Welcome to the December edition of our Blackburn Creeklands newsletter.

Season’s greetings and a big thank you to our friends, local community and Council for your care and commitment to the Creeklands. We wish you all a safe and relaxing festive season and look forward to another year of collaboration, growing together and connection with nature.

In this edition, we have:

• New socials
• Butterflies
• Special working bee
• Water baths
• Gang-gang cookatoos are back!
• Recap of activities in 2025
• Sightings

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New socials for BCAC

We have been a bit quiet on Facebook this year, but we plan to ramp up our posts and content in the new year. We have recently created a new profile on Instagram so please follow us for more content other than what is published in the monthly newsletter.

To start following us, please click on the following links and Join or Follow, respectively:

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/BlackburnCreekies/

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/blackburncreeklands/

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Butterfly display

This month’s display in the noticeboard is on the importance of Butterflies in our Creeklands so please flutter by and check it out.

Butterflies play an important role in the health of the Blackburn Creeklands, acting as both pollinators and indicators of a thriving ecosystem. As they move between native plants, butterflies help with pollination, supporting plant reproduction and biodiversity. Their presence signals good habitat quality, as butterflies are sensitive to changes in vegetation, water quality and climate. Caterpillars also form a vital part of the food web, providing nourishment for birds, reptiles and other insects. By protecting native plants and habitats in the Creeklands, we help ensure butterflies continue to flourish, contributing to a resilient, colourful and balanced natural environment for everyone to enjoy. For more specific info, please visit our website: https://blackburncreeklands.org/fauna-and-flora/our-butterflies/

Many thanks to Anthea for setting up the display.

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Special working bee

Mitch is a local resident who volunteered recently in the Blackburn Creeklands as part of his school’s community service program. We were delighted to have him working on weeding and planting in the highly visible Main Street section of the park. Even better, he cleverly enlisted his parents to lend a hand. Great work, Mitch and many thanks to you and your family!

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Water baths

As the weather heats up in Summer, please remember to check that there is clean fresh water in your bird baths. BirdLife Australia (https://birdlife.org.au/providing-water-for-birds) has more information on providing water sources for local native birds all year round, including the 5 key points below: 

• Keep it fresh by replacing water daily
• Keep it clean by scrubbing and disinfecting your bird bath regularly (and rinsing thoroughly)
• Keep it cool and away from direct sunlight
• Keep it safe by placing it close to cover and adding a perch
• Keep pets away where they can’t reach the water.

Thanks for the info and practical tips Ruth and Pat!

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They’re back!

The endangered Gang-gang Cockatoos are back in the park after a short absence.  About half a dozen birds have been seen together since mid-December. A young male (left) who is in the process of gaining the full bright red head feathers of the adult male. That’s probably his mum on the right (no red on her head). 

The presence of youngsters indicates the likelihood that breeding has occurred locally – if not in the park, then perhaps in the nearby bushland corridor. We are so very fortunate to be able to offer a habitat which will help keep the species ticking along so let’s hope it remains that way (fingers crossed)!

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What Happened in 2025?

Looking back, it’s been a very busy year for us. Although there are planning and dumping challenges, there is good news too:

• We’ve expanded our community engagement to cover possum prowls, plant ID walks, fauna and tree canopy research.
• Our traditional bird walks and community working bees have worked well too – including engagement with the local primary school community.
• Our Committee and Thursday Crew continue to be strong with fresh blood, new ideas and processes taking effect.

The following items go into the details…

Activity Centre activity

The year 2025 started off more-or-less as it ended – with us (and many others) quite worried about the potential impacts of the State Government’s plans for the area centered around the railway station in Blackburn. 

What started out as a “Walkable Catchment Zone” finished as the “Housing Choice and Transport – HCT (aka Ham, Cheese and Tomato) Zone” once it had a marketing makeover.  No matter what it is called, the danger is that the creek’s green corridor – which extends northwards to the top of the hill and beyond, could be severely curtailed by medium-rise blocks of flats with quite adverse impacts on the local environment and biodiversity.  Blackburn’s character and value to nature would be changed forever if the initial plans are implemented.

The red line in the map below highlights the boundary of the Government’s “investigation area” south of Whitehorse Road (Maroondah Hwy) which could become the high density HCTZ that clearly impinges on a large portion of the Significant Landscape Overlay SLO 2 areas and one part of the SLO 1 area that we highlighted in our submission as being very important for nature.

It’s not over yet – we expect to have more definite boundaries and building height definitions in the new year. Speaking for nature, we recommended that the SLO1, SLO2 and SLO4 areas not be included in the HCT zone. At least there’s good community awareness – judging by the signs people are putting up and the “house-full” attendance at public meetings.

Whitehorse Open Space Strategy Adopted!

