Cottesloe Coastcare

Have a look at our new website!

2011-07-22T17:15:00.002+08:00

We recently updated our Cottesloe Coastcare website. Our blog is now within our website.
You can search the blog by date or using a search category. And it's now much easier to add comments too. Why don't you subscribe to CCA's blog using RSS feeds, then you will be the first to hear about what Cottesloe Coastcare volunteers are up to!
www.cottesloecoastcare.org

Weedy Seadragon campaign

2011-05-31T14:03:00.004+08:00

It has been almost 18 months since Weedy Seadragons started taking up lots of my time. It has been an interesting, often frustrating but very worthwhile campaign.... and it is not over yet!
Many people have shown their interest and we have almost 2,500 signatures on our parliamentary petition. (you can print the petition from our website).

This photo is of Josh Byrne ( Gardening Australia presenter) signing our Weedy Seadragon petition on Saturday May 21st. It was a community planting day at our fantastic new 'Grove library'. Josh Byrne & Associates are the project environmental consultants. Josh is very supportive of our call to have the weedy seadragon fully protected in WA. Thanks for your support Josh!

Students from several schools have been involved and you can read some great letters from kids on our facebook page.

www.facebook.com/weedyseadragons.

Even if you are not a facebook member you can watch wonderful videos on our site and view fantastic photos, mostly taken at Cottesloe by photographer and keen snorkeller Mark Binns. This 'weedy wall paper' above, will give you some idea of Mark's interest and talent!

Giz Watson, MLC, Member for the North Metropolitan Region spoke at parliament for the second time on 12th April 2011 about weedy seadragons. We are extremely grateful to Giz for her support and interest.Giz launched our petition in early March and will present our petition to parliament soon. (Read Giz's speech to parliament and see photos from the petition launch on our facebook page.)

Liza Harvey, MLA, Member for Scarborough is also a strong supporter of our call for protected status for weedy seadragons in WA. You can read Liza's letter to Fisheries Minister Moore on the facebook page.
Nyoongar elder, Noel Nannup shared a wonderful story with us about the creation of wardarn noort (weedy seadragon). Photo - Noel signing our petition with Kopi. You will find more on this story at our facebook 'Discussion' page.

I have spoken to groups including dive groups, schools and made a presentation at Perth Region NRM, Coastal and Marine Reference Group. I am extremely grateful to the people and clubs who have sent individual letters to Premier Barnett and to the Fisheries Minister.

We maintain that this beautiful, fragile, endemic fish which is only found in Southern Australian waters deserves full protection in WA. It is fully protected in all other states. It is the marine emblem of the state of Victoria yet in WA they can be collected by anyone! Weedies always die in domestic aquariums as they require perfect conditions and live food - mysids, copepods and other tiny crustaceans.

Weedy seadragons and their relatives are listed as 'Nationally Threatened Species' on the Environmental Protection Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.On the CITES RED LIST (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) they are listed as 'nearly threatened' species. This status may only be changed if there is scientific monitoring and population figures available or if their habitat is further and dramatically degraded. There is, however, no funding available for population figures nor for monitoring of populations at present. Leafy seadragons have the same 'status'- yet they are protected Australia wide. If a seadragon is collected in NSW the fine is $11,000 and up to 3 months jail for an individual, and $55, 000 for corporations.

When leafy seadragons were protected Australia wide and when weedy seadragons were protected in all the other states - the main reasons given were - over collection for the aquaria trade and loss of habitat - eg as seagrass beds were disappearing and pollution was altering marine ecosystems.

We believe that a protected weedy seadragon in WA will be a well recognised, charismatic and emblematic species to increase community awareness of the need for marine conservation. We call on the WA government to grant full protection to the weedy seadragon.

It's planting time for 2011

2011-05-26T14:51:00.005+08:00

We are well under way with our planting for 2011. You can see in the photos that on Friday 21st May the wet weather and strong wind did not deter a great team of enthusiastic and expert volunteers.

We were lucky to have a small team of Conservation Volunteers Australia help us on three days - very ably led by Steven. Thanks to Woodside for the sponsorship of this team. The photos were both taken on Friday - you will see us huddling in the rain enjoying a hot cuppa. The second photo is of a group of students from UWA's Guild Volunteering. Sally and her team lifted our spirits when they arrived in the afternoon. Speaking for myself I was flagging by then but their enthusiasm and hard work, despite the 'inclement' conditions, was fantastic! Now we hope for some more rain for the new seedlings.

Sally sent this post for our blog:
It was a rainy, windy Friday morning, but that didn’t stop a group of eight volunteers from UWA’s Guild Volunteering heading down to south Cottesloe beach to assist Cottesloe Coastcare Association in re-vegetating a section of the dunes. The students put in a full effort and had a great time, despite the wet weather, enthusiastically digging big holes and planting a variety of native flora. All the students agreed it was a fun and gratifying experience, and are keen to get involved with other CCA projects in the future.
Thanks very much, we had a great time!
Sally

Thanks to everyone - just another 2000 plants to go!

Congratulations to Mike Ewing

2011-05-15T16:51:00.004+08:00

Photo - (L) Professor Michael Ewing, Cottesloe Mayor Kevin Morgan, Robert Churchill, Charles Murphy (R)

Wednesday 11th May was the annual Volunteers Sundowner at the beautiful, jarrah panelled Town Hall at the Cottesloe Civic Centre. Food and wine was served under pretty red chinese lanterns. Cottesloe's Mayor, Kevin Morgan, honoured the role played by the many volunteers in our community. Volunteers working in areas of sports, surf lifesaving, cancer support, the Toy library, Friends of the Library, Wearne Hostel, TAPPS, boy scouts, SOS, KCL, Earthcarers and Cottesloe Coastcare and many others, were acknowledged.

The Mayor then presented the 2011 Cottesloe Volunteer awards to ex-Mayor Charles Murphy for his long and distinguished role in local government and to Robert Churchill for his years of helping the elderly and frail in the community and for his work with Meals on Wheels.

A third award was presented to CCA's popular Chairman, Professor Mike Ewing. Kevin Morgan spoke about Mike's passion for plants at work and outside work. He said Mike is interested in sustainable farming practices and is widely respected in his field nationally and internationally. He has a particular passion for pasture legumes and continues to explore the use of different pasture plants in dry and saline areas to reduce erosion and to increase farm productivity.

This passion for plants led Mike to Cottesloe Coastcare, where he has been Chairman for over 10 ten years. Mike feels strongly that the work of Cottesloe Coastcare is worthwhile and he enjoys the friendships with the hardworking and creative members who each enthusiatically and efficiently carry out the range of roles that together make Cottesloe Coastcare such a tremendous organisation.

The Mayor also noted that Mike is a very practical person and is pretty handy with a spade! His success in planting the coastal plants in deep holes is legendary. He encourages everyone to dig out that extra spade or two of sand to allow plants to stabilise and grow in their micro environments, capturing any rain that falls and attracting blown humus. Success with these deep holes can be seen most recently at Mudurup rocks where the area has been transformed with robust plants despite an extremely low rainfall over their first growing season.

Congratulations to our Cottesloe Coastcare Chairman Mike Ewing.

(thanks to Vic Waters for the photo)

The watering team from Hale.

2011-03-20T19:33:00.003+08:00

Leah, one of our enthusiastic Cottesloe Coastcare volunteers, sent me this post.

"On Friday morning 18 March I spent two delightful hours with volunteers from Coastcare, twenty five Year 6 boys from Hale School along with a couple of teachers and parents.

The exercise was to water some of the young native plants and this was achieved by filling a bucket from a large water container and carrying it to the plants as directed.

It was a joy to interact with these young lads and witness their enthusiasm. Once the procedure was explained they worked diligently to achieve the outcome that had been proposed.

As I watched them happily go about the task, in the most orderly manner I could not help but smile to myself and think: "this group could build the Pyramids". A credit to all concerned".

Thanks to Leah for these notes, and a big thank you to Yr 6 teacher Mark Hoppe and colleagues, and all the boys - for a job well done.

After our working session I told the boys about our campaign to have the threatened weedy seadragon granted protected status in Western Australia. Many of the boys knew lots about this wonderful endemic fish. They told me that the male carried the eggs and that they were delicate creatures that were threatened by marine pollution. The boys said that 'weedies' should be left in the ocean and should not be collected for aquariums, where they usually die. We agree!!

Some of the boys said they would check out our face book page and give it the 'thumbs up'.

www.facebook.com/weedyseadragons ( you will find our petition on facebook)

Trinity triumphs - again!

2011-02-24T15:53:00.002+08:00

Earlier this week CCA volunteers were very pleased that a team from UWA's Trinity Residential College gave us a hand. Tiny seedlings planted at Vlamingh 8 months ago are growing well despite this long hot and very dry summer. It has made a big difference that we have had good weed control at the site plus the fact that the seedlings have now received 4 good drinks since they were planted.

As you can see in the bottom photo, a weedy seadragon (photo) came to the working bee! The students showed interest in our campaign to have the endemic and fragile weedy seadragon protected in WA. Thanks to several students who have become facebook 'weedy fans'!!

Aaron Walker, the Senior Resident Advisor from Trinity Residential College sent this post for our blog:
"On Tuesday the 22nd of February around 20 residents from Trinity Residential College volunteered down at the Cottesloe beach front to assist in Coastcare's dune rehabilitation program. As part of our Community and Environment program, we took down some of our new residents, Resident Advisors and members of the Trinity Residents' Club to help volunteer during our O-Week activities. All those who attended agreed it was a rewarding experience."

Many thanks to you all and good wishes for a great study year.

Sunday sessions

2011-02-07T12:51:00.005+08:00

Cottesloe Coastcare's ' Sunday sessions' are working well. The working bees are held on the first Sunday morning in the month from 9am to 11am. Frauke has been a keen organiser of these sessions - a big thank you to Frauke and to Keith.

In this photo you might think that Lindsay is pretending to be a tree to keep the sun off Marion? In fact Lindsay is laying some brush material in eroding sections at Grant Marine Park. Unfortunately some people insist on walking into the restoration area, creating new tracks and destroying plants in the process. We attempt to close off most of these tracks to allow nature to recover.
Marion is burying (female) long leaved spinifex heads in a hope that they will germinate in these sandy exposed patches. Now we will wait for some rain and hope some of the seed germinates and the spinifex plants flourish.

Frauke and Keith are filling buckets for the rest of the team. We water small seedlings that are struggling through a hot and very dry summer. Mostly it is during their first summer when seedlings need some extra water.If they can survive that first summer they usually have developed a sufficient root system to be on their own after year one.

Corinne is giving special attention to some small plants - hopefully she took some time to enjoy the view too. A little different to Corinne's native land, England. Corinne is keen to do some snorkelling off our beautiful Cottesloe Reef -she will be especially on the look out for our precious weedy seadragons. Good luck Corinne!

Megan very kindly baked the best ever home made biscuits for morning tea - thanks Megan! Here you can see the hard working team enjoying a well earned rest at the end of another successful Sunday session.

Thanks to everyone involved.

Fairy-wrens in Cottesloe

2011-01-29T14:17:00.003+08:00

Cottesloe residents Paul and Sally Nelson alerted Cottesloe Coastcare to two sightings of a group of Variegated Fairy-wrens on the Cottesloe foredunes recently. Sally says that they have not seen these beautiful small birds for many years and they are delighted to think they may be making a comeback to Cottesloe dunes.

David Taggart, who is a weed Contractor for Town of Cottesloe and a keen naturalist, also reported seeing a group of Variegated Fairy-wrens in early summer, at Cottesloe Native Garden.

The Variegated Fairy-wren (Malurus lamberti) (according to Micheal Morcombe's 'Field Guide to Australian Birds' and from Wikipedia information) survives across 90% of Australia, in many different habitats. Sally and Paul's photo (above) is taken from Marine Parade. The close up photo showing a male in breeding plumage is from Wikipedia.

click here for Wikipedia article

Non-breeding males and females do not have the breeding male's bright colours, they have brown-grey feathers. Apparently the birds live in co-operative groups and together defend their territories.

Male wrens pluck yellow petals from flowers and display them to attract females as part of courtship! Perhaps the fact that Cottesloe Coastcare volunteers have been planting many low wattles has been to the benefit of the wrens. Wrens need scrubby vegetation to hide from predators and for a safe place for nest building. The local vegetation re-introduced by Coastcare provides food and habitat for insects. The wrens main diet is insects. Sally and Paul are very concerned that some people still allow their dogs (and cats) to enter the dunes. Cats and dogs can be a severe threat to our local wildlife.

'Our Variegated Fairy-wrens' may be Malurus assimilis, M.elegans or perhaps M.pulcherrimus. Perhaps someone who knows more about birds than me might let us know to which race our wrens belong.

This is why CCA volunteers work so hard - our aim is to achieve a more robust and diverse ecosystem on the Cottesloe foreshore - so sightings such as these lift our spirits!

Hale boys and CCA - part 2

2010-12-18T15:58:00.004+08:00

You can read in the previous posting about the wonderful work done at one of CCA project sites by the Year 6 boys from Hale School.

