Monthly Meetings

Some recent ecological restoration projects in Hepburn Shire have demonstrated the value of ‘assisted natural regeneration’ and the benefits of leaving time to observe and work with a site’s natural resilience. A butterfly, the Bright-eyed Brown (Heteronympha cordace ssp. cordace) is emerging as a local flagship for this approach to restoration. Its story also interweaves […]

Joint talk with BirdLife Castlemaine District. Island fauna and flora generally lacks the diversity that is found on larger land masses but compensates for this with unique and sometimes unexpected adaptions.  The talk will look at how species reach islands and how they evolve after they establish a population.  It will also look at some

Fire ants could potentially inflict a multi-billion dollar hit to Australia’s economy. They are three times more venomous than other stinging insects. They threaten iconic Australian wildlife populations like koalas, platypus and echidnas. Overseas, fire ants are causing agricultural land to become unviable. As expert stowaways they have crossed oceans and continents in cargo. These invaders

We are privileged to have A/Prof Jonathan Plett from the Western Sydney University Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment address our July monthly meeting on the topic of how fungi communicate with their host plants. Jonathan will tell us about his research to identify the protein signals that coordinate symbiosis between soil-borne mycorrhizal fungi and plants

The June meeting will be the first of our 3 winter meetings by Zoom for 2024, with our guest speaker being Dr Don Fletcher, an ecologist with the National Parks Association of the ACT. Don will describe a Citizen Science research project on Rosenberg’s Goanna (Varanus rosenbergi) in Namadgi National Park, ACT that has been

Our guest speaker for May will be Dr Greg Moore, Senior Research Associate, School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, The University of Melbourne. Greg specialises in arboriculture.  He introduces his talk to us as follows: “Climate change will place new and extra demands on trees growing on both public and private land. There will be

Professor Tim Entwisle is an author, botanist and former director of botanic gardens in Melbourne, Sydney and London. He also lived for a few years at Yapeen and completed his final years of secondary school at Castlemaine High School. In 2022, Tim published a memoir called “Evergreen: the Botanical Life of a Plant Punk” (Thames

The 2024 AGM will be held at 7.30pm before the usual monthly meeting on March 8th. The AGM agenda will include the Annual Report and the Treasurer’s Report for 2023, and the election of office bearers and committee members for 2024. All positions on the committee will be open, so you are strongly encouraged to

The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) is the world’s largest virtual library of biodiversity literature and archival material, all freely accessible and discoverable online. Nicole Kearney manages the Australian branch of the BHL. In 2023, BHL Australia received a grant from the Public Record Office Victoria to include the publications of Victoria’s Field Naturalist Clubs in

What was a highlight of your nature sightings this year?  Please share it with us at our end-of-year monthly meeting.  Do you have a photo, a video, a sound recording or just a story to tell.  Would you like to recite a poem or sing a song to capture your impressions of this year’s Field