Friends of Tower Hill

Friends of Tower Hill We are a volunteer based conservation group focused on the restoration of Tower Hill Reserve

We had another stagwatch for the year over the weekend, rescheduled after the storms some weeks past. While we typically...
17/09/2024

We had another stagwatch for the year over the weekend, rescheduled after the storms some weeks past. While we typically do these events around the new moon when the animals are expected to be more active, the weather left us with some less than ideal timing for it!

Turnout for the event was low (sorry for the mix up with the time of the event!) so we didn’t cover many boxes. We monitored the box on Fairy Island, but once again had no luck with it, and also checked the Wagon Bay section where none were spotted emerging from the boxes (or the tree cavity they’ve been seen to use in the past), but one was spotted on the walk back

Some good news though! During our condition checks of the nestboxes, we noticed that two that have previously been occupied by bees appear to have been vacated for now, with nesting material spotted protruding out of one (difficult to see from a distance who’s nest it might be though)

We’re aiming to have the next stagwatch in December, and we’ll let you all know when we have a date locked in! In the meantime we’ll have our monthly working bees, so keep an eye out for more info on those and be sure to sign up as a member with us if you’re keen!

(Recycled an old image)

10/06/2024

We had our second stagwatch for the year last Friday, with perfect weather conditions (for a Warrnambool winter)

Our volunteer turnout for the night was 10 people, including a few new folks so welcome to them and thanks to everyone who came along!

For the night we covered 8 nest boxes, and we had 2 gliders spotted (with a possible 3rd). This may be a bit lower than our last few events, but that’s to be expected through winter as the gliders start going into torpor to get through the cool nights and become much less active

We also had our first sighting of an owl while conducting a stagwatch, with one of our volunteers spotting a Southern Boobook (which only has a couple records around the reserve in the last two decades too!) - spotted hanging around right by one of the nest boxes

Thanks to Dave Handscombe for running the event and for everyone who took the time to help out!

Possums and gliders are marsupials, grouped together as members of the suborder Phalangeriformes. Most species tend to b...
15/04/2024

Possums and gliders are marsupials, grouped together as members of the suborder Phalangeriformes. Most species tend to be arboreal - that is, they spend most of their time above ground in trees and shrubs - particularly in forests and less open woodlands, often utilising tree hollows. Some, such as the ringtail possums, can make their own large, round shelters out of bark, leaves and twigs called dreys that a family will live together in

Here at Tower Hill we have three species of possums and gliders:

- Common Brushtail Possums
- Common Ringtail Possums
- Sugar (Krefft’s) Gliders

All three species are nocturnal so you’ll likely only see them, just remember to look up in the trees for them!

Today is World Frog Day 🐸The wetland systems here at Tower Hill provide great habitat for frog species, including the St...
19/03/2024

Today is World Frog Day 🐸

The wetland systems here at Tower Hill provide great habitat for frog species, including the Striped Marsh Frogs pictured here!

If you’re out listening for frogs, the best spots to go are the Lava Tongue Boardwalk and Wagon Bay Loop. They’re highly weather dependent so choose a good time of year to go and remember to never handle frogs as they can be very sensitive!

Yesterday we had both our monthly working bee with a small but hardworking team and our first stagwatch event for the ye...
17/03/2024

Yesterday we had both our monthly working bee with a small but hardworking team and our first stagwatch event for the year!

The working bee focused on removing the invasive Caper Spurge (Euphorbia lathyris) from last year’s planting site, as well as site prepping elsewhere for more planting in the coming months. Our recent planting suffered a few loses with the unpredictable conditions we’ve had these past months, but is largely looking successful

Last night gave us perfect conditions for stagwatching! We had four volunteers attend, and spotting a total of ten gliders (with a possible eleventh). Six of the gliders were from a separate sub-population on the southern rim, increasing our overall population count!

Thanks to all the volunteers that helped with both events

Address

Entrance Road
Tower Hill, VIC
3283

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Friends of Tower Hill posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Share

Category