I asked some of the boys if they might send me an email with some feedback about the
session they had with us. You can read Massimo, Haseeb, Nick and Domenic's messages below:

"Coastcare is one of the many organisations that are dedicated to helping our beaches look better. We had the privilege of sharing that united goal as we helped Coastcare with many activities like watering and caring for the native plants. This all took place at Cottesloe Beach. Our contributions to Cottesloe Beach were recognised by the Coastcare staff and the community members of Cottesloe. Our Year 6 class thoroughly enjoyed working with Coastcare." Massimo Kirk & Haseeb Riaz

"Total fun, enjoyment and laughter the whole day and as a bonus helping the Perth
environment. Great cause and great feeling after woods. Gives you an new sense of understanding of care for the environment." Nick Kelly

“Helping with the Coastcare organisation was one of the best things I’ve ever done. Not because it was incredibly fun nor because we got a prize at the end of it but because of the great feeling that comes to you when you realise you have done something good. It gave me a sense of “Well I’m doing my bit. I’m giving back to our beautiful planet. And most importantly, I would come back and do it again and again and again.” Domenic Quail

Many thanks to Massimo, Haseeb, Nick and Domenic for their messages.
It means a great deal to us that young people think that the work done by CCA volunteers is important and is appreciated by them ALSO that they felt good about lending a hand.

Hale & CCA - a great team

2010-12-18T15:33:00.003+08:00

Mark Hoppe and his Year 6 Hale School boys put in a great morning's work with CCA volunteers recently.

Just before school broke up for summer holidays the boys and their teachers made time to do some community work. Kate Sputore, the North Metro Coastcare Officer and Cottesloe Coastcare volunteers met the team near Vlamingh Memorial at our ' Caring for Our Country' project site.

The work for the day included hand watering approximately 2,500 seedlings, removing many bags full of weed seed heads and tidying up hundreds of plant guards.
Considering our very poor rains this year it was vital to give the seedlings an extra drink in the hope that this will help them make it through their first summer.

A big thank you to Mr Mark Hoppe and everyone else involved in an excellent job, so well done.

Tea Party with Synergy

2010-11-10T15:24:00.008+08:00

During Melbourne Cup week Kate Sputore, the North Metro Coastcare Officer organised a celebratory morning tea party. The November 5th event marked the completion of Cottesloe Coastcare's Synergy funded project at Mudurup Rocks.

Six representatives from Synergy, joined CCA volunteers, contractors and Town of Cottesloe staff who have assisted in the project.

The top photo shows the verge area at Mudurup Rocks which is now planted out with local plant species and has been mulched to help the plants cope with their first summer. CCA volunteers have been hand weeding and hand watering all the plants at the site.

The group at morning tea included Carolyn Jenour - Coastal and Marine Program Manager Perth Region NRM, Stuart Knott (far left) of Cambridge Coastcare and the PRNRM Coast and Marine Sub-Region Rep; Craig Wilson (South Metro Coastcare Officer) and Barry McGuire (far right). Barry is the Indigenous Projects Officer with Perth Region NRM. Barry talked about the importance of Mudurup Rocks to Aboriginal people.
If you want to read an article by Ken Macintyre about this important Aboriginal site go to CCA's website :
www.cottesloecoastcare.org/publications/Aborigines.pdf

The Synergy employees were pleased to see all the project achievements. Constantin Ortheil (second left) congratulated everyone involved. In his talk he made the comment that the use of local provenance green stock means that the plants are best adapted to local harsh conditions and salt laden winds.

This final photo shows the verge area as it was before the project commenced. This part of the site was like much of the area in that it was uncared for, covered in weeds and eroded badly in some sections. The new pine log fencing will provide some deterrant to damage from people and dogs. Rabbit control will assist in the survival of plants and a limestone retaining wall was constructed on the west side of the project area, to stop erosion.

Stands of weedy Victorian teatree were removed and replaced by approximately 3,500 seedlings of 20 different species.

Buckets of donations from IGA

2010-10-29T14:14:00.004+08:00

Buckets of Donations: from plastic bags to buckets.

Robyn Benken of Cottesloe Coastcare (CCA) was delighted to receive a cheque for $1,390 from Drew Randall, the owner of Cottesloe IGA. This is the second generous donation Cottesloe Coastcare has received from IGA. The money has been given by IGA customers when they take a paper bag at the store. CCA is a great supporter of Cottesloe IGA and Mosman Park IGA’s initiative to eliminate the use of single use plastic bags.

The forty new IGA buckets will be used by Cottesloe Coastcare volunteers to hand water 6,500 local seedlings which they planted over the last five months. After such poor winter rains the buckets will be well used this year. The remainder of the donation will pay for seedlings to be planted next autumn and winter.

Robyn said that "volunteers can only continue working towards restoration of the Cottesloe foreshore with on- going community support. The group is therefore extremely grateful to IGA.

Scotch College beach walk

2010-10-07T20:06:00.003+08:00

On September 3 a group of Scotch College Year 9 students met up with Cottesloe Coastcare volunteers to collect rubbish at South Cottesloe and learn about marine life washed up on the beach.

We identified sea grass and many different sea weeds ( red, green and brown algae). We found lots of decomposed sponges, many cuttlebones, barnacles, various shells and sea urchins - just to mention a few finds!

Here you can see some of the boys holding a somewhat smelly fish, a dead crab and a cuttlefish bone.

In this photo Julie is telling us all about Curtin Uni's studies concerning marine pollution from anti-fouling agents used on boats. She told us that female marine snails developed male sex organs (imposex) as a result of exposure to toxic tributylin (TBT). TBT has been banned in WA since 1991. Recent studies at Fremantle's South Mole and at Garden Island have shown that the rate of imposex is now dropping considerably.

Thanks to Scotch College's Daniel Quinlivan and the Year 9's for their interest in CCA's work and thanks for the rubbish collection. We learnt together about the rich marine biodiversity in the ocean by studying some of the flotsam that comes ashore each winter.

If you want to learn more about what can be experienced on a beach walk go to:

www.cottesloecoastcare.org/flotsam.html

A day off!

2010-08-13T15:12:00.002+08:00

After our big planting effort for 2010 some Cottesloe Coastcare volunteers with fellow Coastcarer friends -Rae and Walter from Stirling Coastcare, all decided to have a bush walk at Bold Park in the sunshine.

For those who may not know, Bold Park was established as a "place for the people" in 1936 and was named after William E. Bold who was Town Clerk of Perth from 1900 to 1944. The park was declared an A Class Reserve in 1998 and is now managed by the Botanic Garden and Parks Authority.

The total area is 437 hectares and there are over 1000 plant species present (300 of these are native).
There is also an abundance of wildlife with a big number of reptiles, amphibians and invertebrates. The excellent bird leaflet published by Birds Australia and BGPA states that Bold Park is an important refuge for over 80 species of birds. Many are resident all year but others are migratory or "sometime visitors".

We took the clearly marked, 5km Zamia Trail on Monday 9th August and as you can see in the photos the native wisteria (Hardenbergia comptoniana) was flowering beautifully, wreathing a Firewood banksia (Banksia menziesii) in the photo above; and in the photo opposite, (with a glimpse of the Indian Ocean behind) the native wisteria is growing over a coastal daisy bush (Olearia axillaris).

Several wattle species had started to flower. In this photo the walkers are admiring the bright sunshine yellow of a dune wattle (Acacia lasiocarpa) or dune moses (Acacia pulchella) - I can't remember which species this particular plant was!

No Cottesloe Coastcare activity is complete without a cuppa so we gathered on the top of Reabold Hill for our tea and cake. The short boardwalk with its excellent interpretive signage and wonderful views is well worth the visit if you have not discovered this beautiful spot yet!

It was also a farewell to Nacho (second left) as he is returning to Spain after 3 months in Perth with his partner. He has given us much of his time and has been an important member of our winter planting team.
Adiós y gracias Nacho.

Planting completed for 2010

2010-08-13T13:44:00.004+08:00

We are a bit tired but it is a great feeling to know that 6,500 local provenance seedlings were carefully planted by volunteers over the past three months.

The top photo from 23rd July is taken at our 'Caring for our Country' project site near Vlamingh memorial. You can see Abe Morgan, our very enthusiastic youngest Coastcarer, as he was very neatly packing up all the empty pots. He told me that he was "allowed to get dirty" and he liked planting. I am sure we will have Abe's help again soon!

Almost every plant had to be protected with a plant guard so this increased the effort involved. Another job at planting time is we always water the plants. We find our survival rates are much increased by doing this, but of course it all adds enormously to the work load!

Each plant hole receives one third a bucket of water then after the plant is installed in the hole we water in with another third bucket of water. All together this means we have lugged about 4,500 buckets of water from tap or wheelie bin or hose... no wonder we all need a good rest!

The second photo (opposite) from Sunday 1st August is of the hard working gang having a cup of tea after a great morning's work. On that day we finished off the planting at our Synergy funded project at Mudurup Rocks site. Special thanks to three students - Tyneal, Kelsey and Leanda who contributed a great morning's work. We look forward to seeing you all again soon.

The photo opposite, from 6th August was taken at 'smoko time' again. The working bee was held at Grant Marine Park, our final planting session here. We needed to do a little infill planting on the verge and on the back area which was converted from lawn to local plants last year.

Grant Marine park is unfortunately suffering from damage from children and dogs running through the natural areas and many plants have been destroyed.

The final photo is of yet another tea break! - this time taken at our final planting session for this year at Cottesloe Native Garden. Town of Cottesloe has removed some of the invasive Victorian teatree at the site and we have been able to return some of the local sedges, grevilleas, local lechenaultia and some other local species that only grow (in Cottesloe) at this one area of special limestone ridge vegetation.

We started planting during the first week in May and finished in the first week of August. During that time 55 students with their parents and teachers, 48 CCA volunteers and 100 corporate volunteers gave a total of 809 hours of voluntary labour to the natural areas of Cottesloe!

It's been a fantastic team effort and everyone deserves a big thank you.

Once we all recover then it will be time to start our Spring job of hand weeding!

World Environment Day

2010-06-17T21:02:00.000+08:00

World Environment Day

World Environment Day is celebrated internationally as a day of global action and environmental awareness. The theme this year was based around the UN International Year of Biodiversity; ‘Many Species. One Planet. One Future,’ which is an urgent call to conserve the diversity of life on our planet.

On 4th of June employees from HWE Mining, Broad and Western Region together positively contributed to improving the biodiversity at Cottesloe Beach in Western Australia. Working with Conservation Volunteers Australia and Cottesloe Coastcare, an area that was degraded by invasive weeds was revegetated with native species to stabilise the dunes and reduce erosion.

80 volunteers donned World Environment Day t-shirts and worked hard to plant an impressive 960 plants. Respect for the Community and Environment really shone through and the day was thoroughly enjoyed by all. Well done!

..........................................................................................................

Many thanks to Annelise Fraurud for the posting above. Cottesloe
Coastcare volunteers are very grateful to all the enthusiastic workers who gave their time to help us in this worthwhile project. A Commonwealth government program - 'Caring for our Country' has paid for the removal of Victorian teatree at the site, rabbit and weed control, some fencing and has funded the local provenance seedlings which we all planted on World Environment Day.

A big thank you from CCA to everyone involved!

A good team - Synergy and CCA

2010-06-17T20:50:00.001+08:00

On Friday 11 June 13 Synergy staff gathered at the Mudurup Rocks site near beautiful Cottesloe beach to contribute to the planting effort which has been undertaken by Cottesloe Coastcare volunteers. We were an eager bunch and after learning how the planting was done we went to work. Out came the shovels, gardening gloves and buckets of water and off we went, digging lots of deep holes with a burst of energy!

After awhile the team split into two groups with half the team focused on the digging while the rest of us got to work filling the holes with water, planting the seedlings and putting up guards to shield the plants and keep the pests out. After managing to plant our quota with half an hour to spare it was great to look back over the site and see what we had achieved. All in all it was a pleasant day and the Synergy volunteers really enjoyed getting out of the office to contribute to the planting effort and give something back to the local community and the environment. Synergy understands the importance of restoring and increasing the biodiversity of areas like Mudurup Rocks.

We believe it is important that future generations can appreciate and experience native species of plants and animals, and restoration projects, like the Mudurup Rocks project, are ensuring that this will happen.
It was great to work with the CCA volunteers and they should be congratulated for their ongoing efforts and dedication to conserving the natural environment.

(Thanks very much to Candice Grisbrook the Corporate Affairs Advisor at Synergy for the posting above. CCA is very grateful to Synergy for the support we have received for the Mudurup project. Fences have been erected and a limestone retaining wall; rabbit control and weed control has been funded plus approximately 4000 local plants - they all have been paid for by this generous sponsorship.)

A week of willing workers.

2010-05-29T10:58:00.005+08:00

We had a full planting week from Monday 24th May to Friday 28th May.
The Mudurup Rocks environmental restoration project is a joint project between Cottesloe Coastcare, Town of Cottesloe and Synergy/Landcare.

