Thank you to everyone who has contributed observations! I hope you enjoyed getting out and exploring, even though it has been a very wet weekend.
Although the observation period has finished, you can still upload photos or sound recordings taken on the weekend and they will be added to the project. Observations can be added and identification can continue for 14 days - until the 11th December. At that point the totals for the bioblitz will be finalised.
Members, friends, and other interested people are invited to take part in a BioBlitz afternoon at Clarkesdale Bird Sanctuary this coming Friday, 24th November, as part of the Great Southern Bioblitz.
BYO lunch to eat on the verandah of the Clare Miller Environment Centre from 12.15/12.30pm, ready for a 1pm start for the BioBlitz (convening at the Centre). Attendees should wear sturdy footwear and possibly gaiters, be sunsmart, and bring a water bottle, their favourite field guides and any of the following: hand lens/ binoculars/ camera/ smart-phone with the iNaturalist app.
Any observations made at Clarkesdale will automatically be added to the Ballarat Region GSB Project, which you can see here:
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/great-southern-bioblitz-2023-ballarat-region
Happy BioBlitzing!
In order to keep this project relevant to the Ballarat region, I have changed the boundary of observations that will be included. The new catchment area is a circle with a radius of 50km centred on the Ballarat Town Hall.
When this project was originally created, it covered the City of Ballarat and some adjoining municipal areas. Back then members had to add their observations to the project manually. When Bill converted the project to a collection project, the area settings changed so that observations from the whole of Victoria were collected. I don't know if this collection area change was accidental or deliberate, but it has meant that the project to some extent lost its Ballarat focus. Rather than return to using the municipal boundaries, which are quite variable in terms of the distances from Ballarat, I created the new circular "place".
If you have any concerns about this change, please comment below.
Our November field trip to Mt Beckworth was led by Roger Thomas and @enfieldservices. Their encyclopedic knowledge of the plants and birds of the region was invaluable as they pointed out tiny plants almost too small to see (such as the Pygmy Sundew and the Pink Bladderwort) and easily identified birds by their calls.
Did you know that we have a project for observations at Mt. Beckworth? You can find it here:
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/fncb-mt-beckworth
You don't need to join the project to have observations register in it. It is a collection project which gathers up any observations made within the boundaries of the Mt Beckworth Scenic Reserve, by anyone, at any time.
Click to see all the observations made during our field trip.
Thanks to our leaders for another enthralling expedition!
The Great Southern BioBlitz will be held from Friday 24th to Monday 27th November.
The world-wide City Nature Challenge is held each year in the northern hemisphere spring and is hugely popular. But as that is autumn for us, some southern hemisphere naturalists got together and created the Great Southern BioBlitz so that we could record what happens in spring in our half of the world.
The GSB was first held in 2020, and we have participated every year.
The Ballarat Region Project for 2023 has been created, and you can join now to keep up to date with any announcements, and to see what observations are made once the BioBlitz starts:
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/great-southern-bioblitz-2023-ballarat-region
The project will automatically collect any observations, by anyone, made in our area during the BioBlitz, so joining the project is not essential for your observations to count.
You might notice that the Ballarat Region is a bit smaller this year. Castlemaine Field Naturalists have taken over the Hepburn East area (the area around Daylesford).
Last year we had a successful day BioBlitzing at Clarkesdale, although floods caused the cancellation of another planned group BioBlitz at Mt Erip. The late November timing this year, combined with possible El Niño weather, may make for less than ideal conditions of a different kind.
Whether participating in a group BioBlitz, or BioBlitzing your own backyard, you could find something you’ve never seen before. Happy observing!
Our October field trip was held on the evening of Saturday 7th. We started with a talk by Ray Draper on the various frogs found in the Ballarat region, including photos and recordings of their calls. We then proceeded to the wetland to see what species of frogs we could identify.
Some people used the Australian Museum's FrogID app (http://www.frogid.net.au) to record frog calls, and a few iNaturalist observations of birds, plants and insects were made as well.
We have a project for observations at the wetlands, which you may be interested in joining:
FNCB - Mullawallah Wetland.
This project collects all observations made there, by anyone. There are currently 407 observations of 123 different species in the project. Five species of frog have been observed.
Here is a link to all observations made during our field trip: No frogs though!
Members will be saddened to learn that Bill Elder, who initiated this iNaturalist project, passed away earlier this week.
Bill started the project at the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic to enable members of the Field Naturalists Club of Ballarat to keep in touch with each other and share our sightings of the natural world while we could not meet in person.
His leadership and enthusiasm will be sadly missed by all who knew him.
On the 10th September 2023, Leon Bren, with support from club members Andy and Margaret, led members of FNCB on a field trip exploring the eastern side of Lake Corangamite, with stops at Woady Yallock Bridge, Cundare Pool, the lake shore, and Red Rock.
Perhaps none of the active iNat users in the club attended the field trip? So far no observations* have been recorded for the day. So instead, here is a link to all the observations made by members of this project in the area covered by the trip (Northern ward of Colac Otway Shire) at any time in the past:
Observations.
*Since writing this, some observations from the field trip have been uploaded. However they do not all appear in the query above. It seems some were just over the municipal boundary, in Corangamite Shire instead of Colac Otway. Here is the link to see the observations made in either Shire on the day: Click here.
On 6th August, Andy @alexmyco assisted by Graeme @graemelunt led members on a field trip highlighting historical, geological, and natural aspects of Lal Lal. The mines, the blast furnace, and the history of the rail and race tracks were all explored.
Lal Lal's top temperature was 9.8C, proving, as certain residents have said, that it is colder there than in Ballarat (which reached 11.2C on the day) but we were well rugged up for the adventure. Along the way observations were recorded of one spider, a few fungi, some interesting birds, many plants, and a mob of kangaroos. The day concluded with a visit to the critically endangered Australian anchor plants near the Lal Lal falls.
You can see all the observations made during the field trip by clicking here.
Thanks to both our leaders for arranging such an informative day!
On the 9th July 2023 @enfieldservices led members of FNCB on a field trip to the Surface Hill Historic Area in Smythesdale, mainly to look at mosses and lichens. We found many varieties of both, as well as many fungi, and made a few observations of vascular plants as well. So far 68 observations have been uploaded, with 46 species identified.
See the observations made on the day by clicking here.
Thanks once again to our leader for showing us around such an interesting spot!
