SPEAKER_02 0:00

I'd like to acknowledge the Wandru Warong people as the traditional owners of the land where this recording was made. Over the past few months, I've been walking through reserves around Melbourne, NAM, and recording conversations along the way. I've met with traditional owners of First Nations peoples, conservationists, ecologists, and others who've chosen a place that matters to them. We walk and talk about nature, what lives there, what's changed, and what needs protected. You'll hear our footsteps, the wind in the trees, the birds overhead, and the city not too far away. This is finding Melbourne's nature. We're on another walk, this time through Banel Flats Reserve with Dr. Jacinta Humphrey. Jacinta is an urban ecologist whose work focuses on birds in city landscapes. We talk about how they persist, adapt, and sometimes even thrive in urban environments. We walk and talk about a journey into conservation, what makes Banual Flats such an important spot, and how urban spaces can support bird life. Along the way, we also get into skinks and all things urban ecology. We're already on.

SPEAKER_00 1:38

Yeah, there's a whole heap of different billabongs that connect to the Yao River Birarung.

SPEAKER_03 1:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

Yeah, so they're either managed by Melbourne Water or Parks Victoria or potentially both. But yeah, they're kind of go through different wetting and drying cycles depending on how much rain we've had recently and the climate, I guess, over summer. But yeah, great spots to see water birds.

SPEAKER_02 2:05

Yeah, right. And to you see turtles. Oh really? And you've come here a lot?

SPEAKER_00 2:10

Yeah, yeah. So I yeah, as I said, I used to live really close. This was kind of just within my 5k when we were in and out of lockdowns. So I could I could get here. Um but yeah, couldn't couldn't necessarily walk the whole thing, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_02 2:28

Um when did you start your interest in sort of urban conservation?

SPEAKER_00 2:33

Uh it probably started during my honours year.

SPEAKER_03 2:36

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 2:36

So my honours, I I was studying a particular species of skink called the swamp skink. So it's a it's a threatened threatened animal in in Victoria. Um and one of the reasons that they're threatened is due to urban development because we tend to want to build houses in the places where these things live.

SPEAKER_03 2:56

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

Um, and yeah, I got I got really interested in that as an issue, and you know, we're clearly going to need more and more houses to support our population, so we need to be thinking about where we put them to kind of limit the impacts on what already lives in these spots. Um so yeah, I decided I I wanted to do further study in that space, but then I jumped ship from uh from perpetology or lizards into birds. Um that's when I yeah discovered that birds are really awesome.

SPEAKER_02 3:32

Was that in a difficult transition or did it just flow naturally?

SPEAKER_00 3:36

It wasn't necessarily a difficult transition. I'd never been a birder like as a kid or anything growing up. I'd just always loved animals and the environment in general. Um but it was definitely a steep learning curve in terms of being able to identify, you know, a wide range of species and including like learning their calls.

SPEAKER_02 3:55

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

That was quite a lot of practice.

SPEAKER_02 3:58

How did you do it? Did you sit there with the recordings and just like I sure did? Wow, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:04

Yeah, that's what my supervisor recommended, and then we did a couple of practice runs. I spent some time at Nanyak Tambury Wildlife Sanctuary at La Trobe Uni, just making sure I was confident before I started collecting data.

SPEAKER_02 4:17

Who was your supervisors?

SPEAKER_00 4:19

I was supervised by um Professor Andrew Bennett, who has recently retired, yeah, and Dr. Angie Haslam. Oh wonderful, that's an all-star cast. It was an all-star cast. I was unbelievably lucky to land that team.

SPEAKER_02 4:32

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 4:33

We're gonna head in somewhere over here on the right.

SPEAKER_02 4:37

Really?

SPEAKER_00 4:37

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 4:38

I'm excited. So we're heading off the trail.

SPEAKER_00 4:40

We are going off track a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 4:41

That's great.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

Hopefully, not in the way of these people on bikes.

SPEAKER_02 4:45

Do you still um have that soft spot for swamp skinks? Because they're glorious little creatures, aren't they?

SPEAKER_00 4:52

Um they're such cool little little things, like, well not even little, like they get up to like 30 centimetres long. Really? In total length of the thing.

SPEAKER_02 5:01

Um can you describe them for someone who might not have seen one?

SPEAKER_00 5:04

Yeah, they're quite like a large skink. So if you think uh not as big as like a blue-tongued lizard, they're a bit skinnier than those guys, but they're quite dark in colour, and then they've got lots of little yellow flecks.

SPEAKER_03 5:15

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 5:16

Um, and they love to bask in the sun like many reptiles.

SPEAKER_03 5:19

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

And they will actually dig their own burrows, like at the base of trees, or they'll sometimes use existing burrows that are made by like yabbies or other kinds of large invertebrates. Um yeah, and they just love really wet areas, so you'll find them in like coastal kind of mud flats and areas along uh different kinds of creeks and swamps and yeah, lots of fresh water spots.

SPEAKER_02 5:49

Wow, we have just emerged at a beautiful what is it, wetland or an artificial lake or how?

SPEAKER_00 5:57

So it's it it's called the Banyal Swamp, but it's like a large body of fresh water, and again it it it's not permanent by any means. Sometimes it does dry out almost completely, but plenty of water here at the moment. Um and quite a few old uh like eucalyptus stags in the water itself, so they're a really good habitat for ducks and galars and cockatoos. There's a few nest boxes attached to them as well.

SPEAKER_03 6:27

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:29

And also some on um like wooden stumps out in the water, so they'll be good for like Australian wood ducks.