CCA volunteers agreed to undertake most of the labour (with assistance from Town of Cottesloe) but the fencing, erection of a limestone retaining wall and payment to the nurseries for all the plants was generously provided by Synergy/Landcare. Synergy staff worked with us in a weeding session a few months back and will join us in a planting day in mid-June.

This week a small team from Conservation Volunteers Australia joined us. Funding was provided to CVA from the project but the volunteers with CVA are not paid - they are just like Cottesloe Coastcare volunteers in that they are keen to give some time to assist local community environmental groups.

Ji- Sun( pictured here) was especially thrilled to watch two dolphins swimming close to the surfers at Cove.

CCA is extremely grateful to the wonderful gang from CVA and their co-ordinator, Steven, for the excellent planting all week. Some days were as pictured, bright and sunny but Thursday was wet and cold and windy yet the team pushed on a did a great job despite the conditions.

Planting at such a site as this one is not easy, the holes need to be quite big to help protect the plants from the strong salty winds and try to provide a bowl like depression for rain to catch in. The soils are severely water repellant so wetting agents need to be used. Rabbit control is on- going but because of the limitations on the type of rabbit control necessary in a built up urban environment unfortunately there are many rabbits still at large. This means we have to put plant guards on every plant which is a very time consuming business indeed!

Ignacio (Nacho) is a visitor from Spain. When our Chairman Mike met Nacho he asked him what he was going to do during his three months in WA - Nacho said he wanted to do some voluntary community work! The very next day Mike and Nacho were both digging Mike's famous deep holes for planting. And Nacho worked hard all week - many thanks, it was great to have you with us!

At the end of the week we calculated that 2375 seedlings had been put in the ground - a fantastic number - now only 3625 to go!!

Quintilian Junior Coastcarers

2010-05-25T21:09:00.005+08:00

Today Cottesloe Coastcare volunteers had the enthusiastic assistance of the Year 2 students from the Quintilian School, Mount Claremont, with teacher Tania Sims plus a bunch of lovely parents.

We planted about 200 local native plants at Mudurup Rocks, an area just to the south of the Cottesloe Surf Lifesaving Club.

The plants were paid for by Synergy/Landcare as part of Cottesloe Coastcare's Mudurup Rocks environmental restoration project.

We planted spinifex, knotted club rush, coastal daisy, fan flower, snake vine, and cotton heads. All these plants would once have grown on the site before rabbits and people destroyed the local vegetation.

We all hope that in a few years time local insects, lizards and butterflies will all be living among our plants and that birds will be much more numerous.

The children learn about biodiversity at school, today they worked hard to create a space where our local biodiversity will thrive - where local native plants and animals will replace a wasteland which was previously an unattractive eroded and weedy area.

At the end the session you can see all the plant guards which we erected around the small seedlings. These plastic guards will protect the plants from people and dogs and rabbits. When the plants are growing well the guards will be removed.

Some of the children are such enthusiastic workers that they may be able to encourage their parents to bring them to the site, to help again during our next 'Sunday session' on the morning of Sunday 6th June - see our website for all the details. (click on photos to enlarge)
Thanks again to everyone involved in a great morning's work!

Planting has started for 2010

2010-05-16T17:24:00.001+08:00

As you can see in the photo above we have started our 2010 plantings of local provenance greenstock.
From L to R - James, Keith, Frauke, Kate, Elva, Mike, Sue and Greg made up the great team of planters on Friday 14th May. This site was previously dominated by Victorian teatree, a troublesome woody weed which spreads rapidly and replaces a range of local plants. We planted low growing salt bushes, sedges, spinifex and low wattles, interspersed with native wisteria. We hope that it will be a beautiful and biodiverse beachside spot in a few years, providing insect, butterfly, bobtail and bird habitat close to Cottesloe's main beach.
We now have planted about 500 seedlings - only 7, 500 to go, so we need some help!Please refer to our website for planting dates.We would love to have your help one day!

No April Fools at HBF

2010-04-28T15:06:00.001+08:00

On 1st April (No joke!), half a dozen HBF employees came to Grant Marine Park with lots of enthusiasm and did three hours of very useful work. We pruned shrubs that overhung paths to make it easier for visitors. The prunings were spread around as mulch. We weeded lawn grasses that were invading the native vegetation. With a mighty effort we extracted some very large Sea Spinach bushes that were starting to engulf native shrubs. We pulled out a great many tiny Pelargonium plants to prevent a take-over by that pernicious weed. We removed plastic guards from plants that had died and rehabilitated guards that had collapsed. We gathered seed from Knotted Club Rush (Ficinia nodosa) ready to send off to be grown for future plantings. And we gathered female seed-heads from the Long-leaf Spinifex (Spinifex longifolius) and gave them shallow burials in bare patches of the dunes, hoping that they might germinate there. (Spinifex seed benefits from being abraded by blown sand – it helps germination.) The HBF team enjoyed their work in the fresh air as a change from the office routine. We were joined by some local helpers too, including four-year-old Hugh, who showed a great interest and worked hard.

Mike Gregson.

Full Protection for all Seadragons in WA?

2010-03-02T13:36:00.015+08:00

It's only in WA all seadragons are not fully protected! We think it is time to change that.

Click here to find out more

Trinity triumphs!

2010-02-17T14:12:00.008+08:00

It had been noticed by members of CCA that some of the plants around Dutch Inn groyne were looking a little sad and in need of some TLC…fortunately, we had been contacted by a group of students from Trinity College (University of Western Australia) who were keen to get involved in a worthwhile community activity – and what better opportunity than some much-needed coast caring!

It’s always great to have groups like this come along to lend a hand (many hands, actually!) – the amount of work that can get done in a relatively short time is fantastic. The students were really interested and keen to help, and hopefully they all learnt a little about the importance of native coastal vegetation. We can hope some of them were so inspired they may head off to study courses that will result in better science and management of our natural areas…or at least come back to coast care another day!

Thanks so much to the students of Trinity (and we hope you enjoyed the swim afterwards) also to Sue, Frauke and Petra (Town of Cottesloe’s Sustainability Officer) for coming along to help out, as well as Ken from the depot for turning up with the water truck – all the plants received a good drink and hopefully as a result will live on through the long hot summer!

Kate - NMCO

Thanks to Kate , (North Metro Coastcare officer) for the posting/photos.

Spreading The Word

2010-02-06T18:33:00.005+08:00

On January 24 the Wilderness Society had the first of their Summer Sanctuary Series at Mudurup Rocks, Cottesloe. The event was held to draw attention to the vital role Marine Sanctuaries and Fish Habitat Protection Areas have in ensuring the future of marine life and habitat. 10 CCA volunteers had great fun snorkelling, with a guide, round the edge of the limestone shelf beneath the headland.

To see some great photos from the day click on the link:

http://www.wilderness.org.au/articles/snorkel-for-sanctuaries-photo-album

I'll let the Wilderness society tell the story: "Cottesloe beach turned on the weather for a beautiful day of snorkeling, exploring and learning. The volunteers were the champions of the day- with over 10 (Wilderness society) volunteers being snorkel guides/registrars and stall holders. The Save Our Marine Life crew joined in the festivities along with the Cottesloe Coastcare group in this great day. We had an overwhelming response to the snorkel for sanctuaries event with over 100 people attending the double session snorkel session", Dr. Jill StJohn explained."The huge turn out today just shows how much public support there is for marine sanctuaries, which sends a strong message to our Premier Barnett that full protection is wanted for the proposed Kimberley Whale Marine Park around Camden Sound".

Friday February 5th was another day of 'spreading the word'. Frauke, CCA's dedicated secretary and all-round hard worker; Kate, (North Metropolitan Coastcare Officer) another dedicated worker and myself set up a small stall ( pictured) at the Scotch College Sustainability Fair.

Various local environmental groups and organisations were represented. There were interesting speakers, music, a not-very-bouncy castle, hot dogs and all the fun of the fair.

You can see Alex and Ben, both Scotch students who enthusiastically and successfully completed our 'Match the seed to the local plant quiz' - and won themselves a lolly! Quite a few boys knew many of the local plants, one boy cleverly recognised some tiny seeds as being from a wind blown grass. Another boy, a boarder, said he knew Quandongs from his home farming property. Many boys recognised wattles and their seed pods also banksias and their cones and winged seeds. The interest in the environment shown by some of the boys gives us reasons to have more hope for the future of our natural areas.

Thank YOU

2010-01-30T13:34:00.005+08:00

Thanks Robyn and Peta. Of course I am following in some big footsteps - Robyn has also been a Cottesloe CoY.

Awards like this are of course a recognition of a much wider effort and CCA would not be able to achieve all that it does without the fantastic support of all you volunteers who come along and weed, water, plant and all the other things that need doing...and make it a fun thing to do. So thank you.

We are also fortunate in Cottesloe to have councillors who listen and take action on issues that are important to CCA - and some of them even come along and dig and weed and water! So thank you Cottesloe Councillors.

The final link in the chain are the council staff who are willing to work with us and make sure we are all working to the same ends. Geoff, our council engineer, Dave, Ken and Andy and the guys at the depot and Kate Sputore our North Metro Coastcare Officer all play an important role in protecting our very fragile coastline.

Cottesloe's Citizen of the Year

2010-01-26T17:09:00.011+08:00

Friends of the Peppermint Grove/Mosman Park and Cottesloe Library plus Cottesloe Coastcare friends are all delighted that our dedicated volunteer ( and CCA committee member since 2006), Sue Freeth, has been awarded the 2010 Cottesloe 'Citizen of the Year' for her outstanding voluntary work in our community. The Friends of the Library received the award for 'Community Group of the Year'.

The Australia Day ceremony was conducted at Manners Hill Park in Peppermint Grove in a beautiful setting, in bright sunshine, with umbrellas and peppermint trees providing shade. Three Councils presented certificates to Australian citizenship candidates, then the Hon. Premier, Colin Barnett, MLA, Member for Cottesloe gave an address. The Men in Harmony choir sang beautifully and each Council presented awards to deserving groups and citizens. The Australia Day address was presented by the Hon. Julie Bishop, M P, Deputy Leader of the Opposition and Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs. Kevin Morgan, the Mayor of Cottesloe, presented the award to Sue, as you can see in the photo.

Sue is an invaluable part of the wonderful Coastcare team, her on-the-ground work which she loves, plus her people skills and computer skills means that we treasure her - even before she received the award!

CCA and the library have benefitted enormously from Sue (and husband Rob and son Mike's) whizz bang electronic talents. Most people will know that it is thanks to the Freeth family that CCA has our website and blog. This has been a great boon to us and is a wonderful way of communicating with our membership and friends. Various teachers use our site as a teaching aid and we often receive emails from far and wide commenting on different articles. Sue also played a very important part in creating the Natural Areas Management Plan 2008-2012 for Cottesloe.

Another very special aspect of Sue's award is that she is following in the footsteps of her beloved dad, Dell Bibby, who received Cottesloe's Citizen of the Year award in 1996, for his tireless work towards creating the Wearne Hostel for the aged in Cottesloe. Mr Bibby was not well enough to attend the ceremony but Sue's mum, Eileen Bibby was present, and very proud, as you can see in the photo above. Rob Freeth and the Cottesloe Mayor, Kevin Morgan are also pictured with Sue after the ceremony.

This photo is of Rod Eagleton, Sue, Tricia Hille and Betty McGeever from Friends of the Library, after they received their award.

Christmas Sunset

2009-12-13T11:59:00.006+08:00

On Sunday 6th December, the Cottesloe Coastcarers exchanged buckets of water, shovels and gardening gloves for glasses of wine, picnic blankets and a football as we gathered on the lawn of the Cottesloe Civic Centre for our annual christmas party. The hidden culinary talents of the group were showcased with a wonderful variety of food bought to share. From quiches, Robyn's salad and Frauke and Sue's home made dips to Christmas tree shortbread biscuits, our tastebuds were certainly treated.

Not to be outdone, Cottesloe put on a spectacular sunset providing a beautiful backdrop for the evening. With a prominent topic of evening conversation being Keith and Frauke's imminent (and enviable) trip to Iceland to see the Northern lights, some of us quietly wondered whether they could possibly be better than the lights in the sky at Cottesloe that evening.

The conversation flowed freely between Councillors (thanks to Greg Boland and Pat Carmichael), contractors and CCA volunteers as we all reflected on the wonderful progress we made this year. Hot topics of the evening included Megan's successful completion of her PhD and how much Frauke's grandchildren had grown in a year. A huge thank you to Robyn, Frauke and Mike for organising such a wonderful evening. Along with the AGM, I look forward to the CCA Christmas Party every year.

[Thanks to Peta for posting for us.]

We keep busy!

2009-12-02T11:24:00.014+08:00

Saturday 28th November was Cottesloe's HULLABALOO Festival.
Napoleon Street and Station Street were closed to traffic and a great time was had by all as cafe and restaurant tables spilled across the streets. There were activities for kids, music, freebies and lots of balloons.

CCA shared a marquee with Cottesloe's Sustainability Officer and the Earthcarers. In the photos above you can see Frauke and Jan ready to chat to everyone about the work of CCA. We signed up some new financial members on the day, which was great. We need community support - to help on the dunes but also to help pay our considerable insurances, trailer registration and small admin costs each year. Funding bodies take into account how much community support we receive when we apply for funds for plants and fencing and ramp building. Thanks to our new members!

