Honouring Ken Simpson

Ken Simpson

Memorial planting site - image B.Tardif

This morning over 30 people came together to remember the life of Ken Simpson.

800 habitat plants were planted in honour of Ken alongside the creek in Yellingbo NCR.

Ken was a passionate naturalist and a keen observer of birds and their habitat. He had a strong commitment to education and welcomed each opportunity to share his incredible knowledge.

Ken's memorial planting, incorporating a suite of plant species that Helmeted Honeyeaters require for ongoing survival, will be the backdrop for the Friends of the Helmeted Honeyeaters upcoming outdoor classroom space.

Vale Ken Simpson.

Aussie backyard bird count, 20-26 October

Australian King-Parrot - image B.Tardif

Join thousands of people between 20 — 26 October to take part in the Aussie Backyard Bird Count — BirdLife Australia’s first nationwide bird survey. All it takes is 20 minutes in your backyard, or favourite outdoor space, local park, beach, forest or paddock, to be a part of this exciting event!

Find out more here

Some positive research news

"THEspeckled warblers arrived first. Then came the red-capped robins, followedby the rufous whistlers and the grey fantails. ... a decade-longsurvey of 193 sites on farms throughout NSW, southern Queensland and northernVictoria found a significant increase in bird biodiversity in areas whereproperty owners had replanted native woodland vegetation or reduced livestockgrazing and encouraged regrowth."

This is an excerpt from The Sydney Morning Herald on 15 May 2012


Helmeted Honeyeaters and the species that co-exist with them aren't woodland birds, but it's encouraging to know that this study "..found a significant increase in bird biodiversity in areas where property owners had replanted native woodland vegetation or reduced livestock grazing and encouraged regrowth."

This is what the Friends of the Helmeted Honeyeater have been concentrating their efforts on for 23 years in Yellingbo and surrounds. How much difference has 750,000+ indigenous tubestock made we wonder... Anecdotally, a lot.

Thanks to everyone involved over those 23 years for their commitment and passion to conservation of our patch.

2011 - International Year of Forests

The United Nations General Assembly declared 2011 as the International Year of Forests to raise awareness on sustainable management, conservation and sustainable development of all types of forests.

We look forward to doing our bit through our education programs and volunteering efforts to celebrate people’s action to sustainably manage the world’s forests.

We'd love you to join us! The best way to start is to drop in to our community nursery at 1217 Macclesfield Road, Yellingbo (Melways reference 305 G11) on any Tuesday or Thursday throughout the year. Our nursery volunteers are on deck from 10am-1pm and would love to talk to you about the volunteer roles the Friends are involved with including plant propagation, planting, school talks & bird surveys to name just a few. BYO lunch to enjoy together at 1pm. We provide morning tea. See you there!

NB. We are closed on days of High Fire Danger.

Microchips vs leg bands - monitoring Helmeted Honeyeaters

We are often asked during our community education talks why we don't use microchips instead of leg bands to monitor the Helmeted Honeyeaters in the wild. It's a good question. So good in fact that Healesville Sanctuary are currently undertaking a trial to determine whether it's a viable option in the future.

Read more here: http://www.zoo.org.au/Conservation/Research/Wildlife_Reintroduction/Microchip_Trial

Movie fundraiser - Up - Rochford 12 March 2010

Outdoor movie night - ‘UP’ on a big screen at Rochford, Yarra Valley

Date: Friday 12 March 2010.
Time: Gates open 7pm. Movie starts at dusk

From the creators of Finding Nemo & Monsters Inc comes this pixar animated movie that draws
together the most unlikely duo on an Uplifting adventure of a lifetime. Carl, a retired balloon
salesman and Russell an enthusiastic Wilderness Explorer meet some wonderful characters on an adventure that helps protect a rare 13 foot tall flightless bird.

Just like Carl and Russell in Up, the Friends of the Helmeted Honeyeater believe that individuals can make a difference to the plight of our state emblem, the beautiful but endangered Helmeted Honeyeater, along with the myriad of plants and animals that co-exist with it.

Come along & enjoy Up under the stars of the Yarra Valley.

• Cost: $10 adults, children under 12 FREE. Tickets at the gate
• BYO chair or rug, warm clothes, food & drink (no BYO alcohol). Food & drinks, including alcohol, can be purchased at the venue
• Event proceeds rain, hail or shine – come prepared
• 50% of the proceeds of this movie night go to the Friends of the Helmeted Honeyeater to improve their nursery facilities & ensure a reliable water supply over the critical
summer months.

Venue: Rochford Winery, Corner Maroondah Hwy & Hill Road, Coldstream. Melway 277 D9

Rochford Wines is proud to support the Friends of the Helmeted Honeyeater through the hosting of this community event

Survey results - I came across this website...

