some threatened and some near threatened. We hoped to conserve and improve the property and hence, extend the range of species on the property and increase the numbers in the threatened species. At the time of purchase some very good improvement work had been started by Trust for Nature who had bought the property through their revolving fund. It was a requirement that we put a Trust for Nature covenant on the property and we were very happy to comply with this.
Even though some improvement work had been started, a great deal of important work still needed to be done. This included dealing with the rabbits, weeds and foxes, which were there in high numbers and which were increasing.
We felt frustrated because our visits to the property were taken up doing all this work, which we found very fulfilling, but which did not allow us time to survey the threatened species and to learn more about our native wildlife. Also, we are not skilled birdwatchers and felt constrained because our knowledge of calls and identifying features was often not good enough to tell species apart. So we developed a strategy to identify and monitor the wildlife on Thorpewood. This strategy runs alongside our conservation work and has proved surprisingly successful.
First we decided to try putting a birdbath in the bush with a motion sensing camera on it. We got some fascinating results, but the birdbath always dried out between our visits. So then we bought a few small plastic ponds, placed them in various differing sites around the property and put some newer/ better cameras on them. The results exceeded our expectations. The movement sensing cameras are not obvious, so we saw wildlife behaving in ways that we seldom see if we are there and affecting behaviour because of our presence.
We have decided that others, on similar journeys, might be interested in our stories and might find our experiences helpful in their own situations. So we have put this article together to start tell these stories.
We have had most of our ponds up and running for over a year now and we have also had cameras on two dams. We now have videos of 95 different species of native birds, 6 species of native reptiles and 15 species of native and introduced mammals.
Eastern Rosella and Noisy Friarbird
Purple-crowned Lorikeet, White-browed Woodswallow, Peaceful Dove and White-plumed Honeyeater
We have been fascinated by the detailed information we have obtained. Different species use different ponds and we are learning which species are resident on the property and whether they are successfully breeding. We are also able to monitor the effectiveness of our environmental work; the rabbits are no longer seen, the foxes are greatly reduced and numbers of small reptiles and ground nesting birds have increased.
It is hard to know where to start telling this story because there is so much detailed information. So, we have decided to start by telling the story of one pond (the most successful one) and we can then later add the information on the other ponds and the dams, so the data can be compared. We will also explain how the ponds are set up and maintained.