SPEAKER_02 6:36

The swamp skink stuff, does that ever stretch out to this area at all?

SPEAKER_00 6:41

No, so most of my um work there was actually down on the Mornington Peninsula.

SPEAKER_02 6:46

That's where I'm in. Oh cool. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:48

So yeah, down around Rosebud Hastings, there's quite a few records of swamp skinks in in that part of Victoria.

SPEAKER_02 6:54

Chinaman's Creek or the Captain.

SPEAKER_00 6:55

Chinaman's Creek, yep, that is that's like the hotspot for them. It's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 6:58

I think they're about to rename it too, I think I heard from the council. It's a wonderful site, and the swamp skinks there just seems so prevalent. And yeah, I've seen some, they they're a good urban species in some ways, because I've seen them in Kilsize South too and some other spots around Greater Melbourne, so hanging hanging on in some of the urban areas.

SPEAKER_00 7:18

Yeah, they're not they're not too fussy, so like they'll they'll turn up in some pretty degraded kind of creek lines, as long as we've got decent kind of um understory vegetation for them, so that they've got that cover. Um and they can actually swim short distances as well.

SPEAKER_02 7:35

They're they're a super cool lizard. That's awesome. And how far did you go down this birding obsession? Because it's it's a deep well to go down if you want to go down like each.

SPEAKER_00 7:45

It is! Yeah, so I guess like I I'm not I'm not the whole way down, that's for sure. I I don't have like a list of every species I've ever seen. I know a lot of people that do, but I I was really worried that that would just turn into an obsession if I started on that path. I I try to see a few new species each year, but yeah, I don't necessarily have a strict list. Um I just enjoy seeing whatever birds happen to turn up. I'm not too fussy.

SPEAKER_02 8:16

Is there any species that you're kind of angling for and thinking about or you get out of bed for, so to speak?

SPEAKER_00 8:23

Like my my favourite bird is the yellow tailed black cockatoo, because they're just incredible birds, massive, and they've got this amazing, unique call. Oh, there's a a white-faced heron just appeared here.

SPEAKER_02 8:38

Graceful, aren't they?

SPEAKER_00 8:39

Yeah, they are. Um, but yeah, the yellowtailed black cockatoos, they they sound what I imagine dinosaurs would have sounded like. And you can hear them coming from like kilometres away, so I will always get out of bed for a yellowtailed black cockatoo.

SPEAKER_02 8:54

What do you think their relationship is with Melbourne? I guess it in in my time that it seems like you see them more these days than maybe 20 years ago.

SPEAKER_00 9:02

Yeah, they they are turning up, and like they'll they'll fly, you know, pretty close to the CBD as well. They're they're moving around all the time, and it's possible that they're more common here now because they are losing habitat in other parts of the state. Um, so obviously, like the the massive uh 2019-2020 fires took out a bunch of uh important habitat for those guys. So potentially that's pushed them closer to the city. But there are still uh you know pockets of habitat for them here, like they love to eat casuarinas, they also love to eat um like from exotic pine trees. So if there's any large areas with with thick pines, you're probably gonna have them turning up at some point.

SPEAKER_02 9:49

And as far as habitat, what do they need? What would we need to have in an urban context to keep them around?

SPEAKER_00 9:54

I was I think we'd need a pretty large patch of habitat. They're a very big bird. Um, and they're also gonna need some pretty big natural hollows to be able to successfully nest and breed. Um, and we don't have a lot of hollows of that kind of size left. They're those trees are very rare, unfortunately. Lots of rainbow loricates flying over.

SPEAKER_02 10:20

They're making a bit uh quite the debut in the city, aren't they? They're really becoming quite prevalent. I um have been speaking to a few people and they were sort of almost getting worried about their impact in sort of being in such large numbers. Have you ever thought about any of that?

SPEAKER_00 10:33

Yeah, yeah, it's come up a bit actually. So um some of my PhD focused on noisy miners, which are already a bit of a controversial uh Australian native bird. And sometimes people also have asked me, well, what about rainbow lorikeets? There's so many of them now. And once upon a time, like say back in the 1970s, 1980s, they were nowhere near as common as they are today. They've just moved into the city and been incredibly successful, and they can be somewhat aggressive to other birds as well, so they may well be impacting what lives where.

SPEAKER_02 11:09

Interesting. And what species did you cover in your PhD?

SPEAKER_00 11:13

Um, so basically anything and everything. Really? So it's the whole suite. Yeah, so I I surveyed 30 different suburbs of Melbourne and I recorded any and all birds that I could see or hear. Obviously, they were mainly terrestrial birds, not a lot of water birds like we can see now. Um but yeah, everything from you know your everyday Australian magpie through to um more kind of less common woodland birds and and those occurring out in like temperate forest areas.

SPEAKER_02 11:44

Were there any birds you were really worried about um in terms of the trajectory of their life in the city in the future? There's quite a few, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_00 11:56

Um like any kind of small insectivores are ones that I would say are concerning. So they're um yeah, really small birds that are feeding on insects, often they're living in kind of dense shrubs or bushes, and we just don't have a lot of areas like that. Uh like if you think about your local park, it's probably a patch of grass and a couple of scattered trees. So there's nothing there that's going to provide for those types of birds. Um, and then they're also dealing with a bunch of threats in the form of like domestic cats, foxes, and also noisy miners pushing them out of places.

