When Ashby resident Carl Philip, a Townsend Men’s Shed member, kindly donated a series of nest boxes for the new Ashby Nature Discovery Trail he had no idea that it would lead to a koala sighting.
During a first inspection of the boxes with a special camera last week he found signs of life in some of the boxes, with a potential sugar glider nest being the most exciting find. However, while holding the ladder for him, Colin Reed spotted a koala in a tall swamp mahogany tree right by the trail, the first-ever confirmed koala sighting in the recreation reserve itself.
Colin’s partner Barbara Winters, who founded the Ashby Nature Discovery project, was over the moon: “All the bush regeneration us locals have been doing under guidance of Envite’s Yaegl team is already paying off. With less spikey lantana and ochna in the understorey, the Ashby Reserve is now a better koala corridor to link the Ashby Heights area up with Ashby village and the Broadwater, where koalas are more commonly spotted.”
She adds that the Clarence Koala Working Group and Envite Environment have also been creating koala corridor linkages elsewhere in the Banyabba Areas of Koala Significance (ARKS), by working with bush property owners north of the Clarence River.
Want to help?
Everyone is invited to a community working bee from 9am on Wednesday August 31 to finish the trail in the Ashby Reserve along Lismore Street.
Bring your work gloves and boots and come and help install the new botanical signs and benches or help with the widening and mulching of the paths. Envite’s bush regenerators will be there to show how to properly eradicate common weeds such a lantana and ochna. There will be a morning tea and a picnic prepared by the locals.
More nature events
The Ashby Nature Discovery team is organising a series of activity for nature lovers in the Ashby Hall Reserve in next few months.
– This Sunday afternoon, on August 28, there is a relaxing Botanical Art Class with the Iluka-based botanical artist Janet Hauser.
– On Saturday afternoon, September 3, there is a fun nest box painting with nest box Q&A for families and nature lovers in general to make a personalised gift for Father’s Day.
– Those who are curious about the secret life of native bees can come to a Q&A with Janine Rudder from the Clarence Native Bees Landcare Group on September 18, right after the Ashby Markets & Car Boot Sale. The group meets at Carl Philip’s place beforehand to see his active hives and hollows.
– On Friday September 23 at 1pm there will be an official opening of the Ashby Nature Discovery Trail with the reveal of the beautiful welcome arch made by Allan Woods from the Townsend Men’s Shed and a small artwork by the famous Aboriginal artist Frances Belle Parker who has a special connection to this area. The event is for Ashby locals and everyone who contributed to the trail, with a bush tucker sampling platter by Aneika Kapeen and storytelling by Aunty Lenore who grew up in Ashby.
Barbara Winters said, “After having to postpone all these events due to Covid19-related lockdowns, the Omicron outbreak, floods and huge health scares for myself some others in the team, it is now time to wrap up these projects and make our hidden nature trail public. The community has worked very hard on this during the past 1.5 years, and we learnt a lot and made many new connections. To see it all come together AND see the wildlife move in is extremely rewarding.”
The Ashby Nature Discovery project is part of the Bushfire Recovery Grants Program funded by Healthy North Coast through the North Coast PHN Program and Clarence Valley Council’s Bushfire Community Recovery 2021 grant.
For more information:
www.ashbyreserve.org
www.facebook.com/ashbyreserve