Wild Weather !

Our park was lucky to get off with relatively little damage compared to areas in our corridor nearby – particularly on the hill to the north of the park and along Pakenham Street where the wild weather caused significant damage followed by long power and communications outages. 

Nevertheless, there were lots of branches torn off by the strong winds and a few stags and smaller trees lost – and some trees down in the Kalang Oval vicinity.  Being in a valley, with a high hill to the north, the very strong north-westerlies must have tended to blow over the top of our major trees.

Yellow Waters

Yellow Waters in the Kakadu National Park is a popular tourist location for crocodile spotting. Fortunately, our local version is host to rather less fearsome creatures. The yellow we often see in the creek tends to be clay washed into the system – typically from a burst water main somewhere in our creek’s surprisingly large catchment area. The yellow colour is due to the type of clay in our subsoil.

In more recent times, work on the Main Street bridge footings and abutments has also contributed to this type of pollution. That was not the case on the day our photo was taken recently – just after the storm. In that case, the clay came from further upstream – possibly a building excavation washed out by the flooding rains.

Committee News

Working Bees

The matters discussed in our July newsletter related to our future as a group have been proceeding slowly.  One of the complications is to do with how volunteers are insured against personal accident and public liability incidents. 

To comply with Council’s insurances, Council supervisors will visit each working bee to review our projects and to ensure compliance with safety rules including the Covid-19 restrictions.  Committee volunteers are considered to be Whitehorse Council “authorised workers” – just like employees.  Those of us, who want to work in the park, need to lodge their Covid-19 immunization status with Council via e-mail.  Although Committee people are considered “Council Volunteers”, our non-committee volunteers are not.  The latter do not have to register their details with Council. 

Working Bees are set to resume soon – though our Monday working bees have morphed into Thursday working bees!  This is to better suit working arrangements with Council and also to suit some of our leaders better.  Double-vaxed Committee and other volunteers are set to resume in the park from Thursday 4^th November subject to Council approvals.  The team is looking forward to getting back into action given the weeds have quite a head start!

Bird Surveys

This Spring’s Bird Survey is being replaced by a Bird Walk to be run by Ian Moodie from Whitehorse Council.  Unfortunately, this event has to be by invitation only – to double-vaxed regular attendees exclusively – to keep the numbers small and to limit the walk to one group.  There are limited places left – if you are double-vaxed and would like to join in on Saturday 6th November at 07:30, please let us know by e-mail at BlackburnCreeklands@Gmail.com – first in, best dressed!  

Plant Orders for 2022

Recognising that we need to devote a lot of effort to recovery of the park post the Covid-19 stresses and weeder lay-offs, we’ve decided not to embark on new project areas in the coming year as we usually would. 

Instead, we’ve decided to focus on restoration and consolidation of what we have.  So we’ve ordered fewer plants to cover in-fill and replacement plantings only next season.   So, we’ll tend to focus on weeding rather than planting in community events.

Should we later decide on a special event for National Tree Day (for example), we would take our chances on an ad-hoc special order with the nurseries.

Council Works

Council’s Main Street Bridge Project

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Thanks to Graeme, Geoffrey and John for photos taken through October. To the uninitiated, the project seems to be picking up pace with the bridge girders now in place spanning the creek.

However, Council has let us know there have been several delays in the project (no doubt including the Covid-19 lockdown of the building industry) that have meant that the reopening of the bridge is now not likely to be before February. The possibility for a north-south pedestrian access being available before completion of  the road itself is being investigated.

Another matter being considered (as a separate project) is a zebra crossing in the vicinity of the bridge.

Park Seat Renewals

Council has been hard at work installing new seats in the park. Most have been replacements for the older sleeper type seats that have been damaged by tree falls or simply by the depredations of age.

The higher seat and backrests on the current models are better suited to use by the elderly. Seats have been installed at the Kalang oval playground and at the end of Malcolm Street – as well as the one shown above near the Laurel Grove bridge. More are planned for the Kalang Oval vicinity and we are also hopeful that a picnic table will also be installed near the children’s playground in the top corner of the oval.

Incidentally, we’ve heard that the playground equipment near the Kalang Oval is up for renewal in the next 12 months or so. That will result in all three of the Creeklands’ playgrounds being updated in the last few years. We’ve also heard that the Ryder Cheshire Foundation charity has arranged for refurbished playground equipment from Whitehorse to be donated to Timor-Leste. Transportation costs were generously paid for by Nunawading Rotary.