SPEAKER_02 12:42

Yeah, the noise miner issue is massive, isn't it? And it is it seems to be um something that a lot of people were really sort of feeling and noticing. Like it's a presence sort of thing. Um do you is there a big solution that you see that you could sort of expand across a landscape, or is it just more of a something that we're gonna have to adapt habitat to suit the other things more?

SPEAKER_00 13:03

Or yeah, it's really tricky in an urban context. So it's something that people have been aware of in more uh rural parts of Australia for some time, and there have been some like culling um taking place in in those more rural areas, so that means that people uh go in with a bunch of highly trained shooters and they will try to reduce the numbers um of noisy miners at a particular site, and there's some evidence to suggest that that can be successful, but we we can't do that in a city. There's there's way too many risks, so we have to think about how we can change the habitat that's available so that it's less suitable for noisy miners and more suitable for a range of other birds. So, as part of um my PhD, what I found was that if we had sites, so I'm talking residential streets, parklands, bushland reserves, um if they had more of those dense shrubs and bushes, I was getting far fewer noisy miners and more of those smaller birds that are not doing as well in cities. So I think shrubs are definitely part of the solution.

SPEAKER_02 14:21

Really? That's interesting. So do you think in the sort of recommendations from some of the work that you've done, do you think we need to start getting shrubs into people's backyards and right, and even those little urban parks that we have and stuff, considering birds? Yeah, yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 14:40

Like obviously they're never gonna provide the same uh, I guess, quality of habitat as what you might get in a large reserve like this, but it all adds up and it all helps. So if we can yeah, start to rethink the way that we're kind of designing our our streets, our our local parks to get a bit more of that mid-story vegetation in, I think that could have um yeah, a big impact on what types of birds are turning up in our suburbs.

SPEAKER_02 15:12

That seems achievable though, doesn't it? Like that's something that could actually happen in the world.

SPEAKER_00 15:17

I think it's achievable. Um like if we're talking about a street, like thinking about people's nature strips, there's definitely some of that work starting to happen, but often people are kind of ripping up the lawn and just putting in like low-growing indigenous kind of flowers or grasses. Um we really need to get a little bit more height if we can. And the problem that I often find is people start talking about human safety.

SPEAKER_03 15:44

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:45

And having that visibility both around roads and and in local parks. And that's tricky.

SPEAKER_02 15:51

So you're talking like six foot height, or what do you do or teach?

SPEAKER_00 15:54

Um so I kind of in my PhD was thinking about things that are either like from 50 centimetres off the ground through to like two metres high.

SPEAKER_03 16:05

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:06

Yeah, so anything within that range is gonna provide uh a bit more shelter for some of those smaller birds, things like say superb fairy wrens that are often at ground level and then retreating into denser vegetation uh for shelter. That kind of thing.

SPEAKER_02 16:24

Are you thinking of um things like around us?

SPEAKER_00 16:27

Are you thinking of prickly things like we've got tree lamacias and we've got tea tree and yeah, prickly things are great because it's pretty unlikely that a cat or a noisy miner or whatever it might be is going to chase a bird into something that's really prickly and dense.

SPEAKER_03 16:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:44

Um, but small birds don't mind, they can kind of avoid the prickles and get in there. Like superb fairy ranzel nest in uh blackberries, even though they're a an exotic plant and they're a massive pest, they they don't mind them.

SPEAKER_02 17:01

Well, there's some cool wetlands over here too.

SPEAKER_00 17:03

Yeah, yeah, this is another low-lying area, doesn't look too wet at the moment.

SPEAKER_02 17:08

But still some good uh native understory there, yeah, indigenous understory. Um have you got any projects that you're really proud of close to the city? I'm sure you've got many, but um, is there one that springs to mind that you get people to drive past or anything?

SPEAKER_00 17:24

Oh so I yeah, I can I can talk about a project. You won't be able to drive past it, you're gonna have to walk.

SPEAKER_03 17:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:31

Um but I I work across multiple different institutions, and I've also done some work with the University of Melbourne and an absolutely amazing urban ecologist, Dr. Kylie Soones. Um we had the pleasure of working on the Birerung Trial Floating Wetlands project.

SPEAKER_04 17:47

Amazing.

SPEAKER_00 17:48

Which is uh a project that's owned and managed by the City of Melbourne Council. Um so if you haven't seen them, there's a series of artificial islands that have been kind of installed in the lower reaches of the Birurung. So there's a couple of them that are right near the aquarium. There's two slightly further downstream at a place called Yarra's Edge, and then there's one in the Docklands. And the idea behind them is that there wasn't really any space left on the banks of the river to try and bring some indigenous vegetation back. We can go this way. Um, it's all just concrete, it's it's been so heavily modified there. So, in order to get some of that indigenous wetland vegetation back, we kind of had to make an island and put it on the island. Um, so yeah, there's these like floating structures covered in locally native plants. Um, and they also have a series of different um oh, there's a common bronze wing. I love those guys.

SPEAKER_02 18:52

They're beautiful, aren't they?

SPEAKER_00 18:54

Yeah, chunky little pigeon. With those striking colours on their edges, they just um yeah, they've also got like ramps on them to try and help um larger birds like black swans um enter and exit the water. They've got a couple of different perches and railings so that uh birds like cormorants can come out of the water and dry their wings in the sun. So a few different things that have been added with birds in mind uh to try and give them kind of a safe spot that they can hang out and they don't have to be bothered by people and cars and dogs and everything else that's going on in the middle of the city.

SPEAKER_02 19:35

That's awesome, that's so cool. Uh you happy with the results of how that's panning out too?