On Monday 1st December we had a totally different activity! At 7am Frauke and I headed off in the dunes with eskies, water and secateurs to take cuttings from 4 species of local plants. These species were chosen as we have been unable to collect viable or sufficient seed from them to grow plants for the MUDURUP ROCKS/SYNERGY project. We wrapped the small cuttings carefully in damp newspaper and then delivered them to APACE Nursery. Sue and Peta met us there to pot up all the tiny cuttings. Whitney from APACE took us through the procedures - what to cut, how to cut, where to cut, fungicide dipping, hormone gel application, tiny holes in the potting medium,(made with the pencil 'dibbler') and then carefully placing the cuttings in the mix, firming down and finally a gentle watering in. Then fingers crossed!

Peta, a newly 'dedicated' Medical Doctor (CONGRATULATIONS PETA) was naturally brilliant with the scissors, Sue and I soldiered on and Frauke had to be administered regular slices of carrot cake to keep up her enthusiasm. Many hours later we had potted up almost 1000 cuttings - you can see our results in the photo below. A fantastic effort - now let's hope a good percentage survive for us to plant at Mudurup Rocks in June 2010.

HBF- caring for our coast

2009-11-29T17:07:00.020+08:00

Community Spirit Day with Cottesloe Coastcare and HBF's very own Team
Viability! Going Green to Care!

Summer can be harsh on our native dune vegetation so we decided to head back to Cottesloe and check on the seedlings we planted and fertilised last Spring! Many shrubs and bushes were going strong, however sadly natural selection had taken the weak... harsh life on the sand dunes we were told by Robyn who helps runs the show and regularly volunteers much of her own time caring for Cottesloe's Coastline!

The day started at 9 o-clock sharp, under Robyn's watchful eye, and joined by Yvonne, Keith, Laurel and Sue we went about watering the plants... by bucket, one by one.. a top up meant to get them to May!!! A couple of hours later, after lugging countless buckets back and forth we were spent,days at the desk really hadn't prepared us!! But we weren't beat, a morning tea of Monte Carlo's, Coffee, Tea, and Brad's cordial and we were back!

Then came the weeding (no ones favourite), the quick tutorial on what was a 'weed' and what was a 'non-weed' seemed to leave us all bit confused! But never mind, we decided it didn't matter, we could spot three weeds so we went about up-rooting oats, onion weeds and these little rolly polly things. In the end Ryan and Toni cleaned up the unsightly oats along the path! Brad and Cail collected seeds to safeguard the 'bio-diversity' of the Cottesloe plant species! Brett machined his way through hillsides of onion weeds and Simon checked up on the fertiliser tree he planted on our last visit!

It was a great day filled with sunshine, friendly laughs and a good dose of Community Spirit! After all everyone at HBF cares and saving the world doesn't need to be all weeds and watering but healthy people do need a healthy planet!!
Cail
Business Analyst - Viability
HBF Health Limited

Thanks Cail, Bradley, Simon, Toni, Brett and Ryan - what a great team! We Cottesloe Coastcarers love having enthusiastic groups work with us, many thanks. I must, however, explain the "fertiliser tree" mentioned above. Simon says he is "no gardener" but his team have never let him forget that he carefully planted a fertiliser tablet once - he thought it was a big and impressive seed. And while I am telling stories here - the HBF team gave Brad a hard time for his frequent drinks breaks and Ryan for being scared of a stick (he thought it was a snake).

Beautiful blue and white

2009-11-26T20:15:00.018+08:00

A few days ago when I was walking along the beachfront, I yet again, enjoyed the beauty of the November blue and white floral show provided on our Cottesloe foreshore.

The blue flowers are from the very common foreshore plant - thick leaved fan flower or Scaevola crassifolia and the white flowers (here with pink petals and bunches of white stamens) are from chenille honeymyrtle or Melaleuca huegelii. In 1837, the botanist, Baron von Heugel collected specimens of chenille honeymyrtle on Rottnest Island and at Fremantle.

Scaevolas or fan-flowers have a corolla split into a five lobed fan, arranged like five fingers. Scaevola means left-handed and the plant is named after a Roman hero.More information about the name comes from F.A. Sharr's 'Western Australian Plant Names and Their Meanings' - here it states that scaevola is a Roman surname (from scaevus or left-handed), originating from C.Mucius Scaevola (570BC) who attempted to assassinate Porsena, an enemy of Rome. He was captured and threatened with torture, then he burned off his own right hand to show his bravery.

I took the photos at Dutch Inn Groyne. Cottesloe Coastcare volunteers planted these beautiful local provenance plants in 2001/2.

Good synergies between CCA & Synergy

2009-11-16T20:39:00.006+08:00

Synergy is a sponsor of Landcare Australia. Cottesloe Coastcare has been very fortunate to have our Mudurup Rocks project chosen to receive Synergy/ Landcare funding.CCA volunteers have been busy collecting seed and hand weeding the site to prepare the area for planting thousands of local provenance seedlings during the autumn and winter 2010. On Friday 13th November Synergy staff and CCA volunteers worked together in an afternoon of hand weeding. We removed many bags of dune onion weed, sea spinach and rose pelargonium seedlings. We cut the roots with knives and small trowels, to create the minimum of soil disturbance at the site. After a good afternoon's work the Synergy crew gathered at the Cottesloe civic Centre and enjoyed a well earned picnic.

Many thanks to Candice Grisbrook, Synergy's Corporate Affairs Advisor and to all the weeding team. You can hear Candice chatting about the project - here, in a short video clip.

To read two earlier blogs about the Synergy/Landcare/town of Cottesloe/CCA project : Click here and Click here

Clean the Beach Community Project

2009-11-14T15:38:00.005+08:00

Friday 13th November was the second Waves Surfware and Coastcare 'Clean the Beach Community Project'. Students from 4 schools participated Hamilton SHS, Mt Lawley SHS, North Lake Senior Campus and North Lake -English as Second Language students. I was lucky enough to go beach cleaning with a great team from Hamilton Senior High. Everyone did such a great job but I have to particularly congratulate Taylor and Callum. No rubbish was to horrid for Taylor to collect and no rubbish was in too difficult a spot for Callum to collect - it had to be cleaned up! Thanks too for the notes below sent to me by Val House. ( click on photos to enlarge)

Clean the Beach Community Project
Hamilton Senior High
Kerri Leonard and Lisa Moreschi had an enthusiastic group of Year 10 students at Leighton Beach to work with Coastcare to remove rubbish from a section of the beach and dunes. The event sponsored by Waves Surfwear, included training sessions on the fragility of the coast from Kate Sputore ( North Metro Coastcare Officer) and beach safety by two volunteers from Surf Lifesaving WA. The Surf Life Saving Club provided lunch for the students and Waves demonstrated their appreciation with a variety of products for each participant. Students recorded 5 hours of Community Service in their log book and can be congratulated on their positive attitudes to voluntary work.

Students (not in order): Aaron Muccarone, Jeremy Stewart, Samantha McLauchlan, Shane Walkley, Madison Maxwell, Isabel Reyes, ( pink balloon!),
Elizabeth Bird, Callum Farmer, Jayde Harshaw,Taylor Maselli. Teachers: Lisa Moreschi, Kerri Leonard andVal House

See 2 inter-glacial periods - right here!

2009-11-14T14:50:00.005+08:00

Recently the Naturalist's Club had a presentation followed by a coastal walk, conducted by Vic Semeniuk. For the walk the group met at Cottesloe's Mudurup Rocks. Vic took us through a quarter of a million years of fascinating geology! Many thanks to Vic and the Nat's Club for a fascinating morning. See Mike Gregson's notes below, thanks Mike!
(As we were heading home Leeuwin sailed past in all her splendour.)

Dr Vic Semeniuk is a specialist in coastal formations. He gave us a fascinating talk on Perth’s beaches, dunes and rocky shores, describing a great cyclic pattern of sedimentation and landform development that occurred during the Pleistocene ice ages and interglacial periods, and which is still occurring today. He followed it up the next day with an excursion at Cottesloe’s Mudurup Rocks, where the geological processes he described are illustrated in the sand and rocks we were standing on.

Vic began by describing the way the waves wash sand up onto the beach, forming laminations. Sand grains, differing in size and density, are sorted by the variable energy of the waves. And because wavelength varies, so the beach changes hourly. This leads to a complex pattern of layering. As the tide recedes, bubble sand can be observed, caused by the waves interacting with tides. On the Saturday, Vic demonstrated the bubble sand that waves had created only a few seconds beforehand, and the layering of different particle sizes that had also recently been built by the waves. Layering patterns are not only the result of waves and tides, but also wind, storms and the slope of the beach.

Waves form ripples on the near-shore sea-bed. These ripples vary in size, depending on wave orbital velocity and water depth. They range from tiny ripples to the mega-ripples that we experience as sand bars that we wade over on the way out to the surf. Vic’s diagram of wave orbitals showed us how ripple size varies with depth.

During storms, flotsam is dumped in a chaotic and non-layered manner high on the beach. At Cottesloe we saw seaweed, cuttlefish-bones and Rams-horn Shells that had been stranded at the high-water mark in a recent storm.

Another feature of sandy shores is that sea breezes move fine and medium sand out of the beach to form dunes. As more sand is added to the beach, an “upward-shoaling sequence” occurs, and all the features described here – the ripples, the layering, the bubble sand, the chaotic deposition and the dunes – move seawards in order.

During the Pleistocene glacial periods, the sea receded to the edge of the continental shelf. With the sea withdrawn, all the features of the sandy shores that had been created in the interglacial periods became indurated by calcite cementation to form limestone. Vic showed us fossilised mega-ripples in the limestone cliffs at Mudurup. Above that we were shown fossilised bubble sand and fine layering. Above that again we saw a fossilised chaotic layer containing cuttlefish-bones, and near the top of the cliff, the layering pattern typical of dunes, also fossilised. There, preserved over tens of thousands of years, were the results of processes we could see occurring right now in front of us.

In the interglacial period after the ice age, the sea may return to the old shoreline. If it meets limestone there, it cuts a rocky shore, forming platforms, notches, benches and cliffs. Animals and plants live on these platforms and cliffs, causing erosion, and forming potholes which widen out and eventually fill with sediment.

Vic then took us in our imagination to the last interglacial period, tens of thousands years ago. The features of the eroded rocky shore from that time, such as sediment-filled potholes on a wave-cut platform, are preserved in the rocks that have subsequently been overlayed by a sandy shoreline that has itself been fossilised! And so at Cottesloe we can see (with some prompting by a scientist with an experienced eye) the record of processes occurring in two successive interglacial periods, one above the other. The upper sequence is a record of sandy-shore processes and the lower one is a record of processes acting on a rocky shore.

This topic beautifully illustrates the concept of uniformitarianism – that the present is a key to the past. The processes occurring today on our local shores can help us interpret the geological record to discover the history of the earth. Our thanks to Vic for shining a light back in time to show us the great climatic cycles that formed our present coastline, and for demonstrating how those processes are still occurring at this very minute.
Mike Gregson

IGA micro-bat box 2

2009-11-11T16:41:00.005+08:00

See the previous post - 'IGA micro-bat box 1' to read the first part of this story!
We took some time to find a perfect site for the bat-boxes. The box needs to receive plenty of sun. Also bats need to have a clear flight path when they leave in the evening to feed. Joe told us that one micro-bat can eat 1000 mosquitoes a day! They feed around fresh water and have been observed catching insects around street lights.

There was lots of weedy teatree around the gum tree so the teatree was removed and Coastcare volunteers planted cockies tongues, basket bush and local wattles in it's place, which we hope, in time will provide habitat for insects for the local birds and bats.

As Joe climed up the tree to about 8 metres the children called out encouragement to him to "hold on tight Joe", and "be careful Joe, don't fall". He safely and expertly attached the two boxes and now we keenly await the arrival of some residents. Thanks again to IGA for funding the bat boxes and to Roslyn at Seaview kindergarten for her enthusiastic support of the project.

To read two earlier blogs about IGA's donation to CCA:

Click here and Click here

IGA micro-bat box 1

2009-11-11T16:23:00.009+08:00

The children from Seaview kindy and their teacher Roslyn, joined a couple of us from Cottesloe Coastcare for the bat boxes raising ceremony yesterday. Drew Randall, from IGA Cottesloe (Eric Street shopping centre) was also there to witness Joe Tonga setting up the boxes. During the 12 months that IGA Cottesloe and IGA Mosman Park have had their no-single use plastic bag policy, CCA has received the donations that customers put in a tin, when they require paper bags. Some of this money has been used to build and erect the bat boxes.

Joe explained to us all that micro-bats ( which are only as big as a house mouse - with wings!) are losing their habitat. CCA is very keen to restore our local environment where at all possible so we are delighted at the prospect of providing a home to some micro-bats. Joe has an excellent website with lots on information on bird boxes and bat boxes : http://natsync.com.au

We were all amazed to learn that around 90 bats can live in one box! Joe said that they clustered together tightly to keep warm. He told us that the temperature needs to get up to about 45 degrees centigrade inside the box at breeding time.

