Birds of Mallacoota
Ed. Bruce Pascoe
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Ellen M. Mculloch, David Hollands, Maree Brackley, the late Mrs Roy Wheeler, Norm and Joan Vincent, Paul Chick, Richard Loyne, Rex Buckingham, David Plant, Ken Nash, the late Marj.Coles, Ken Morrison, Jack Rhodes, Jack Buckland, Kevin McMahon, Dot Bruce, Norm Hodson, Col. McLeod, Alan McEvery, Ian Mc Cann, Becker Family Genoa, Irene Allan, Clive Hansen, Freda Souter, Alan Jones, Pete Sands, Jim Mattiske, Simon Mattiske, the late Bob Dawes, Steve Wadsworth, Bird Observers’ Club ( Mallacoota Central Classes)
The Steadfast Few
Mick Brackley, Laurie Morrison, James McGrath
Junior Members
Kathy Rankin, Catherine Buckland, Craig Stevens, Noel Bruce. Phillip McGrath and Steve Croft who left school some years ago ( to become notable scholars) were invaluable members of the past.
References
- Check list of the birds of Australia: part 1, Non-Passerines by H. T. Condon.
- Interim list of Australian Songbirds: passerines by R. Shodde
- Ben Boyd N.P. and Nadgee N.R.: a check list of birds 1974
- Birds of Mallacoota: 1st Edition 1962,Len Robinson
- A Field Guide to Australian Birds: passerines and Non Passerines P.Slater
Mallacoota School also greatly appreciates the help of Geo. Hollins and staff in the printing of this book.
THE MALLACOOTA AREA
For our purposes in this book we are considering an area bounded by a line running north from the mouth of the Benedore River to the Princes Highway, from the Princes Highway to the New South Wales border and along the border to the coast.
FUTURE ADDITIONS
At the end of the list we have included several blank pages. As more birds are added to our list we will print off addendums which can be pasted to one of the blank pages. If you wish to receive one of these additional lists, please write to the Mallacoota P12 College. We will advise through the pages of the Bird Observer’s magazine when these lists are ready. Stamped, addressed envelopes would be appreciated for the despatch of the lists.
If you see any birds not on our list, please let us know so that we can keep this booklet up to date. Happy birding!
Please contact Edna Brady P.O. Box 41, Mallacoota, 3892
HISTORY OF LAND
SETTLEMENT AND
NATIONAL PARKS
The first land settlement at Mallacoota was in about 1846 when Captain Stevenson landed by boat and farmed near Captain’s Point. Most settlement following was on the east side, as there were no roads between Melbourne and Mallacoota. Farms and gold mines and many camps followed around the lake and the hotel at Lakeview was established by John Augustus Dorron, born Port Royal, Nova Scotia, 1830. the original cemetery was established very early and contains some of the pioneers. The hotel licence was moved to present day Mallacoota in 1922.
The diary of James Smelly, an early pioneer, shows that many properties were well established in 1872. Properties such as Harrison’s Marshmead ( now jack Buckland’s) Fairhaven ( Hansen’s), Bucknalls where the two pine trees are at Harrison’s channel, and Bucknall’s store at Gipsy Point were all mentioned in 1872 entries. Devlins were after land next to Captain Stevenson. Devlin’s house had loop holes cut in the timber to fight off the blacks.
The National Park was discussed and proposed in 1909, and declared in 1936. First staff to look after it were posted in 1965. The park was established because locals wanted to see the timbered areas around the lake setting preserved.
KEN MORRISON
NATIONAL PARK RULES
National Park rules are clearly displayed at various points around the Park. Below are some of the most important rules.
Shooting or trapping of animals and irds is prohibited, as is the picking or removal of native plants.
Fires are to be lit in the fireplaces provided and nowhere else.
Visitors are required to follow defined tracks only, especially in sand dune areas.
- Fairhaven and Marshmead have now changed hands.
- No cats, dogs or firearms are permitted in the Park
INTRODUCTION
The students and staff at Mallacoota Central Classes were proud to be involved in the production of a book about the natural environment of our town and area. We consider it a privilege to be able to write a book about the forests and lakes we love. Let’s hope that when we die it will still be as lovely as now. Because we love it, we hope that through this book other people will learn to love and respect it too.
I would personally like to thank all the students who have been involved with the Bird Observer’s Club over the past years, but, especially, Mick Brackley and Laurie Morrison who have been involved with this project for four years.
Many townspeople have helped us with information and we thank them for their help. Ken Morrison, National Park Ranger, deserves a special mention for his enthusiastic and valuable assistance. Roy Wheeler and Rex Buckingham of the Bird Observers Club have assisted us greatly with the collection of information and Steve Wadsworth went to great trouble to provide photographs for us and, of course, helped us find and photograph the Beach Stone Curlew.