SPEAKER_00 19:40

Yeah, definitely. It's it's been an awesome project to be involved with because there's been so much community support. Yes. Um so shortly after the weather, if we could make this work in places like Lilydale Lake or yeah, as you say, some of those big housing developments, they often put in artificial lakes and it could be a great way to add some more habitat um on islands.

SPEAKER_02 20:07

Is is there a big dream that you've got for urban conservation? Like in in the space of the work that you do, yeah. Is there something that you're working towards? Even if it's a lifelong goal?

SPEAKER_00 20:19

I guess um my my hope is that at some point in the future biodiversity is like the starting point for all developments. The first thing they think about is what's already at the site and how can we actually make it better.

SPEAKER_03 20:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:36

Rather than going, oh well, we'll just clear it and then we'll offset it by protecting some patch that's 800 kilometers away, which is wildly different and no one will ever see.

SPEAKER_03 20:48

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:49

Um, it just makes no sense to me. Whereas they could be going, okay, so we have a degraded patch of grassland, let's deliver the development, but then let's also really restore this and get it to a better state than where it started.

SPEAKER_02 21:04

I guess when you start thinking about all those pollinators relationships, like some of them could just keep going if you just had some of these little patches around, couldn't they?

SPEAKER_00 21:13

Absolutely, yeah, yeah. So, you know, some animals are going to need large areas of habitat, but then others, they don't at all. They can thrive in really tiny spaces. So every little patch matters.

SPEAKER_02 21:27

Do you think people's backyards play a role in all this?

SPEAKER_00 21:30

Yes. Absolutely. Because we're kind of can we get in there?

SPEAKER_02 21:35

I don't know. It's looks like we can, cool. Just I I sort of didn't look keen on it, but suddenly I it emerged that you could open it, so it's probably just to keep dogs out. Yeah. We are entering into uh a natural gated community, it seems. Of a billion.

SPEAKER_00 21:54

Yeah, it is a billion.

SPEAKER_02 21:57

A bit dry at the moment.

SPEAKER_00 21:58

It is, yeah, not dry.

SPEAKER_02 22:00

These formulations are really interesting, aren't they? Like we're working along the Greater Yarra area, you see billibongs that are still intact in places, and you think they must be such significant habitat.

SPEAKER_00 22:12

Absolutely, yeah, considering you know, all of this area would have been covered in floodplains.

SPEAKER_02 22:17

Do you find yourself keeping abreast of the odd things that do pop up in the city from time to time? You know?

SPEAKER_00 22:24

I try to, yeah. To see, oh, you've seen a Nankane night her in here, that's cool. Um but yeah, you kind of have to be connected to the right people to know. It is, isn't it? It's turning up well.

SPEAKER_02 22:35

I remember when they're um power flowers in the botanic gardens. Yes. And there's all these whispers of come check it out, but don't tell anyone at the exact spot sort of thing. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 22:47

And that's important, you don't want to disturb them.

SPEAKER_02 22:50

And thinking about orchids and things like that that have been lost out of urban areas. And there's uh which have complex relationships with fungi and pollinators and stuff like that. Yeah. Do you ever take that sort of stuff into consideration in the urban context? Or are we sort of building things outside and just having glimpses in the city, or or are we looking to rebuild full ecosystems?

SPEAKER_00 23:12

Yeah, I guess there like in certain areas there would be scope to kind of really go for it and try to restore things to to be a fully functioning ecosystem. But I guess in a lot of the spaces that I've ever done work in, uh things are potentially a bit too far gone, or we're working with quite a small site, um, so there's going to be limitations as to what you can achieve. But definitely like places like Royal Park, it's so close to the city, and it's a massive parcel of land. Like the um the Australian native garden there is just beautiful. Yes. And they're they're doing some some cool experimental stuff around like wildflower meadows, and yeah, so places like that I think have real potential.

SPEAKER_02 23:58

Are there any patches around the city that you other than rural park that you sort of eye off and go, geez, I'd love to turn that into a park?

SPEAKER_00 24:07

Like pretty much every single park other than Royal Park near the city is it's grass, it's some exotic trees, and not a lot else. And there's so much more that we could do with those spaces. Um and and things that would also benefit the people that are visiting them as well, being able to, you know, engage with some of our native vegetation rather than just whatever the first white folks planted. Um, but it's tricky because those some of the trees there are really, really old.

SPEAKER_03 24:42

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 24:42

They're it's not something that you can just replace overnight.

SPEAKER_03 24:46

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:46

So you kind of have to wait until they get to the end of their lifespan and then slowly kind of systematically replace them with um native options.

SPEAKER_02 24:55

It makes me wonder, and I um about and I I get stuck on this thought all the time of the population of Melbourne, and whenever I see those numbers, and you sort of see Victoria, and then you see this sort of 80 to 90 percent of the population didn't Melbourne. Yes, and you think about how big a number that is, we're talking five million, yeah, five million people. And how do we encourage people to get an understanding of the importance of these conservation values or these natural values that are part of you know Melbourne's landscape, iconic species that have been there forever and are sort of dwindling? How do you get that collective community awareness about it? And that's the bit I get stumped on all the time, but it seems essential to move forward into the next sort of phase of getting people to convert parks into things and yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:48

I I think that like the first step is just getting them to experience it.

SPEAKER_03 25:52

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 25:53

We're asking them to connect with species that maybe they've never seen, they don't even know that they exist because they've they've lived their whole life in a heavily modified area that has exotic trees and just open grass in the local park. They've never been somewhere where it's more of a natural bushland setting. Um, so being able to yeah, restore places back to closer to where they started prior to the arrival of Europeans, I think is a really important first step. And there's lots of signs.

