The city's Citizen of the Year, Heather West, was guest speaker at Goulburn Evening VIEW Club's June meeting.
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Heather spoke about how in 2010 Peter Mowle advised the council to buy up flood-prone land. The Wetlands area, situated in May Street, had been used as a brickworks from the 1880s to 1940s. The ponds are the old clay pits.
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The site was covered in weeds and hawthorn, so FROGS (Friends and Residents of Goulburn Swamplands) was started, with the council donating $25,000 towards the project. Rodney Falconer devised a planting master plan, which made it easy to plan on-going revegetation.
The local Australian Plants Society provides invaluable help, as they collect local seeds, propagate as tube stock before being planted out by FROGS Landcare volunteers. This local provenance helps achieve about a 90 per cent survival rate. In addition, the tree guards protect from rabbits and direct condensation down to the roots to provide moisture. Signs with scientific and common names of trees and bushes have been added recently.
There have been about six floods in the last couple of years, and FROGS Landcare volunteers have to remove debris off tree branches and replace mulch. Prior to this we had about six years of drought.
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Grass is allowed to grow long except along the paths, where it is kept mown. There are usually about 24 kangaroos in residence. There are three bird hides with charts for identification. About 143 different varieties of birds have been identified visiting the Wetlands.
Picnic tables and chairs have been provided. School groups regularly attend and it is surprising the number of people from distant areas who visit.
Heather was thanked by Kathy Jeffrey for her most informative talk and the incredible photos of birds visiting the wetlands.
- Diane Young is Goulburn Evening VIEW Club's publicity officer.
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