One little boy is a real nature lover and wore his (plastic) chameleon, to kindy, strapped on his arm.
Click here to

Click here to read the next blog entry to see the boxes going up!

Woodside Works

2009-10-23T06:18:00.006+08:00

On Thursday 15th of October a really enthusiastic group of staff from Woodside joined us for some weeding down at Mudurup Rocks. Woodside have been a fantastic supporter of the Coastcare program over the last few years and have contributed a valuable amount of staff volunteer hours – so we are always really glad to have them along!

This group was indeed keen, ready to go at 8.30am and determined to clear a huge area of pelargonium and other weeds before the morning was out! Fortunately the weather was perfect and along with a few dedicated CCA members (thanks to Frauke, Jan and Yvonne!) the Woodside crew worked tirelessly to clear over 45 full bags of weeds from this fragile site, which is to see a significant amount of infill planting next winter.

By 12.30 the volunteers were ready for a well deserved break and retired to the Civic Centre grounds for a BBQ. Thanks so much to Angela for initiating this day and her team for an awesome effort – we hope you enjoyed the BBQ and please feel free to come back anytime!

Whose coast is it? Adapting for the future.

2009-10-13T09:54:00.022+08:00

Whose coast is it? Adapting for the future was the theme of the Fifth State Coastal Conference held in Fremantle last week. CCA was represented by Yvonne, Frauke and Sue thanks to the generous sponsorship of the conference organisers, Perth NRM and Lotterywest. It was an excellent conference covering big picture issues to great local stories like the turtle monitoring program at Port Hedland.

In Yvonne's words :

"Well, what an experience the last few days have been at the WA State Coastal Conference. It was a great opportunity to learn about the work being done by such a diverse group of organisations and individuals involved with monitoring, managing and caring for the coastal regions of WA. It’s amazing how much is being achieved. They are a passionate and knowledgeable group and many were so rightly recognised for their efforts at the Coastal Awards for Excellence held on the Thursday evening.

It was pleasing to hear several presenters make reference to the importance of preserving and re-establishing local native species which, for me, was recognition that what we are doing as CCA volunteers is worthwhile and valued. Whilst I really enjoyed all keynote speakers, I would have to say Prof Kingsley Dixon’s presentation was particularly fabulous because he spoke about the local native plants (and weeds!) we are so focused on in our volunteer work along the Cottesloe coast.

It’s good to look at the bigger picture every now and then and to understand the perspectives of others working to care for our coastline. But I have to say it’s on the dunes where I feel I’m most useful and happy. I’m looking forward to getting back to the dunes with HITS. After a few days of desperately trying to get my head around so many acronyms I thought I’d throw in one of my own (Hands In The Sand)."

These are some of the papers that we found particularly interesting.

Professor Kingley Dixon. Coastal restoration in a biological hotspot.
Kingley’s knowledgeable and enthusiastic presentation emphasised justification and reasons for CCA’s work:

Coastal fragmentation causes loss of ecological connections - therefore restoration of indigenous plants is imperative to reconnect the ecosystems.
The dynamic nature of our costal areas enables them to revegetate naturally, including all those robust introduced weeds – therefore weed eradication is necessary; without coastcarers’ intervention the weeds will displace coastal species.
WA’s highly endemic plants have low ecological resistance, left to fight for themselves they will lose – therefore we need to help them.
Science is essential to lead on the ground work to success, theorists must communicate with practitioners – good examples are higher seeds yield of the Coast Sword-sedge [Lepidesperma gladiatum] and the Prickle Lily [Acanthocarpus preissii].

It was wonderful news, that Kingsley is in the process of publishing a new book on coastal plants.

Dr Stephen Leatherman. What makes a great beach?
Dr Leatherman is the Director of the Laboratory for Coastal Research at Florida International University. In his spare time he is Dr Beach, coordinating the National Healthy Beaches Campaign. Each year in America the top ten beaches are nominated ranked against Dr Beach’s more than 50 stringent criteria that balance environmental and recreational criteria. The list is eagerly awaited each year and the spin off is that it promotes good beach management practices.

Dr Simon Thrush. Informing decision making for the sustainable management of coasts and estuaries.
Simon Thrush’s paper discussed the complex interactions involving biological, chemical and physical processes that occur in the marine environment. Understanding these interactions is important so that “threshold” events that will change an ecosystem beyond the point of no return can be identified. Sea urchins moving across sediment were one example. As the sea urchins move across the sea floor they stir up micro algae. This affects the rate of photosynthesis and thus the amount of oxygen in the water. A change such as a reduction in the number of sea urchins may cause unanticipated consequences and the ability to predict these changes is important. As he said, “the details matter in understanding your bit of coast.”

Professor Rodger Tomlinson. Coastal Planning Development and Working with Local Government.
The Queensland planning experience highlighted both problems and solutions. In the 1960’s and 70’s many Queensland coastal areas in Queensland were subject to severe storms and flooding. Since that time there has been extensive building on the sites that were flooded. As the climatic conditions of 30/40 years ago return, millions of dollars worth of housing is now under threat. University researchers and local government are now working together to predict threats and develop effective strategies.

Professor Richard Weller. How to harness the energy of population growth to our advantage.
As the speed of Perth’s population growth outpaces people’s imagination, and as most people in WA want to live as close to the coast as possible, Coastcarers should become involved in discussing possible scenarios that may prevent the further destruction of coastal areas for residential development. Richard Weller’s new, excellently produced and substantial book Boomtown 2050 provides comprehensive and stimulating food for thoughts.

Cottesloe was the focus for two papers.

Dr Robert Kay. Coastal climate change risk assessment in Australia: a view from the beachface.
Beach erosion and rising sea levels were much discussed and the importance of local modelling was emphasised. Cottesloe is fortunate in being the focus for Robert Kay’s detailed analysis of the likely impacts of rising sea levels. The report is available here.

Assoc. Prof. Lynnath Beckley. Staking a claim with beach towels. Recreational usage of the West Australian Coast.
Professor Beckley and the researchers at Murdoch University have used some interesting data collection methods to try to understand what people are actually doing on WA beaches. To find out what was happening on Perth beaches, including Cottesloe, the researcher flew with the twice daily shark patrol flights in the summer of 2003/2004. Their findings are presented in this report.

Our thanks to the organisers for bringing together such an interesting range of speakers and the opportunity for CCA as a community group to share in the knowledge that is here in our scientific community.

Posted by Frauke, Yvonne and Sue

Re-cycling & re-using weeds.

2009-10-03T17:22:00.004+08:00

On Sept 23rd (see the last two blog posts) one Curtin Student chose a beautiful and age old method to recycle and reuse weeds! A daisy chain of Veldt daisy or Dimorphotheca ecklonis (was Osteospermum ecklonis).This weed is a woody perennial from South Africa which sends roots down from plant nodes. It is spreading rapidly in Cottesloe. The large daisy flowers in winter and spring are bluish-white or purple. It often grows locally as a garden escape or from garden rubbish dumped in natural areas.This plant should not be grown near our local bushland or dunes.For more information go to:
http://florabase.calm.wa.gov.au/browse/profile/18307

Weeding not surfing!

2009-10-03T17:04:00.011+08:00

These photos were taken on the same day as the previous post, Wednesday 23rd September. 50 first year Urban and Regional Planning students from
Curtin University may not have realised that their field trip to Cottesloe beach was going to involve lots of hard work weeding but everyone did a great job and many bags of weeds were soon piled up. We targetted rose pelargonium and sea spinach, both weeds which would soon have totally smothered the small local seedlings, planted by Cottesloe Coastcare a couple of months ago. (click on photos to enlarge) THANKS TO ALL!

Curtin Students - the spiel!

2009-10-03T15:59:00.002+08:00

On the field trip were first year Urban and Regional Planning students from Curtin University. Environmental and Coastal Planning 112 is a core unit taken by 80 plus students (enrolment has increased significantly in recent years, reflecting the urgency of local environmental issues, the demand for clever planners, and the quality of the course itself). A key outcome of the unit is to align theory and recent academic literature with field experience. The intent is to apply student-centred learning strategies, such as those developed by progressive educator John Dewey, to ensure that students realize they are dealing with real life scenarios and real landscapes. We are looking to develop planners who are sensitive to the breadth of relevant issues and are capable of innovative thinking,acknowledging that the tradition of making coarse decisions from a distant office are no longer adequate. Therefore, rather than being confined to abstract classroom activities they begin to make critical links between the environment and the culture surrounding it, and gain an appreciation for the complexity of the work carried out by groups such as the Cottesloe Coastcare Association.
KENT TURKICH BSc DipEd

Thanks to Kent and all the students for removing lots of weeds at Grant Marine Park. And thanks Kent for sending us the spiel above, about Environmental and Coastal Planning 112.

CCA/SLSWA/DHL team effort

2009-09-25T17:10:00.009+08:00

Cottesloe Coastcare / SLSWA / DHL Working bee

As part of a national Surf Lifesaving ‘Volunteer Day’ initiative, representatives from Surf Lifesaving WA and staff from DHL (major sponsors of SLSWA) partnered with Cottesloe Coastcare Association on Wednesday the 2nd of September to carry out some weeding at Grant Marine Park.

The group proved themselves to be dedicated coast carers, with a fantastic level of enthusiasm despite impending rain. We managed to clear a huge pile of weed species from the park, with some particular care going into the newly planted site where weeds had been threatening to take over some of the seedlings.

After a morning tea visit from the coffee van (what a treat!) everyone got back to work and by lunchtime could be really proud of the achievement and difference we had made to the site.

Many thanks to all the Cottesloe Coastcare volunteers who turned up on the day to help; to the DHL crew who were a really keen and friendly group to work with; and to Scott and Maclain from SLSWA for facilitating the day.

(thanks also to Kate Sputore, the North Metro Coastcare Officer, for organising the day & sending this item for our blog)

Check out this cheque!

2009-09-21T18:14:00.007+08:00

Phil Buzzard, the owner of IGA Mosman Park is pictured with me as he presented Cottesloe Coastcare with a cheque for $1612.60! This is the contribution IGA's customers have made to CCA. IGA Mosman Park and IGA Cottesloe have both had a NO PLASTIC BAG policy for the last 9 months. Customers are encouraged to use multiple-use bags or the boxes provided. If shoppers need paper bags it is suggested they may like to give a donation to a community group.
CCA has benefitted from this initiative at both stores as the Friends of Mosman Park Bushland ( FoMPB) had not yet formalised when IGA commenced their SAY NO to plastic bags undertaking. The money raised by IGA Mosman Park will now be collected for FoMPB.

Some of the money CCA has received will be used for the construction and erection of two micro-bat boxes in a tall gum tree. Micro-bats are losing their habitat and as they have an important role in our ecosystem, we are hoping to create a small colony in an appropriate piece of bushland. Did you know that one tiny micro-bat can eat 1000 mosquitoes in one day! The remainder of the money will be used to pay a contractor for expert weed control and to pay for local native seedlings which we will plant next winter.

CCA is extremely grateful for both generous donations - from IGA Cottesloe (Eric Street shopping centre) and IGA Mosman Park (off Wellington Street). Special thanks to Phil Buzzard and Drew Randall ( IGA Cottesloe).

click here to read the earlier blog entry about IGA Cottesloe's donation to CCA

Synergy/Mudurup project underway.

2009-08-07T18:12:00.007+08:00

To find out where the Synergy/Landcare/Town of Cottesloe/CCA - Mudurup Rocks project site is, click here

The volunteers of Cottesloe Coastcare are delighted that the weed infested, untidy and eroded sections of the Mudurup Rocks area will be receiving lots of attention over the next 18 months. This project is guided by the Natural Areas Management Plan 2008.

Planting of species local to the site will happen in autumn and winter of 2010 so there is seed and cutting material to collect. Most of the seed was collected during the summer months in anticipation of our next project but some seed can be collected now.

The top photo is of parrot bush seed heads drying (Banksia sessilis) and the second photo shows some Banksia attenuata and Banksia menziesii cones - which I cooked on my barbecue, to open the follicles and extract the seed.

The third photo is of Ben Croxford of 'Nuts about Natives Nursery'. Ben has taken on the considerable challenge of growing some of the more difficult to grow local species, for volunteers to plant at the site next year. Some species have so few specimens remaining locally and the small amounts of seed we manage to collect is often unviable. For some species we must take plant divisions or cutting material. Ben is building up a small collection of stock plants at his nursery for CCA. He will then be able to take cuttings from these plants to build up greenstock numbers for planting out next year. Other seedlings will be grown for CCA by APACE Nursery, Fremantle.

In the bottom photo Ben and Anouska are carefully spraying the cuttings with water then wrapping them in damp newspaper. The cuttings travel to the nursery in eskies or styrofoam boxes.They are potted up in free draining potting mix, as soon as possible, once they have been carefully trimmed and dipped in an appropriate hormone gel.

We will keep up a blog diary as our new project develops. Watch this space!