Furness Park in the Time-Machine

Whitehorse Council has a mapping facility which allows 1945-2021 aerial photos to be overlaid on a map. Last month, we showed Blacks Walk in the “time machine”. This month, we move to the eastern end of the Creeklands and show Furness Park. Here is a short history:

• Some of Furness Park existed for the entire period of these snapshots. The then City of Nunawading purchased the Main Street block (2.66ha) in 1941 so as to preserve land for indigenous plants and wildflowers. A further 0.23ha (Blackburn Road block) framing the creek was added in 1965. In 1988, another 0.42ha along Heath Street was purchased from the MMBW.
• The Blackburn Creeklands, merging Blacks Walk with Kalang and Furness Parks, was created in 1983 following a strong community campaign.
• In 1945, the areas to the south and east of the park were mostly devoted to agriculture while the area to the north had already been subdivided for housing. Interestingly there seem to be a number of paths crisscrossing the park and adjacent vacant land. Though Gardenia Street was a fully made road, many other local streets appear to be unmade. There only seemed to be one substantial residence in Furness Street. The Open Air School (1910) is the building that looks like a shed in an extension of the park at the western end of Gardenia Street.
• By 1951, housing was beginning to surround the park in the post-war housing boom. Heath Street bordering the south of the park is starting to take shape. Remnant agricultural land is still evident -especially to the east of Blackburn Road.
• By 1956, most of the vacant blocks have been taken up – though most of the east-west roads remained unmade.
• By 1963, the last of the agricultural land has been subdivided for housing and the east-west dirt roads were being asphalted. Our guess is that the children’s playground had been installed during that last period (difficult to be sure due to the tree canopy).

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• There’s a significant time span to 1975. The surrounding roads had been made – possibly excepting Furness and Hill Streets. The Open Air School had been demolished in 1964 and replaced by the Education Department’s Psychology and Guidance/Speech Therapy Centre.
• By 1987, the general ambience of the area was taking shape and being recognised as rather special. In 1976, the National Trust of Australia had placed a landscape classification on Furness Park, Blackburn Lake and road reserves and front gardens in some local streets.
• By 1996, the Psychology and Guidance/Speech Therapy Centre was demolished and the land sold off for housing. Most of the houses on the former Open-air School site had been built.
• By 2005, the park and surrounding streetscapes had substantially assumed their current look-and-feel. In 1998, the children’s playground equipment was substantially upgraded.
• The 2015 photograph seems to show the enduring effects of the Millennium Drought (1996 – 2010). The Furness Park bridge was completed in 2010. The bridge is not obvious in the photo but the new track to it is.
• By 2021, we can see the remarkable recovery of the park’s vegetation after the drought. Of course, volunteers had steadily improved the vegetation in the park since the mid 1980s. The children’s playground equipment was replaced again in 2021. Notice there is no traffic on Blackburn Road – the photograph must have been taken during the lockdown!

If you’d like to look at your own property this way, click this link to the map. Search for your address or navigate to your property. The aerial photos are available under the Change Map icon:

Sightings

Kids Cubbies

People have asked us what we think of kids’ cubbies around the park.  Generally speaking, we are in favour of them as a popular and creative outlet for healthy outdoor play.  We are sympathetic to kids needing an outlet and building cubbies out of sticks and fallen branches – but have to draw the line at damage to living plants for building materials or by trampling young plants!

Having said that, Council takes a dim view of them in the fire season and will tend to dismantle them.  We hope the materials are scattered rather than taken away so as to permit reconstruction once the weather conditions allow.

Why do ducks have so many ducklings ?

Andrea supplied the shot below taken mid-month. Do you count 5 ducklings? Wendy may have seen the same family a day later – but with only four littlies. With any luck, the missing sibling may have been rescued a la Phil’s Rescue Story in our August newsletter. Wendy also spotted a Pacific Black Duck in Blacks Walk with 2 ducklings that swam under the bridge at Pakenham Street a couple of days earlier.

We have a movie of the family in Furness Park near Heath Street – Wood Ducks make very good and attentive parents – notice the “fearsome” displays of the father duck unimpressed with passing joggers and cyclists:

Here’s another shot from Ken taken a few days ago:

Here is an amusing set of photos of a Noisy Miner having a bath in a puddle:

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The following photos are random sights around the park (isn’t it great our photographers can get out and about more freely now?):

We should add that our noticeboard currently presents a fantastic display of bird photos from our local photographers – please do go and have a look!

The Corridor

We have a video of a Tawny Frogmouth chick with parent too (this time in our park’s corridor):

The poor old tawnies look a bit cool and vulnerable.  I like the way the chick seems to plump up her pillow though!

Silvana sent us this picture of some Pacific Black Ducks visiting a pond in her front garden in the park’s nearby corridor. Clearly the two Pacific Black Ducks are a bit suspicious of that rather stuck-up two-tone brown duck they are sharing the pond with – but clearly appreciate Silvana’s garden nonetheless!

Our Best Wishes

As a female Chestnut Teal duck in the little Kalang wetland near the Oak Tree demonstrates, it might be time some of us will be spreading our wings in a return to a little normalcy as the vaccines allow.

On second thoughts, maybe just chill for a while ?

Either way, please enjoy – and stay safe!