Good morning friends and supporters,

You are invited to attend our AGM, which will be held on Thursday 11th October, from 7.00pm, at the Upwey Township Hall (opposite the skateboard park).

At the AGM you will have the opportunity to hear about the work of our Friends Group, future plans and our finances. This is a great opportunity to meet other members and to find out more about Glenfern Valley Bushlands and to get more active in the group. As in past years a new Committee will be elected to carry the work forward.  

We will start the evening by welcoming a guest speaker and providing you with a light dinner of soup, cheese platters and desserts.

All welcome, no need to RSVP.  We look forward to seeing you there.

Kind regards

Marleen

On sunny Tuesday the wonderful outdoor education students from Fairhills High came for a bushwalk and a bit of mulch spreading in the quarry. They were amazing and did so much. Thank you.

Update: 4 July has been cancelled due to safety concerns with the high winds.

With the return of good rain the Glenfern ponds are full of life. The audio was recorded this afternoon at around six pm. The photos are a potted history of the ponds concept, construction and established ponds. The frogs calling are brown tree frogs (Litoria ewingi) Their call is a series of rapid harsh, whirring pulsing notes repeated 5-15 times - "creeeeeee creee creee cree cree cree" and the common eastern froglets (Crinia signifera) which make a chirping "crick crick crick crick crick". Thank you to the volunteers who have spend so much time on this project.

​Glenfern's resident birder, Mike Sverns, shares with us his recent experience with some special visitors to the reserve, via prose and video...

"It was so exciting to have these small and pretty grey cockatoos resort to our reserve, to feed, drink and roost back in March to April. This is a great reward and a testament to everyone, who have committed so much effort to the reserve over many years.

It became apparent over so many hours of observation, how important the riparian vegetation along Ferny Creek, including the tall mature eucalyptus species were to the Gang-gang Cockatoos.

Many small flocks would form into large ones routinely, flying from different directions, late afternoon after a big day feasting on the introduced Hawthorn Bush. Their favoured seed from the red berry was plentiful in bushes several kilometres away at the southern end of Lysterfield valley.

It must have been a good breeding season too, as most adult pairs had in tow, either a single or two young. The two young would vary from twins of the same sex, or one of each.

This obviously kept both adults busy, disgorging their full crop of seed to top up their young after a well deserved drink from our creek. They then would fly to the high tops of the manna, swamp and messmate that was fruiting at the time, before they would roost and retire, after an affectionate preening and bonding session."

Update: 17 June has been cancelled due to wet weather.
Update: 6 June has been cancelled. 

Recently we welcomed 90 Trinity College students from the University of Melbourne to our Bushland Reserve. For many of them it was their first time in the 'bush'. Some students were lucky enough to see two kangaroos and a swamp wallaby and we all observed many native birds. It was a wonderful experience for them and for the FGVB volunteer guides. Thank you to all involved for making it such a great morning.

Photos by Linda Fullagar