Synergy/Landcare project at Mudurup

2009-08-07T17:25:00.002+08:00

Ecological Restoration of Mudurup Rocks

Cottesloe Coastcare Association and the Town of Cottesloe have been successful in receiving a grant to the value of $34, 420 to carry out a coastal rehabilitation project at Mudurup Rocks.

This grant is courtesy of Synergy and Landcare Australia, and the work to be carried out over the next 12 months will involve the protection of valuable remnant vegetation, enhancement of biodiversity, planting of local native species and erosion control at this fragile coastal site.

The project will be facilitated by Cottesloe Coastcare and includes the opportunity for involvement of the local community, surfing groups, schools, and Synergy staff through volunteer work days.

A Handshake from Gilly.

2009-07-20T15:06:00.003+08:00

On 2nd July, Mike and Kate drove up to Iluka to attend the presentation of sunshade tents by Suncorp. One of the 20 community groups in WA to win a sunshade tent was our own Cottesloe Coastcare. The tents, worth $4000 each, were presented by our great wicket-keeper Adam Gilchrist, who is the SunWise ambassador for the Suncorp Bank.

The Sunshade Tent Grant Scheme is an initiative of Suncorp in partnership with the Scott Kirkbride Melanoma Research Centre. Scott Kirkbride was a young victim of melanoma, and the Research Centre, based at the WA Institute for Medical Research in Nedlands, was formed to increase funding for research and awareness of Melanoma danger. The tents are provided to successful applicants as a practical way to protect the community.

Gilly congratulated Cottesloe Coastcare for its valuable work, and pointed out how much time we spent outdoors exposed to the sun. He talked about the danger of ultra-violet radiation (even in cloudy weather) and cited research showing that shade could reduce UV by up to 75%. He hoped we would get plenty of use out of our shade-tent and that we would continue our good sun-safety habits throughout the year.

Some of the other community groups to receive a shade-tent were CanTeen (young people living with cancer), the Rottnest Voluntary Guides, the Cockburn Wetlands Education Centre and the Bunbury Netball Association. Members of the Joondalup junior Cricket Club, another winner, were at the ceremony, ready to play a scratch match with Gilly.

We were presented with a letter of congratulations and a bottle of suncream. The tent itself has now been delivered, and we are storing it with the trailer at the Council depot. We will be able to erect the tent near the trailer during our activities, providing a shaded place where volunteers return each time to pick up seedlings, water buckets and tools, and have their morning tea. We also hope to be able to lend it to neighboring environmental groups such as Friends of Mosman Park Bushland and Friends of Allen Park.

(thanks to Mike for writing this. That's Mike with Gilly in the lower photo)
Photos courtesy of Emma Lohe, Suncorp.

Among the cockies' tongues - after 20 years!

2009-07-16T16:11:00.006+08:00

It was such a glorious day yesterday that anything outdoorsy was going to be nice, but planting in the Cottesloe Native Garden on Broome Street was particularly lovely - amongst the spectacular flowering cockies' tongues (Templetonia retusa). We put in some new Acacia lasiocarpa (dune moses), Hardenbergia comptoniana (native wisteria), Dianella revoluta and some more cockies' tongues.

The morning's work was all the more special for me because I'd been there, doing the same thing, about 20 years ago when I was at Seaview Kindergarten (which is right next to the garden - a lovely spot). The banksia I planted all those years ago is still thriving! (At least I think it's the same one, and I'm willing to claim it!) Even better, there was another Seaview alum (also called Kate) in the planting team so it was quite the reunion. I'll look forward to dropping by in another 20 years to see all those acacias and templetonias flourishing.

Yesterday also marked the last planting session for the year for the
dedicated CCA team - congratulations on getting 3000 plants in this year!
.................................................................................................................
(thanks for sending CCA this note for our blog Kate. We love to have enthusiastic young people join us in our work but what a special thrill to work with Kate and Kate where they planted trees as kindy kids!

Thanks to Elena's Mum, Merinda for the photos.)

Bathed in sunshine

2009-07-05T20:39:00.009+08:00

Unlike Monday's session our regular monthly Sunday session had beautiful sunshine and a gentle breeze - ideal weather for planting at Grant Marine Park. Dom, Ben and Aaron from Hale School joined us and soon became expert at erecting guards around the new plants to keep the rabbits away.

Sarah, an Iona student doing community service work, was quickly into the swing of planting and helped plant some of the 100 or so new acacias, scaevolas and rhagodias that went in.

Dan, Steve and Marcus from NES Global also joined us as part of NES Global's committment to their Environment Week.

Having extra hands makes a big difference to the work that we get done and hopefully our visitors get as much satisfaction as we do.

Thanks for coming along!

Battered by storms

2009-07-04T12:12:00.008+08:00

Thirteen boys and their teacher battled the elements for an hour on a Monday morning (June 29) to work on dune rehabilitation. They were Year 8 students from Scotch College and their teacher Lisa Evans, and they planted seedlings at the southern end of Grant Marine Park in gale-force winds. At times there was horizontal rain, but that didn’t deter the boys. In fact, the amount of care they put into the planting was remarkable in those adverse conditions.

Despite all the rain we’ve been having, the soil was still dry, so we watered them in, in the usual way. Our Coastcare Officer Kate Sputore and three members of Cottesloe Coastcare helped to make the whole thing run smoothly. I hope the boys had warm classrooms to go back to! They did an excellent job.

(Thanks to Mike Gregson for coordinating this stormy session! thanks Mike for the blog post too)

Sunday session

2009-06-13T21:26:00.003+08:00

Cottesloe Coastcare has a regular working bee on the first Sunday of the month. On Sunday 7th June a group of 11 enthusiastic Cottesloe Coastcare volunteers plus the North Metro coastcare Officer, Kate Sputore put in a hard working morning.We planted local native plants at the south east corner of Grant Marine Park where an area of unused lawn is being returned to local native plants - so extending the natural area of the park.

The previously reticulated lawn was dead but it was very hard work creating holes in the dead material for planting. Mike and Anthony did a brilliant job with mattocks but I'm sure they will have had aching muscles the next morning. As always we need to water in the seedlings well, once they have been planted. Melanie (from CCA's QLD division!) is on bucket duty in this picture.

In this picture Elva,Marian and Kate(all in the foreground) are doing a great job planting seedlings.

Morning tea is always a good time to stretch the aching muscles, rehydrate and socialise! Some home made cake or biscuits is always appreciated by everyone. Kate made us all some fantastic chocolate brownies - many thanks Kate! Well fortified after morning tea, we were all able to finish off the morning planting of about 250 seedlings and erection of plant guards, by about 12 midday.
It was a great Sunday session - thanks to everyone!

Quintilian coastcarers

2009-06-02T18:08:00.009+08:00

The morning of 27th May was a busy one for the enthusiastic Grade Fours from The Quintilian School. Members of Cottesloe Coastcare, Kate Sputore -the north metro Coastcare Officer and two teachers all worked with the children planting seedlings at Grant Marine Park.
In the photo above Kate is talking to the students about the area in the background of the photo, which was a lawn but is now being converted to local plants. The children suggested that lawn would use far more water than native plants and that fertilisers used on lawn can pollute ground water and the ocean. They also thought that birds, insects butterflies and bobtails would all be able to use the native plants for food and shelter. They thought the local plants looked better too!

In the photo above Jono, Tim and Carlo are doing a great job planting grey cottonheads with help from Marion.(click on photos to enlarge)

In this photo Tatjana, Claire and Abigail are receiving help from their teacher Robert Knott.

In this picture Inaraso and Insenna are being shown how to plant a seedling by CCA volunteer Sue.

Thanks to teachers Bronwyn Kay and Robert Knott and all the grade 4's. It was a really good working session and we hope you all enjoyed your time helping us care for the Cottesloe coast.

PricewaterhouseCoopers counting plants not beans

2009-05-20T14:26:00.001+08:00

Team leader Lesley plus a group of willing workers from Pricewaterhouse Coopers joined Cottesloe Coastcare volunteers on Friday 15th May for a planting and watering session.

The first photo shows us all enjoying a delicious morning tea donated by Daisies Deli on Grant Street, Cottesloe. Many thanks to Ken and Daisies for the best muffins in Australia. You can see Lesley holding on to the tray and keeping everyone at bay, to give me time to take the photo!

We were very worried that the promised rain may not come so we watered the seedlings again which were planted approximately 5 weeks ago. CCA volunteers have been hand watering seedlings (planted in April and May) at Mudurup Rocks and at Cottesloe Native Garden. Let's hope that some good rain arrives very soon!

At the south-eastern corner of Grant Marine Park was an area of unused lawn. This required constant mowing, fertilising and used lots of water. CCA, working closely with Town of Cottesloe are now returning this area to low local native plants appropriate for the site. After the reticulation was turned off and capped and the grass killed, the site was rotary hoed by council workers. Pedestrians regularly walk across the site so a path was built, using crushed limestone. Then the area was mulched ready for planting.

Planting commenced here on May 15 with help from PriceWaterhouse Coopers. It was hard work digging holes in the old lawn but using mattocks and post hole diggers, plus lots of muscle power we were able to plant approximately 200 local seedlings.

Unfortunately we have a rabbit problem in the area and despite all Council's efforts to eradicate the rabbits this has not been successful to date. We therefore need to put plant guards on the plants, at least until they become established or else the rabbits would kill the tiny seedlings. A rabbit expert has been employed by Town of Cottesloe so we are ever hopeful that soon we will no longer have constant rabbit damage.

The third photo shows young Thomas and his family who came along to give us some support. Thomas and his Auntie Jan did a great job planting some grey cottonheads.

( click on photos to enlarge)

In the bottom photo you can see Janet from CCA (QLD division!) with two Council workers, Brett and Andrew, setting up the plant guards.

Thanks to everyone involved for an excellent working bee.

Coast benefits from bag ban!

2009-05-19T15:31:00.001+08:00

Drew Randall from IGA supermarket, Eric Street Cottesloe is pictured handing Frauke Chambers (CCA's secretary) three heavy tins of coins. This exchange was a result of Cottesloe (and Mosman Park) IGA stores phasing out single use plastic bags.
If customers forget their reusable bags and require a paper bag the store suggests they may like to put a coin in the tins provided. Cottesloe Coastcare is very pleased to receive the takings.

The sealed tins were duly delivered to the bank and we were amazed when the bank rang to let CCA know that the contents totalled $836! This is enough money to purchase 577 local provenance seedlings which will further enhance the Cottesloe foreshore.
Many thanks to Drew and IGA Cottesloe for this wonderful donation to the local environment.

Congratulations to IGA for the iniative to lessen the use of single use plastic bags. The shop used to hand out 8000 plastic bags per week and no doubt most of those were not reused.

Cottesloe Native Garden continued...

2009-04-27T19:29:00.004+08:00

Regular readers of our blog will know how precious this small section of native bush is to the members of Cottesloe Coastcare, and to other people in our community who love to walk along the sand path and listen to the birds in the grevilleas and grass trees. This is the only site in Cottesloe where there is such richness of local native remnant species. The limestone outcrops through the site provide a special habitat to many plant species which grow on no other sites in our town. ( see the article 'Plants to Plant' on our website for a full list of species from this site)

Town of Cottesloe has donated $3,000 to CCA to pay for seedlings of some 'very difficult to grow species' which occur at this site, many of these plants are in very small numbers. Some species have only one or two specimens remaining but CCA is keen to build up the numbers again so that there is a better chance of those plant species not being lost to our town - unlike so many others before them.

CCA volunteers planted several species including: Scaevola anchusifolia and Dianella revoluta.These two species have very few remnant plants in Cottesloe and now there is a greater chance of these species remaining here for future generations of birds, insects, lizards... and people to use and to enjoy!

This picture shows the site of our planting working bee. The area was thick with the troublesome woody weed, Victorian Tee Tree. Some of these weeds were removed during an earlier working bee and now we are keen to reintroduce the local plants which have been struggling against the weed invasion.

We will continue to update the blog so that you will see how this area can recover over the next few years. Weed control is a long term commitment so we will be looking for a few extra hands to help us remove Carnation weed and other nasties in the spring. `

To read an earlier blog about preparing the site for planting Click here

More planting - with Therapy Focus

2009-04-27T18:57:00.005+08:00

Some long waited for rain suddenly
arrived as we all got to work on the morning of April 22nd. Unfortunately, however, it was a fleeting shower and so we could not avoid having to water in the seedlings as we planted. One day we look forward to planting into wet sandy soil... but this has not happened for several years!

A team of people from 'Therapy Focus' joined us for the morning. Therapy Focus is a non- profit organisation which provides services to almost 2,500 young people in WA. They provide therapy and professional services to children with a disability or learning disadvantage- to help these children grow to achieve their full potential.

The group watered seedlings that we planted three weeks ago, planted another 150 seedlings, expertly, and placed a truckload of brush material on the foredune infront of 'Barchetta Cafe'. Unfortunately some people insist on clambering under the fence to access the beach, causing erosion in this area. A load of brush was putting a stop to this activity before the summer but then the brush was all gathered up and burnt on a fire on the beach in January!!!... so we needed to start again to try to prevent this area blowing out during winter.