The typist, Cathy Wadsworth, ( yes, they are related) was tremendous in typing up the world’s most difficult list.
We hope you enjoy this book and Mallacoota too.
BRUCE PASCOE
August 1979
Many people mentioned in the above have moved on in one way or another. I have made notes to this effect where I have information. I see “Birds” as an on going project and welcome any information readers would like to add.
EDNA BRADY
OCTOBER 2001
MALLACOOTA
Mallacoota in the moonlight
Has a glory all its own,
When the mighty sea is muttering
In a muffled undertone;
And when rain is on the waters
And the heavens give no light,
The light from mighty Gabo,
Like a great sword cleaves the night
Edward Harrington
He who seeks a paradise seeks far,
But he who seeks a paradise like Mallacoota,
Seeks even further.
Mick Brackley
And to these green ranges
I have come to rest,
With the sea before me
And the warm hills, my home.
Jack Blackstone
HILLS AND THE SEA
The following work from E.J. Brady’s “The Overlander The Princes Highway, 1926”,
shows what a deep love E.J. had for this area.
Just under the Heel of Australia, not very far away from the place where Captain Cook got his first glimpse of the Southern Continent, lies Mallacoota Inlet. A long, in-curving beach runs from Gabo Island to Bastion rock. At its more southern end, a tidal channel, constantly changing in depth and position, gives uncertain entrance to a land-locked sheet of water indented by scores of miniature bays and glimmering havens.
The inlet is divided into two lakes, connected by a deep channel, over shadowed by forested hills. These narrows .. corresponding to the handle of a heavy dumbbell, are about a mile long, and run in a straight line like a Titanic canal.
A continuous play of light and shade banishes monotony from its varying shores. Its days are heralded by sunrises in rose and gold, and dayfall is frequently presaged by colour splendor, rivaled only by the rare Aurora Australis.
I have never seen anything in Australia to equal some sunsets that have held me spellbound in Mallacoota. Picture a perfectly still sheet of water, three or four miles in width, with a number of little islets clustered in one corner, covered by green coast currant and honeysuckle, with billowing ranges at the opposite margin; the pacific Ocean spreading its glue floor eastward, and purple hills and peaks over in the west, where the sun is radiating bands of colour towards the zenith: green, blue, vermilion and a hundred intermediate shades of rose and yellow! Slowly the gorgeous riot gives place to a harmonious arrangement of purples, hyacinths, mauves, lilacs, heliotropes and violets, all allied, but distinct, in tone shade and intensity. If you are out in a boat, you find yourself drifting over a hyacinth sea, surrounded by lilac mountains, with clouds in every shade of heliotrope drifting overhead, and so, full of wonder and appreciation, you very slowly and reverently ply the transfigured paddle with a llac blade into the violet tide.
In hours like this Mallacoota enlarges the merely human conception of Heaven.
On a clear summers day, the lake gleams intensely blue. Against this foreground of sapphire stands the occasional emerald of a clearing; but the wide ranges of the horizon is, for the most part, occupied by dun Australian woods and shadowy gorges, wherein vine, tree fern and the jungle growths of Gippsland make covert for lyre birds and bronze wings.
Eastward, towards Cape Howe, lies a lovely little lake of fresh water, about two miles long and a mile or so wide. Beyond that again are the beautiful WauWakuka and Nadji Lakes .. remote and rarely visited.
The way to the Freshwater lake from Mallacoota is across a level plain, with hummocks for one boundary, and hills as the opposite frame of the picture. Here the great gray kangaroo survives, and the black wallaby is frequent. At certain times of the year, December to April, particularly in dry seasons, wild duck are plentiful about the inlet, and bream, schnapper and other fish bite freely during the summer months.
Mallacoota has a historical interest for Victorians. almost the first white settlement on any territory of the southern State took place by the shores of the inlet.
On a green knoll facing the bar the outlines of an old stock-yard can still be traced.
Double Creek
(Tea tree Wet Land)
Melaleuca ericafolia
Rushes & Sedges
Boobyalla
(West Schlerophyl Gully)
Eucalypts
Mountain Grey Gum
Melaleuca armillris
Melaleuca ericafolia
Casurina
Blue Olive
Giant Sedge (saw sedge)
Angophora
Black Wattle
Bracken Fern
Common Tree Fern
Golf Course (above Davis Creek)
Dry Coastal Heath
Coastal heath
Mountain Grey Gum
White Stringy bark
Blood wood
Angophora
Banksia
Hakea
Casurina
Backwater(Gipsy Point)
(Swampy Marshlands)
Water weeds
Needlerush
Grey Gum
Lily Pilly
Grey Box
Stringy Bark
Red Iron Bark
to be continued!