SPEAKER_02 26:26

Where are we? Where are we?

SPEAKER_00 26:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:28

Oh yeah. Aren't they beautiful? I reckon they're an underrated bird.

SPEAKER_00 26:35

They are underrated, they're so colourful.

SPEAKER_02 26:37

I think if someone from another country who was a birdo came and saw that, they'd be thrilled. They'd be thrilled. I'll see them. And it's hard to imagine when you're talking about that connection. Like we're walking through here now and having this experience and seeing a beautiful bird like that, bright yellow and red and green. How could this not be appealing to the gym? I know. How could everyone not want this? Because I mean it's peaceful. There's scientific data that backs up, you know, spending time in places like this real.

SPEAKER_00 27:14

There's there's been studies now that have shown that bird watching in particular is actually really good for your well-being.

SPEAKER_04 27:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:20

You walk away from it feeling so much better off than where you started. It's also an opportunity to get people outdoors so they're more active, and they're also creating social connections with other people that are interested in the same things. So it's it's good for so many reasons.

SPEAKER_02 27:36

Yeah. Oh, it's. I mean, there's been times in my whole life where I've been slightly ashamed to be a bird watcher, I've gonna say. And and um uh hearing all this sort of stuff um puts a bit of wind behind the sailed. Yeah, there's nothing wrong with wanting to go look at birds. That's what I need, that's the mantra I need to say in the morning every day, is just there's nothing wrong to want to go look at birds. But I think I think everyone should experience it. Like it's just it doesn't have to be a high impact sport or anything, does it? Like it's just uh go for a walk and yeah, go for a walk, see what turns up.

SPEAKER_00 28:12

Even if you don't know what the bird is, then at least it's an opportunity to learn and go, okay, well, I think it was about this size and it was this colour. Like there's heaps of great apps out there now that can help you identify different birds or different anything that you see, whether you maybe you're interested in orchids, whatever it is.

SPEAKER_02 28:32

Have you ever converted someone into a birdwatcher?

SPEAKER_00 28:35

I don't know about converted them, but I I have run like um you know, guided on different kinds of birding tours and stuff in in urban areas.

SPEAKER_02 28:45

Oh great. Hello, cute dog. Oh, that's something to keep an eye out for. Uh you do birdwatching tours in um sorry.

SPEAKER_00 28:52

Hello. So it's uh it's not necessarily something that I'm organizing, but um something that's often organised by local councils. So there's actually one coming up right here at this site. Oh really? In um in October. It's called the uh Breakfast with the Birds.

SPEAKER_03 29:07

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 29:07

And it's something that Banual City Council runs every year, and we get you know around a hundred people who will rock up as long as it's good weather. Um, and what we do is we divide them up into about four groups, and we all go out and walk different routes within this park. Um, so we'll stop at that swamp that we were at earlier, and we'll also take them off track to some cool spots to try and find some of those smaller birds, and then when we come back together, we all have something to eat and we kind of go through and make a list of all the different species that we all saw on the morning. So it's kind of a way to census um the birds that are here on that particular day, and it's also just an awesome way to get people outside and thinking more about birds in their local area. Like I often have really good conversations with some of the people that come along who will ask me about a bird they saw in their backyard, or you know, how can we get more of those in our local park or whatever it is? So, yeah, it's it's a really fun thing to do.

SPEAKER_02 30:08

That is fantastic. What about Melbourne conservation networks? Do you think there's a space to create more? Do you think what do you think there needs to be for um empowering and enabling people to be part of Melbourne conservation?

SPEAKER_00 30:24

Yeah, so there like there are some existing networks. Um, so if we're talking about like suburbia and people's backyards, um there's a really fantastic initiative called Gardens for Wildlife, which is run by a lot of local councils across Greater Melbourne, um, and they do an awesome job about getting people to think about how they can use their garden as a space for them, but also a space for native animals. Um and then I guess there's also lots of active friends of groups, um, so there's one for this park, then they've been working here for like 50 years. Wow, they've been heavily involved in the restoration of this site, so yeah, there's some really um you know dedicated people out there and plenty of opportunities for others to get involved.

SPEAKER_02 31:14

Did you have any people that sort of um were influential to you on your conservation journey? Um, I know there'll be many, but any in particular that spring to mind?

SPEAKER_00 31:25

Oh, I guess like uh the one person I I was already at uni by at this stage, so I'd kind of I knew I was on this track.

SPEAKER_03 31:34

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 31:34

But I still remember um uh a man who's now retired now, Professor Mike Clark. He was working at La Trobe University, and when I first started my degree, I was like in the first week of doing a science degree at La Trobe, and he gave a lecture to us. Oh watch, there's a bike. Um it's all good, and he was just full of such passion and such love for the environment that it was like it was impossible to not be inspired by that man. And I was so fortunate to end up doing my PhD in the same lab group as him.

SPEAKER_04 32:09

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 32:09

Um, by that stage, he he was yeah, more or less retired, but it just amazing to be able to work kind of alongside him and to hear all of his knowledge. He's got so much knowledge about the birds of Melbourne and and and beyond. Um, yeah, so he was definitely a big inspiration for me.

SPEAKER_02 32:27

I've been this is the Yarrow Beerung. That's the Birung. Yeah, it's beautiful, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 32:34

Yeah, it's very peaceful.

SPEAKER_02 32:36

It's lovely knowing a place like this exists so close to the city.

SPEAKER_00 32:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:46

Um yeah, he's fantastic. I've been birding with him.