Anthony is a member of CCA and with his friends and family he cares for a section of the foreshore running north from the Grant Street ramp. For several years now his team have been planting and caring for seedlings in this area. Despite that commitment Anthony joined us all at Grant Marine Park, and here he is showing off his superior planting skills. Thank you Anthony, friends and family!

A group of workers from Therapy Focus (above) plus all the hard working Therapy focus team - with our North Metro Coastcare officer, Kate Sputore (below). It was Kate's birthday, but the wind was too strong to light the candles on her cake... so he she is clutching her cake so that it does not blow away in the wind, while we all sang her "Happy Birthday dear Kate".

We have started planting for 2009

2009-04-27T18:15:00.003+08:00

The week before Easter was a busy one as we had four days of work at three CCA project sites. Woodside sponsored a small team of workers from Conservation Volunteers Australia to help us with our work. Many thanks to Woodside and to the hard working CVA volunteers.
We planted local provenance seedlings at Cottesloe Native Garden, Mudurup Rocks and at Grant Marine Park. The car park verge at Grant Marine Park was full of weeds. The seed from these weeds has been blowing into the natural areas of the park. Town of Cottesloe worked with CCA to get rid of the weeds and now we are planting the site with local plants. This will be more attractive and importantly will provide berries for the local birds and insects and provide plants for insects which in turn will feed all those birds that we all enjoy seeing.
This team of enthusiastic workers from the Business Analysis - Viability section of HBF joined us all on Thursday 9th April. Another great team of workers! Many thanks to HBF for their support.

Seeds for the future

2009-04-06T20:37:00.007+08:00

It is that time of the year again - for some weeks Cottesloe Coastcarers have been collecting seeds of their local plants for future projects. Last Sunday, on our first regular working day, we had some welcome helpersAmanda, Lucy and Elena from Iona Presentation College spent a beautiful Sunday morning helping us to collect the somewhat elusive seeds of our coastal Scaevola crassifolia:
The light blue, sweetly scented fan-flower of this coastal species with its dark-green, fleshy leaves has been blooming profusely this year.

On the left CCA member Jan explains to Elena that the name of the plant means 'left-handed' because the petals of the flowers are arranged like the fingers of a left hand.

We also collected seeds of the silvery coastal daisy (Olearia axillaris), the striking red berries of the Rhagodia baccata and heads of brown spikelets from our local knotted club-rush (Ficinia nodosa).

The seeds will now be dried, processed and propagated for our future plantings - maybe our lovely helpers will be with us again in time to come when we plant the seedlings that have resulted from this Sunday's collections.

(Photos by Sue Freeth)

Sharing Experiences Sustains and Encourages Coastcarers

2009-03-08T21:50:00.010+09:00

On Saturday, 7 March 2009 five Cottesloe Coastcarers joined about 15 other volunteers, contractors, students and Coastcare Officers for a fascinating workshop on the Rehabilitation of Coastal Dunes at the Kwinana Recquatic Centre. Craig Wilson, the Coastcare Officer for the South Metropolitan Region set the scene with his presentation on the planning of coastal rehabilitation projects

which gave us some useful hints on how to improve our own application for our 2009/10 Coastwest Project. Christopher Lukes, the Coastwest Coordinator at DPI added to this information and made us aware of some of the bureaucratic hurdles that need ingenuity to overcome.

With Julia Cullity from DEC we all tried to identify the numerous plants she had brought to demonstrate how often the 'goodies' are very similar to the 'baddies' and that it takes some sharpening of perception to be able to tell the difference.

This very hands-on, practical and useful approach was also taken by David Bright, a contractor with Environmental Services who had been involved in long-term coastal rehabilitation in the Coogee Beach area. His experiences confirmed some of CCA's and it was particularly encouraging to learn that the lifespans of weed seedbanks on dunes are relatively short so that we can actually expect to eventually get rid of our pet hates (i.e. Tetragonia decumbens and Pelargonium capitatum).

His success rates were impressive and he confirmed our deep-planting practice - he was particularly successful with planting cuttings of Spinifex hirsutus up to half a metre deep into the sand. These plants proved amazingly effective in trapping moving sand and increased the height of a foredune by 1.5 metres within a relatively short time.

David was emphatic about long-term planning, especially with respect to pre-planting weed control and seed collecting. He recommended ordering plants from nurseries in September in time for planting in mid-May, surprisingly early. His plants thrived on being watered regularly for the first year and not at all after that.
At the end of his presentation we went to the area he had been talking about and we could see for ourselves that his plants looked very healthy and there were comparatively few weeds. We were impressed.

Apart from the information gained from the presenters, it is always great to talk and network with other passionate coastcarers.

A big thank you to the organisers and the sponsors who made this whole day workshop possible and provided the food and drinks.

(Photos by Robyn Benken)

Cleaning up Cottesloe

2009-03-01T16:51:00.006+09:00

This week we had a clean up Australia (Fri)day as well as a Clean up Australia Day!
On Friday 27th February about 30 volunteers from the Business Assurance section at Pricewaterhouse Coopers joined CCA for a beach clean up. You can see in the photo above the many bags of rubbish collected along Cottesloe's main beach in just two hours. Many thanks to all the good folk from PwC for their on-going commitment to helping community groups care for the environment. Thanks too for donating some great work gloves to Cottesloe Coastcare. We have 2,500 seedlings to plant during the autumn and winter of 2009 so the smart new gloves will be very useful indeed! The $8 found and handed to Cottesloe Coastcare will buy three more local seedlings to plant this year. (click on photos to enlarge)

Sunday 1st March was Clean Up Australia Day. Jade Hankin, Town of Cottesloe's Sustainability Officer organised a site at Cottesloe beach for volunteers to meet, equipment, registration and fruit nourishment! An enthusiastic team of adults and children donned gloves, and armed with recycling and rubbish bags we all set off to collect garbage from the beach, along fences and the hundreds of bottles and cans thrown among the vegetation. There were dozens of bottles and cans thrown into the teatrees and wattles of John Black Dune Park, to the west of the Cottesloe tennis courts. We were upset to find so much broken glass and rubbish in this area. Many bottles had their necks broken off and were buried in the sand with the jagged glass sticking out, so we had to be very careful removing this dangerous litter. Sadly bottles broken and buried in this manner are not an uncommon find on the beach as well. Most empty and broken bottles found at John Black Dune Park were beer bottles or bottles of alcoholic drinks.

Town of Cottesloe has twice weekly rubbish pick-ups and large sums of ratepayers funds are spent on rubbish collection and campaigns to draw attention to rubbish pollution and the environmental costs of litter. It is extremely upsetting to find that so many people continue to "Rubbish Cottesloe" and that the litter messages are simply not getting through to many people.

.

Captain Clean-Up (pictured above) called in to say Hi and congratulate all the workers for their excellent work. He arrived bearing fruit icy-poles for us all, and these were greatly appreciated as it had been hot and sweaty work. Quentin is showing some of the children a small lizard (West coast ctenotus) which had crawled into a bottle chasing dregs of fluid and had died unable to escape. We often find lizards dead inside drink bottles and this is yet another reason to place rubbish in bins provided. The children were very upset about the dead lizard.

Happy Australia Day

2009-01-26T16:17:00.006+09:00

We have not been idle the last few weeks, despite the lack of blog entries! On the left you can see Cottesloe Coastcare volunteers enjoying a get-together... without having to work! In late November about 40 members shared a sundowner barbecue picnic on the Main Lawn of the Cottesloe Civic Centre. We celebrated all we had achieved in 2008 and committed to lots more good work in 2009! Our primary goal for 2009 is to work even more closely with Town of Cottesloe on the Year One recommendations from the 5 year Natural Areas Management Plan.

This photo was taken on 3rd December during a bus tour organised by Kate Sputore and Craig Wilson, the North and South Metro Coastcare officers. It was very interesting to visit project sites of other Coastcare groups in Cambridge, Stirling and Joondalup, to hear about their successes and failures and to share our own stories and questions. We all enjoyed a picnic lunch together at Trigg after the tour. Thanks to everyone involved.

During the summer small groups of volunteers continue to hand water some of the seedlings we planted during the autumn and winter of 2008. Another time consuming summer job is seed collecting and seed cleaning. The seed required to grow plants ready for planting in 2009 is already sewn and the remainder of the seed will be stored in the seed store at APACE nursery in Fremantle, for us to use in 2010 and beyond.

For some years CCA has been keen to grow some more Quandongs (Santalum acuminatum) in Cottesloe. There is a very small remnant population in our suburb and locals have told us that they flower but have not fruited for quite some time. Apparently the semi-parasitic Quandong produces more fruit when the trees grow from seed whereas locally they seem to commonly grow from suckers. Cambridge Coastcarers tell me that they have very little fruit on their trees. Some people say it may be lack of pollinators. Emus eat the fruit whole and void the stone, dispersing the seeds, but I guess it is some time since an Emu wandered through Cottesloe.
If root suckers are damaged, here for example by verge mowing and parked cars, new plants can spring up using the suckering root to provide nutrition for some years. White stemmed wattle and Sheoaks grow close- by with thick couch grass and all of these species can be parasitised by Quandongs. We attached plant guards to protect many young plants. We carefully removed a few suckering plants (with couch grass roots intertwined) when they were right on the edge of the road and would not have survived. These tiny plants on the edge of the verge were 30 -40 feet from the nearest Quandong . We used a hormone gel, native potting mix and clean sand plus a small amount of appropriate slow release fertiliser, topped with some Sheoak and Quandong mulch from the site.... and crossed our fingers! We understand that our chances of success are very small - but we will keep you posted!
...................................................................................

Postscript: In June 2009- 6 out of 8 potted quandong suckers still alive. 4 had reasonable roots which had grown during the previous 6 months. Jan and I planted the 6 tiny quandongs - near cyclops wattles in Grant Marine Park in a secondary dune.

Postcript: December 2009. We have watered the quandongs in Grant Marine Park every few weeks but 4 have died, 2 are surviving. We wonder if they will make it through the summer.

A week of willing weeders!

2008-11-16T14:38:00.013+09:00

We have just had a very busy week! As you can see in the photos there has been lots of activity at our various Coastcare project sites. Funding was provided through Coastwest's Perth Biodiversity Project to give the North Metro Coastcare groups some assistance in their projects. CCA's share of the funding paid for a Conservation Volunteers Australia (CVA) team to assist Cottesloe Coastcare volunteers for a week. We are very grateful to Kate Sputore, the North Metro Coastcare officer and the team at Perth Region NRM for making this happen. CVA also gave an extra time donation to all the Coastcare groups, so we were also very fortunate to receive the extra assistance. The CVA team was great, we really enjoyed working together under the supervision of the ever cheerful and resourceful Fernando.

On Monday we started at Grant Marine Park, hand watering the seedlings we planted during the past winter. You can see Richard ( above L) digging out a large Sea Spinach plant. These scrambling plants smother the growing seedlings. Sea Spinach has such a long tap root that we generally cut the root and wipe the cut surface with an appropriate herbicide ( glyphosate) as digging all the roots out can do more harm than good sometimes.
Tuesday was spent at Vlamingh Memorial where there were mountains of weeds removed by the very hard working team... thanks so much guys! (photo, second from L top, sent by Mark).
Wednesday we did yet more weeding, hand watering and applied some mulch on the foredune opposite Bryan Way. Our site there is looking great, the plants are growing well and we are getting some positive comments from passers-by. (Two photos above (R): Julie weeding, Fernando and David hard at work)

Thursday it was the natural area around Dutch Inn Groyne which received some TLC. The photo (above R) shows the combined team from CVA and Cottesloe Coastcare. One willing worker was having a snooze on the bags of weeds!!

By Friday we had some aches and pains among us but we set to work at Cottesloe Native Garden. Hamish and Jade from Town of Cottesloe joined us and we had a great day with amazing results. We weeded out Geraldton carnation weed, watered all the seedlings which were planted 4 months ago then got rid of lots of Victorian Teatree ( two photos above). Hamish, Jade and the trusty chain saw achieved great things! The team installed a row of bollards ( photo L, digging the holes). The bollards will mark a line for the golf course lawn mowers to work to and a line for CCA and Town of Cottesloe to weed up to. Hand weeding and herbicide will be used as required in the natural area so that the local native plants will not be destroyed. In place of the removed Teatree approximately 400 local provenance seedlings will be planted next winter. The seedlings are presently being grown at 'APACE' and at 'Nuts About Natives' nurseries. (click on any photo to enlarge.)

Many thanks to everyone involved - it was a really good effort by a great team.

Weeding in the rain

2008-09-27T21:55:00.007+08:00

The rain poured down but we hardy souls did a good morning's work on Thursday 25th September at the foredune opposite Bryan Way. A group of volunteers from the Catholic education office joined Cottesloe Coastcare volunteers for the working-bee. Some people collected rubbish on the beach and others cut off weed seed heads (dune onion weed pictured), some cut out sea spinach and other weeds which were smothering the local plants.

Seedlings planted in 2007 and 2008 are generally doing well although the recent dry spell put many of this year's plantings under great stress. Despite the fact we all got very wet indeed, the rain was very welcome.