The results are in for our latest Blog survey - I came across this website... From a total of 15 responses:
A. By accident - Nil
B. Search engine - 8 responses
C. I know someone involved in the group - 2 responses
D. Someone told me about it - Nil
D. I am a Friends of HeHo member - Nil

Prickly Currant-bush & school children

It continually surprises me what children connect with when we're talking to them about the Helmeted Honeyeater and its habitat. Prickly Currant-bush, Coprosma quadrifida, is one of those things. Why? If you have some ideas lets us know.

Do they relate to it being a great place to get away from predators? Do they like the idea of a hiding place being a source of food as well? Hmmm... Anyway, we received some fabulous letters and pictures from Warburton Primary School students after their recent revegetation day at Yellingbo. We hope you enjoy looking at them as much as we have!

Helmeted Honeyeater Christmas Campaign

Lost for ideas for that hard to buy for person in your life? ZoosVictoria have developed a HeHo Christmas card to plant seeds of hope for Helmeted Honeyeaters! The purchase of 1 HeHo Christmas card will restore 1 square metre of habitat for the Helmeted Honeyeater and give a gift of hope for a future filled with wildlife and wild places.

Through the HeHo Christmas card campaign we hope to raise awareness about the plight of the Helmeted Honeyeater, provide a convenient method to contribute to the conservation of the species and raise enough money to restore two revegetation plots within Yellingbo Nature Conservation Reserve. 100% of the funds raised go directly to this project.

Cards are $15.00 each. To purchase, please contact Margaret Harwood at Melbourne Zoo on 03 9285 9462 or Andrea Burgess at Healesville Sanctuary on 03 5957 2850.

More information at http://www.zoo.org.au/heho

Education through art

Yellingbo and Macclesfield Primary School students are currently exhibiting work at Karwarra Australian Plant Gardens' Wildlife Art Exhibition. The theme - Endangered Species and their Habitat. You'd never guess HeHos are critically endangered by the number displayed at Karwarra at the moment! Also depicted are Leadbeater's Possums, Powerful Owls and many more species of the bush. On exhibition now until Sunday 9 November 2008 at Karwarra, Mt Dandenong Tourist Road, Kalorama. Oh... and the professional artwork is quite stunning.

Artwork by: Darrien (Helmeted Honeyeater's nesting) & Matt (Leadbeaters Possums), students at Yellingbo Primary School

Ambassadors go behind the scenes

The Friends' Ambassadors’ program with Yellingbo and Macclesfield Primary Schools involves 8 students from each school. They experience what is involved in efforts to save our endangered bird emblem and are encouraged to spread the word on what each individual can do to preserve our precious indigenous flora and fauna.

Back in June the students were driven into the reserve in 4wd’s to learn about the special habitat Helmeted Honeyeater’s require, and to gain first-hand experience of the supplementary bird feeding and monitoring program. A tour of our nursery, a presentation on the Leadbeater’s Possum and a bushwalk capped off the day.

On Tuesday 29/7/08 we took a bus to Healesville Sanctuary to meet up with Senior Keeper, Karina Cartwright, who showed us through the captive breeding areas for the Helmeted Honeyeater, Mountain Pygmy-possum, Orange-bellied Parrot, Brush-tailed Rock-wallaby and Tasmanian Devil. A really unique experience to see what goes on behind the scenes. We were very lucky to meet up with one of the sanctuary’s vets, Rupert Baker, who showed us a Mountain Pygmy-possum that he had operated on. Not many people get to see these critically endangered animals. We then headed for the Parrots in Flight exhibition with another keeper, Jason which was a great experience before we reluctantly headed home. The Ambassadors’ loved the day and learnt a lot from Karina. Here are some of their edited comments:

Kristy: "Some of the things that the keepers feed the helmeted honey eaters were millworms (sic. mealworms). Karina told us that they taste like popcorn when fried, and also a milky substance that contains dried pollens and seeds.

I think this was an excellent experience and I hope we get to do it again someday. This is a day I will never forget."

Ryan H: "We were given a challenge to find the lyre birds nest. I was one out of the three to find it was on top of a fern stump."

Harry: "The day ended like any other day except for the fact that I just had the most exiting day of the year. The next day I thought that it would be a normal day but I was crowded with people that wanted to know what I did."

Sarah: "The nest was built in the fork of a tree and it was made from emu feathers which had spider webs wrapped around it to stop it from falling apart and dingo hair on the inside to make it nice and soft for the chicks.

The sanctuary put little cameras inside the avaries. When there is a chick the camera is moved above the nest so the sanctuary can watch the chick to make sure there isn’t any problems.

I still can’t believe how lucky I was to get the chance to go into so many places the public never gets to go and do so many things! I wish I could do it again! THANK YOU FRIENDS OF THE HELMETED HONEYEATER AND HEALSVILLE SANCTUARY!"

Image: The Ambassadors are shown how the video monitoring equipment aids the recovery effort
Photograph by: S. Tardif