SPEAKER_01 32:49

Have you?

SPEAKER_02 32:50

Uh how powerful our stuff we did. It was magic. He's a wonderful guy. He is. There's some cool plants along here too.

SPEAKER_00 32:59

It's a bit of a narrower kind of track, so there's a few people on mountain mountain bikes sometimes, but it's a good spot to walk.

SPEAKER_02 33:08

What a great spot to get away from it all, too.

SPEAKER_00 33:11

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_02 33:13

And so these blackberry canes here, although a weed still serving some habitat purposes.

SPEAKER_00 33:18

Yeah, like they're still providing structure for for smaller birds to get in and amongst it. Um you know, it's it's early September now, so there's potentially gonna be birds looking to build nests soon. And even though it's spiky, it's it's still good, good spot for a nest.

SPEAKER_02 33:36

When did you first get an interest in conservation in general? Do you mind me asking?

SPEAKER_00 33:40

Yeah, so when I finished high school I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. Yeah, right. I knew that I loved the environment, I loved animals, but I didn't want to be a vet. Um so I actually took a year off uh and I disappeared overseas for six months, and I went and volunteered with an organization called Tatoruga Marina, which means sea turtle in Portuguese. And I was kind of yeah, living and working um in a small village on the coast, east coast of Brazil.

SPEAKER_02 34:10

There's a really old windmill here. That's interesting, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 34:13

Yeah, so apparently it was here like when all of this used to be farming country, like it was used for uh grazing cattle when the first white folks arrived, and they yeah, they've retained this really old windmill to kind of remember that.

SPEAKER_02 34:30

It does cut a bit of an image, doesn't it? It's really interesting. So we're looking at the banks of the Yarra. That's the beerong, yeah? It's the beerong right there.

SPEAKER_00 34:39

Yeah, right there.

SPEAKER_02 34:40

With some decent river red gums next to it. And then there's an old windmill just gently rocking along between all the shaded trees.

SPEAKER_00 34:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:52

It's pretty picturesque, it's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00 34:54

It is. It's a really nice spot.

SPEAKER_02 34:57

And so you falling in love with turtles.

SPEAKER_00 35:00

Yeah, yeah. I kind of yeah, spent a lot of time patrolling beaches late at night looking for nesting hawkspill turtles, and we would kind of let the females come up onto the shore, they'd lay their eggs, and then we'd mark the location of the nest and make sure it was protected. There was a lot of problems with foxes there, which is fairly universal. Um, anybody and yeah, I I actually had the chance to be working alongside PhD students who were doing their research on turtles, and that was kind of the moment where I was like, I want to do this. I want to do a PhD in conservation. I I want to do research and yeah, try and restore things back to what they once were.

SPEAKER_03 35:44

Yeah, amazing.

SPEAKER_00 35:45

Protect what we still have. So yeah, I came came back from Brazil and went, I'm doing this degree at La Trobe, and the rest is history.

SPEAKER_02 35:53

Very much history because you've had a huge impact with the stuff you're doing, and it's really cool. Um I want to ask a question about critical weight range mammals. Yeah. I'm gonna be just all over the shop with these questions. So I don't so thinking of bandicoots and potteroos, and when I'm reading the old journals about Melbourne and stuff, they're talking, they're everywhere, you know?

SPEAKER_00 36:19

Like Yes, like overrun.

SPEAKER_02 36:20

Overrun, you can't Oh, bike. Oh, sorry. Have a good one.

SPEAKER_00 36:28

If we head back this way, we'll go past another billion bong.

SPEAKER_02 36:31

Oh, sweet. Um and thinking about that and how much of a role they must have played in moving soil around soil and and and uh all sorts of fungi and stuff like that. What do you think? How do we how do we get them back? Yeah, how do is there a place in the city to set aside a reserve for things like that? Because you know, that would be so cool. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:56

Um so once upon a time I worked for Nanyak Tambury Wildlife Sanctuary. That's cool. Formerly La Trobe Wildlife Sanctuary. Um and that was very much when I was there, that that was always the the end dream. Because the it's a 30-hectare reserve that's all kind of revegetated, restored bushland, and it has a predator-proof fence around the outside, so um no cats, no foxes, nothing but native, well, there's a lot of kangaroos, there's emus, wonderful birds. Um, but the idea was that maybe one day it would be uh a release site for things like bandicoots or potteroos or other kind of digging mammals. Hasn't happened yet, but that I think would be a really great opportunity because we do have the existing fence, they're not going to get eaten by everything.

SPEAKER_02 37:50

It's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 37:51

And I guess there's places like the Briars down the Peninsula now that Southern Brown bandicoots and southern brown bandicoots are really weird animals, they turn up in unusual places, like super close to highways, and like they're they're not too fussy about having this nice pristine habitat. They they just yeah, turn up places where it's like, oh, you might get hit by a car here, maybe don't. But there's heaps of them at Cranburn Botanic Gardens, massive population down there, which I guess, yeah, potential corridors in the future and stuff.

SPEAKER_02 38:25

Yeah. And I I see there are some of these hugely endangered species that incur occur around Greater Melbourne. Yes. We have like plains wanderers rocking up in finding car parks in Werobee and stuff like that. And um growling grass frogs hanging out, yes, and dinellaramina and all those other things. Yep. What what are your thoughts about some of these really nationally endangered species that are hanging on on the outskirts of the city?