Another scare for us happened in July when Council’s Open Space Strategy was adopted despite opposition. Our problem was the proposal for the development of a “Key Destination Facility – KDF” (a tourist attraction for the park) in the Creeklands?

So far, there has been no mention of a “Masterplan” for the park or the mystery KDF. Something to watch!

Dumping

Dog poo bag, building material, household rubbish and garden waste dumping in the park became increasing problems early in the year – particularly in Furness Park. Council has been active with monitoring and signage, and fortunately things have quietened down a bit.

Cowboy contractor dumping of suspect mulch continues to be an occasional problem. Grab a photo if you can without drawing attention to yourself.

Fauna

Our park is famous for its birdlife – but other aspects of our park’s fauna tend to “fly under the radar” somewhat (some actually crawl under…). In February and March, we published a series of photos supplied to us by Ian Moodie of some of our local invertebrates. Coincidentally, Ken discovered a new species for the park – the Pied Lacewing (Porismus strigatus) – as far as we know – not seen in the park before.

Bird Walks

This year’s Autumn and Spring Bird Walks were well attended by the community and led by Ian and Pat. Autumn highlights included Golden Whistlers, a group of three Spotted Pardalotes and 30+ Little Ravens flocking together prior to annual dispersal. Spring highlights included Tawny Frogmouths and Mudlarks nesting – also the soft but steady call of a Common Bronzewing echoing through the Creeklands – watch a recent video that was filmed by Megan and uploaded to YouTube by Glenn (https://youtube.com/shorts/WTtQ52EpfW4?si=BI6x5_ReHJOefTNS). 

Blackburn Nightlife

Our first ever Possum Prowl, was held in May and was a great success. Some of our local fauna are “nocturnal” – they are mostly active during the night (feeding etc) and sleep during the day. Once again, our objective is to learn more about the less commonly seen animals in the park. Don’t miss it next year!

Eucalypts of the Blackburn Creeklands

This year, we also ran our first Eucalypts identification walk in July. Once again, a fantastic succcess – with slightly more than a “full house” enjoying a marvellous educational walk around Furness Park and learning how to use a botanical key to ID our eucalypts. Not to be missed next year by our tree lovers. We’ve still got Kalang Park and Blacks Walk to investigate.

Inclusive Seating

Council accepted most of the recommendations of our 2024/2025 project on providing Inclusive Seating in the park and commenced actual implementation in May. Great work by Evelyn and her colleagues!

Committee News

There have been Committee changes however. Although we lost Delldint due to her relocation to rural Victoria, Jenna, Greg and Glenn all stepped up to take on important roles for the Committee.  At August’s AGM, Jenna was elected unanimously as our new Secretary. Greg was appointed Committee’s Working Bee Coordinator.  Glenn edits our newsletter.

Mark had already rejoined committee after a hiatus of a few years and immediately took on the role of Treasurer.  Bec and Evelyn (who have been on-board a year or two longer) have both played important roles in new projects and events. Anthea continues to manage our popular noticeboard.

KKA Connection

Thursday Crew

Management of our Thursday Team working bees changed with Greg, Cath and Nicky taking on leadership roles. Also, a Site Assessment and Future Planning working group was formed from Committee members and very knowledgeable and experienced volunteers to improve our processes.

Our weeding volunteers also got some great field training in the Park from expert George Paras.

Community Working Bees

This year’s working bees in the park were well attended with the world record attendance broken in the 27 July working bee when volunteers from Laburnum Primary School also joined us for planting near the Blacks Walk school gate. We also worked elsewhere in Blacks Walk and in Kalang Park during the season.

Fishy Business

We did some analysis in August of eDNA data which was kindly provided by Melbourne Water through the KKA. We concluded that it is likely we have native fish in our part of the creek !

We think we host the Galaxias brevipinnis (Climbing Galaxias or Broad-finned Galaxias) species pictured above. It is also likely, but less certain, that another native fish – Philypnodon grandiceps (Flathead gudgeon) also occuring in the creek.

New brochure

We also produced a fabulous new park brochure that is available for downloading here. This is particularly suited to new people coming to our area and for park visitors. Grab one now to help promote the special parklands we have right on our doorstep and give one to your friends, family and neighbours!

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Sightings

We thank our wonderful photographers for sharing their amazing images with us. If you would like to contribute, please email your photos to: blackburncreeklands@gmail.com

Click on image to enlarge photo and then scroll through gallery.

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Thanks to John who made a cameo appearance to help summarise ‘the year that was’. Thanks also to everyone for your ongoing support. We keep saying it, but this year was definitely a very big year for us and the park! Here’s to an even bigger and brighter 2026. Please stay safe and we’ll see you soon!

For more information, please visit our website at https://blackburncreeklands.org/ or email blackburncreeklands@gmail.com or find us on Facebook and Instagram.

See you next year!

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