SPEAKER_00 38:52

Yeah, I think they're the kind of things that we really need to be celebrating so much more and bringing into even like the primary school curriculum to be like, this is this is a really important animal or a really important plant. There's you know only 300 left of them in the world or whatever it is, and it lives right here. Like that's super exciting, and even though the kids might not get to see it in person, like knowing that that's just down the road and it's so critically endangered, you know, that they're probably learning about things like tigers or polar bears, these like big, you know, charismatic mammals, but there's something equally as endangered, probably round the corner.

SPEAKER_02 39:34

Do you know for audio reasons I had to hold myself back from applauding those statements because I I think that's such a great idea, and it's so true. Like we've talking about that population base again and thinking that they might not have a connection with these species that are such a more endangered than some of the ones they're learning about, yeah, and just around the corner.

SPEAKER_00 39:56

Yeah, and like just like the bandicoots, things like growling grassrogs, they turn up in really weird spots where you've got a pretty degraded wetland, or it's like a it's it's a a river that's been, you know, it has a lot of erosion, and there's agriculture on either side, but that they're still there, they still make it work. So I think, yeah, definitely we need to be we need to be celebrating those guys because they're hardy, they're like your true Aussie battlers. Everyone loves an Aussie battler.

SPEAKER_01 40:27

That sounded like a baby galar or something.

SPEAKER_00 40:30

Really?

SPEAKER_01 40:31

Like there's there's model birds, but something else sounded more cockatoo-y.

SPEAKER_02 40:38

That drony sound, for example.

SPEAKER_00 40:40

Yeah, like it's having a whinge about something. That's a yellow-faced honey eater, that's calling.

SPEAKER_02 40:45

You really did do well at that calling up, didn't you? Like, I think we need to acknowledge.

SPEAKER_00 40:49

And I'm probably quite rusty, actually.

SPEAKER_02 40:52

I think we need to acknowledge what a piece of work that was.

SPEAKER_00 40:56

Yeah, there's there's all these like they're on CD. Yeah. And it's like this man's voice, and he'll be like, uh, like sulfur crusted cockaboo. And then they just start playing the bird call.

SPEAKER_02 41:07

It's can you do a new one of those? Can you update it for the new generation? Just so it's not that guy. Yeah, just so it's not that guy. And if that guy's listening, you're great. I listen to those CDs too. It's just time for a new one.

SPEAKER_00 41:19

And um, I'm suggesting that you're I don't know if that man would still be with us, to be honest.

SPEAKER_02 41:25

That's a fair call. Bird song of something rather, wasn't it? Um, but yeah, absolutely. But that's a really hard process to go through to sort of think I'm gonna remember this. I'm gonna save this to a part of my brain where I can access it whenever I need. Because it's not something you you're often in control of, and some people have to put techniques in to remember things.

SPEAKER_00 41:47

Yeah, so I I often had a cheat sheet with me when I was in the field where I would try to write down, like phonetically, what if there were calls that I knew that I struggled with, I'd I'd write down what I think it sounded like, and often guidebooks will give you, oh, it sounds like this, but sometimes you listen to it and you're like, I don't know if it does. Um so yeah, I'd I'd write down what I thought it sounded like, and then I could refer to that if I was ever in a situation where I was like, I don't really know what that one was. Um but yeah, I found that working in an urban area, knowing bird calls was so important because often you couldn't see the bird. Um, like you might hear it make a noise, but it's behind someone's house, or it's there's a fence in the way or something, so you really needed to be able to identify them based solely on call.

SPEAKER_02 42:37

So those wattle birds, as an example, would you have a phonetic example of how you'd no, that's really hard.

SPEAKER_00 42:46

Or I might just like describe it. So, like, I don't know, like like an Eastern spine bill call.

SPEAKER_03 42:51

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 42:51

Um, it kind of goes like up down, up down, up down, like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that would help me remember it. And then when you'd hear it, you'd be like, oh yeah, that's what it is.

SPEAKER_02 43:01

And can we have a second to acknowledge how cool partloats are? Do you love padlotes?

SPEAKER_00 43:06

Yeah, partilotes are amazing, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:08

So so tiny, yeah, and so loud. Yeah. And that's something that can pop up in a weird spot, like off a building site or something to. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:17

They um, yeah, they're super interesting because they they feed like way up high in the eucalypt canopy, but then sometimes they're gonna build their nests nests at ground level and just kind of like burrow into some kind of embankment. So, you know, I'm used to seeing them way up high, but then in nesting time, they can be, you know, down on the ground and and digging away to find a spot to lay their eggs, which is really cool.

SPEAKER_02 43:43

Um, yeah, there's so many of these. I guess there's some species in Melbourne that may occur that are hard to detect sometimes, too. Like I guess feather tail gliders is one of those things that you just never know where they are, sort of pretty crazy. Yeah, and um. And even, I guess, um some species that are maybe more common but hard to see, like um mistletoe birds and things like that. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 44:08

I think I've only ever seen a mistletoe bird twice, and once was like quite a long way away through binoculars, and the second time was right up in my face, but it was entirely by accident. Really? I kind of just spooked it and it was right there. It would have been like a metre from me.

SPEAKER_02 44:24

What's the deal? Because you reckon they should be everywhere. Like you see they must get around.

SPEAKER_00 44:29

Like I do, but I think there's also been like there's nowhere near as much native mistletoe in the landscape as what there would have once been. And um there was a point, I think a few years ago before COVID hit, that the city of Melbourne was actually going out and actively infecting eucalypse in the CBD with mistletoe because it's it's really good for um from a biodiversity perspective.

SPEAKER_03 44:55

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 44:56

And it doesn't necessarily kill the tree, um, if anything, it wants the tree to survive because it's living off the tree's nutrients. Um but yeah, we we we don't see see them everywhere, that's for sure, because they are so closely linked to there being a patch of mistletoe or a number of patches.

SPEAKER_03 45:15

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_02 45:17

If you're listening to this and you're living in a multi-story apartment in the CVD, yeah, which a lot of people do, and you're thinking, I'm working full-time, what can I do to help Melbourne's ecology or how can I participate in conservation? Yeah, would you have any ideas?

SPEAKER_00 45:42

Absolutely. So if you're in an apartment, you obviously can't go out and make a beautiful biodiverse garden because you don't have the space, and that's totally understandable. Same for a lot of folks who are renting. Um, but one thing you can do is you can provide water, and water is a really limiting resource in cities because we have concreted everything, so it tends to flow away as soon as it rains, it goes down drains, disappears. Um, if you can have some kind of bird bath or not even a fancy bird bath, anything, anything that's going to hold water, um it's it's gonna be really helpful to provide something for for birds to drink and also bathe in, potentially also possums, you never know, depends where you are. And then in terms of beyond your lovely little balcony, you can also be looking at at you know getting involved if you have the time with with a friends of group, say at Royal Park. It's a massive parkland, they have a really active friends of group, they do bird surveys there every month, and they're also out helping with reveg or weeding or whatever's happening. Um that's one way that you can be contributing to the biodiversity of the city, which isn't isn't a long trek by any means, it's just a tram a couple of minutes north.

SPEAKER_02 47:01

That's it's very I like that, it's very accessible. What about if you've got an urban area and let's say you've got a patch of grass? I don't know if this hypothetical is relevant to anyone, so it might be obsolete in me even mentioning it, but let's just do it anyway. Yep. You've got a patch of grass and a patch of weeds, right?

SPEAKER_03 47:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:22

And you want to build some habitat.

SPEAKER_03 47:25

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 47:26

Should you be going to the weeds? Should you be planting new stuff? Should you be staging things?

SPEAKER_00 47:32

Yeah, so I guess if you if you pull everything out at once and then plant something new, it's you're gonna have to wait a bit for that new habitat to have any kind of value. So there's gonna be a while where there's just nothing there, really. Um so ideally you want to do it in stages, so you don't just have a bare patch. And what you put in is gonna be so dependent on what you want to see in your garden, what's already existing in the local area. Like, are you keen to see blue-tongued lizards? Um, or do you want to attract native bees? Or are you keen on birds like me? Like what whatever it is, you've got to think about what you would love to come and visit that patch.

SPEAKER_02 48:16

So have sort of a conservation target towards. I've never heard that, that's really clever.

SPEAKER_00 48:21

So like if it's like a blue-tongue lizard, you're probably gonna think more about having rocks and logs and mulch and stuff like that, because that's where they all love to get in underneath. Um, whereas if we're thinking about like native bees, it's all about planting indigenous flowering vegetation, things like Dionella amina, like you mentioned earlier, maybe not that species exactly, but something similar that has flowers they can feed from. And then if it's birds, we're probably gonna have to go, yeah, shrubs, stuff that's providing habitat for insects, and then also flower resources as well.

SPEAKER_02 48:56

That's great. So, do you have a particular affinity to this place?

SPEAKER_00 49:02

Yeah, I just it's such a lovely, peaceful spot. And yes, there's people riding their bikes and walking their dogs and stuff, but like it's it's a place where you can go in to some of that more denser stuff and you'd you'd never know that you were close to the city, which is really nice.

SPEAKER_02 49:20

I think it's cool how there's always something to learn from these places too, isn't it? It's like it's yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:27

I think like like the thing I like about Banyel Flats is that it's gone through such an evolution over the years that it was once upon a time a natural woodland with billiardongs, and then um it was kind of converted into this cattle grazing kind of landscape, and then once the cattle were gone, it's slowly being restored.

SPEAKER_03 49:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:50

Um so it's yeah, it's been constantly transitioning, which is really interesting. Because it's it's has heaps of value as habitat, but it's it hasn't always looked like this, and it could change again in the next 20 to 30 years.

SPEAKER_02 50:06

What do you think about um bird re-releases? And they're doing stuff with helmeted honey eaters and species like that. Do you think there's much of a role for that in the future of the city or yeah?

SPEAKER_00 50:18

I think there's always like species releases or translocations, reintroductions, whatever you want to call them.

SPEAKER_03 50:25

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 50:25

Um they're super interesting. I think it makes a lot of sense when you're supplementing an existing population like the Helmut honey eaters. Um they already exist in that landscape and they have done for potentially thousands of years. They've just struggled, so we're just trying to get more genetic diversity back into the population. That makes so much sense. I think when it becomes risky is if we're looking at introducing an animal that either hasn't occurred here for quite some time or has never occurred here.

SPEAKER_03 50:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:57

Um, because then we just don't know what's going to happen. It's there's so many more, uh so much more uncertainty, I guess. So that's the only thing that would worry me, but otherwise, absolutely. Let's let's get more individual birds out there.

SPEAKER_02 51:13

That was the amazing Dr. Jacinta Humphrey. I encourage you, go check her out on social media, look her up online, or see if you can find your way to one of her bird walk and talks. I guarantee you'll love it. Thanks for listening to Finding Melbourne's Nature. You can find us on all your streaming platforms or on the website findingMelboyn'sNature.com. Thanks for listening, and hope you can join us for another walk soon.