Many thanks to the teachers from the Catholic Education office who helped us in our work and provided the delicious morning tea. Please come again...and it's fine by us if you bring the rain next time too!

Cool school kids

2008-09-27T21:09:00.011+08:00

Cottesloe Coastcare attended North Cottesloe Primary's 'Eco - Cool 'school expo on Wednesday 17th September. The students put on a "trashion"parade, Mike Gregson did seed planting with some classes, there were science exhibitions, recycling and worm farms on display, Earth Carers gave talks to the kids, Travel Smart people were present - and there were many other interesting happenings.

The new school mural can be seen in the photo on the right. Parents, students and staff all helped change dull toilet block walls to the fun and colourful mural. Cottesloe Council funded the project.

Cottesloe Coastcare volunteers, Sue Freeth, Sue Conlan and I helped a class of Year 1's repot a Wollemi Pine donated to the school by Landcare Australia. Thank you Landcare Australia. Later we helped the Year 1's plant 30 local native plants in the school grounds.

A group of enthusiastic and dedicated parents and the school administration are to be congratulated for the many environmental projects undertaken this year and for their ongoing commitment to sustainability goals for the school.

Saving Silky scaevola - part 2

2008-08-26T20:58:00.008+08:00

In an earlier posting from October 2006 (click here) we discussed the single specimen of Scaevola anchusifolia (silky scaevola) that remains in the Cottesloe Native Garden. For three years we have been hoping to collect seed from the plant but we have not managed to collect any viable seed. Kings Park and Botanic Garden is always happy to give advice to volunteer environmental groups so with their help, cuttings were taken and eight plants were grown. One stock plant was given to 'Nuts about Natives Nursery' in Beenup. Seven other silky scaevola seedlings were recently planted in Cottesloe Native Garden near the solo parent plant.

We are delighted that Town of Cottesloe has agreed to fund a Biodiversity project to $3000 to pay the nursery for plants. CCA volunteers are working towards planting more Silky scaevola seedlings plus seedlings of other locally endangered plants. To date cutting material has been taken (where seeds are not available) from locally threatened plant species to grow the ‘stock’ plants. Cuttings from the stock plants will then be grown ready for planting during the winters of 2009 and 2010. Katrina taking cuttings from silky scaevola.

There are remnant specimens of at least 66 local native species in Cottesloe but until now Cottesloe Coastcare has generally focussed their efforts on returning approximately 20 common local species to project sites. The group has made repeated attempts at growing other ‘difficult to grow’ species by providing cutting material to commercial nurseries but the results have been very poor. Presently there are 13 plant species under severe threat in Cottesloe, with less than 5 remaining plants of each species. The biggest threat to the local plants is severe weed invasion.

CCA is excited about this new project to increase the local plant biodiversity in our precious natural areas. We will update the blog as the project progresses. Watch this space for regular updates!

Dinosaur pine

2008-08-17T21:24:00.003+08:00

The enthusiastic team of Year 8's from Scotch College and their teachers joined some CCA volunteers again on Tuesday 12th August at Grant Marine Park to do some more hand weeding. After a good session the boys posed with a Wollemi pine which they were taking back to school. The tree was donated by Landcare Australia.
Wollemi pines are one of the world's oldest and rarest trees. Wollemi nobilis is related to Cottesloe's iconic tree the Norfolk Island pine. Wollemi pines were discovered 200 kms from Sydney in the Blue Mountains in 1994 and there are less than 100 trees in the wild. They belong to the Araucariaceae family and fossil evidence indicates that the trees were growing in the Cretaceous period more than 100 million years ago. In fact palaentologists say that it is likely that dinosaurs crossed paths with Wollemi pines and may have eaten the leaves!
We hope that this Wollemi pine has a long and healthy life at Scotch College.
Many thanks to everyone involved in a good working bee.

PLC Planting

2008-07-14T13:24:00.004+08:00

Pouring rain did not deter an enthusiastic group of PLC students who joined us in a planting session at Vlamingh. All the plants had been grown in the PLC nursery, some from seed and some from cuttings, and were in excellent condition. They included acacia, hardenbergia and olearia and provided important infill to the recent plantings.

The girls worked hard and all the plants were staked and bagged by the time a large front came through, half an hour before we had finished. While the workers were drenched, the plants had an excellent start!

We really appreciate the time and effort the girls and their teacher put into both growing and planting the seedlings.

Planting local species is particularly important as it provides a much needed food source and habitat for birds and insects and adds to the interest and diversity of our local natural environment.

Grande Finale!

2008-06-21T14:33:00.006+08:00

A well earned cuppa for some of the hard working planters at Grant Marine Park

We can all breathe a collective sigh of satisfied relief - this week the last of altogether 2,696 local seedlings for 2008 were planted by Cottesloe Coastcare members and their many helpers. All of these plants were propagated for us by APACE from seeds collected and cuttings taken by us from our local species - so they all belong here and will increase and sustain the growing biodiversity of Cottesloe's natural areas.

This year, we concentrated our efforts on nurturing and complementing our existing projects - as you have read in previous postings, we have worked with students from Cottesloe Primary School and Scotch College, with staff from Pricewaterhouse Coopers and Future Farm Industries, and volunteers from Conservation Volunteers Australia, sponsored by Woodside Industries. In addition to joining these groups for long hours of intensive weeding and planting, several Cottesloe Coastcare members worked individually on various sites in the dunes, at Mudurup Rocks and in the Cottesloe Native Gardens to ensure that gaps in the local vegetation will eventually be closed and introduced species removed.

Now we want lots of rain to enable all of our plants to grow and prosper!

[Photo by Sue Freeth]

Future Farm feature

2008-06-13T17:43:00.017+08:00

Mike Ewing and his team from Future Farm Industries CRC took a morning out from their normal focus, researching new and adaptable farming systems, to get some hands on experience planting at Dutch Inn. Clearly a well-oiled team, they not only organised superb weather, but also fresh coffee to start the day!

Greg kept the water flowing, while Pollock socialised with the passing parade of people and dogs, and the rest of the team dug (deeply), planted, watered and staked. By the end of the morning some 200 plants, including knotty club rush, berry saltbush and Acacia cyclops, were in place, and Ingrid had the evidence to prove it.

Saltbush, with its ability to withstand drought and survive in saline conditions, is one of the species of perennial plants of interest to FFI CRC. As well, meat from lambs fed with saltbush is said to be tender, tastier and full of flavour. You can read more about FFI CRC at http://www.futurefarmcrc.com.au/ and the work on saltbush at Landline.

Dutch Inn is one of CCA's original sites and was in need of infill planting to recover some of the areas that had blown out. Cottesloe Coastcare really appreciates the time and effort the FFI CRC team put in to help us restore and protect the natural vegetation of our coastline.

Scotching weeds

2008-06-04T21:25:00.013+08:00

Which plants are weeds? How do they get here? Why do we only plant local Cottesloe plants? These were some of the questions we discussed with an energetic group of Year 8's from Scotch College on Tuesday at Grant Marine Park.

Frauke and Jan emphasised the importance of local plants as habitat and a food source for local fauna such as insects, butterflies, lizards and birds, as well as their importance in stabilising the dunes and preventing erosion. Local plants also coexist well, presenting a diversity of species, unlike some of the introduced species, such as Tetragonia and Pelargonium, which quickly dominate and smother other plants. Many of our most invasive weeds have come from South Africa - and some like the Black Flag (Ferarria crispa), seem to thrive here even more than they do at home.

The boys then attacked a large patch of Rose Pelargonium and Dune Onion weed with gusto. Once cleared they replanted with some local Cottesloe plants - Coast Daisybush (Olearia axillaris) and Berry Saltbush (Rhagodia baccata) and watered them in.

Thank you again to the boys and their teacher for helping us - we really appreciate their help in the never ending battle against weeds - and hope they gained a little more knowledge about their local environment. You can read more (and see more photos) on the Scotch College website.

In rain or shine

2008-05-24T10:27:00.015+08:00

CCA volunteers are nursing a few aching muscles after 5 big planting days recently. Yesterday we worked in the wind and rain but this did not daunt our spirits - as you will see this in the photograph above, as volunteers sheltered from a sudden rain squall.

We were delighted that Pricewaterhouse Coopers employees Linda and Helen joined us for a day, thank you PwC. Teams from Conservation Volunteers Australia, sponsored by Woodside gave us excellent help each day, we are extremely grateful for Woodside's sponsorship. Thanks too for the experience of CVA supervisors Ruth, Fernando and Allen plus the enthusiasm of all the workers - some local and some international visitors.
So far this year we have planted, watered in and attached plant guards (where required) on approximately 1800 seedlings in various sites in South Cottesloe, the central Cottesloe foreshore and Grant Marine Park.

These two photos show Cottesloe Coastcare's first planting day at Grant Marine Park in the winter of 2003 (L) and exactly the same spot where we did some infill planting yesterday (R). In the background of the 2003 photo you can see the previous site of the children's play equipment, which had just been moved to the lawned area, the newly installed crushed limestone paths and small safety fence. You will also notice the almost complete absence of local vegetation in 2003 on this eroded and trampled exposed western slope of the secondary dune.

A big thank you to everyone involved. We are making a difference!
To see more photos from our planting days click on the link below:

See more pics on Flickr

Planting has started for 2008

2008-05-02T20:01:00.010+08:00

At short notice we received an offer of two days of assistance by a small team from Conservation Volunteers Australia (CVA) on April 28th and 29th. This was too good an offer to refuse and you can see from the cheerful gang pictured above that CVA workers and CCA volunteers all enjoyed the work. Many thanks to Ruth and the CVA teams, also to Town of Cottesloe and Ken for their assistance.
We planted 500 local provenance seedlings at Dutch Inn Groyne, an area we had worked at about 6 years ago. Many of the seedlings planted then have done very well but weeds had moved in to some bare and eroded areas.We weeded out pelargonium, dune onion weed, sea spinach and planted various species of local salt bush, cockies tongues and local sedges in their place.

To see more photos from the two day working bee at Dutch Inn Groyne in South Cottesloe, click on the link below
See more pictures at Flickr

Cottesloe Primary & Conservation week

2008-04-05T21:00:00.020+08:00

Last week was Conservation Week. CCA invited Cottesloe Primary Year 4's to celebrate what has been achieved so far by volunteers at Grant Marine Park and to share ideas about this year's Conservation week theme of water use.

The children, their teacher Mrs Marion Ewing and some parents shared a classroom under the pines with Coastcare officer Kate Sputore and Cottesloe Sustainability Officer Jade Hankin.

Kate talked about water saving at home and the children came up with many good ideas about water saving. Local plants were discussed and how these plants survive using limited water.

Teams of students each studied one local plant and then walked around Grant Marine Park to locate their particular species. The children prepared work sheets on the various plants then used this information to locate their own plant in the Park. (click on photos to enlarge)

We have found our lovely cushion bush! ( Leucophyta brownii)

Later in the day the school Principal asked the children about the activity and several students said that actually finding the plants in the bush was the best. Everyone involved enjoyed an interesting and fun Conservation Week event.

Our trailer's had a facelift.

2008-03-17T12:28:00.017+09:00

During a day long working bee on Friday 14th March, volunteers took a break to thank Simon McGrath of Abel McGrath Real Estate for funding the rust removal and paint job on the CCA trailer. Adrian Abel would also have loved to have shared a celebratory tea bag with the workers but the poor chap was on Rottnest on a perfect, mild and sunny day! (click on pic to enlarge)

The trailer is a important piece of equipment for CCA. In winter we use it to deliver thousands of seedlings for us to plant at our project sites, it houses our tools and the hoses for summer watering. Then there are the brooms and rakes, spades and buckets for mulching and rubbish collecting, weeding and seed collecting. Six years of work had taken their toll on the trailer but it is as good as new again thanks to the generosity of Simon & Adrian.
A team from PricewaterhouseCoopers (Retirement Incomes and Asset Consulting) joined CCA for the day. This is the second year that PwC has donated a day's enthusiastic work to Cottesloe Coastcare's Grant Marine Pk project. Various people commented that the site has improved dramatically since 2003 when CCA volunteers started work at the area.
We met a very pregnant bobtail sunning herself during the morning, her soon to be delivered offspring will appreciate the berries on the berry salt bushes that are now flourishing on the dunes at Grant Marine Park!
CCA volunteers and resident bobtails all appreciate the support of Abel McGrath Real Estate and PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Click on the link below to view today's photo album from Grant Marine Park.
See more pictures at Flickr

Aqua Viva!

2008-03-01T13:33:00.006+09:00

Have you ever wondered how the young plants on the fore shore dune of our new restoration project opposite Bryan Way can look so healthy when even grown up people feel like wilting away during these last hot weeks? Part of the (or possibly even the main) reason is this:

The Cottesloe Council water truck and the friendly Cottesloe Depot staff regularly helped us throughout the hot summer to fill hundreds of buckets and carry the life sustaining liquid to the thirsty plants.

We planted some 2000 tiny seedlings last year and only 8 months later most of them are still thriving! Have a look the next time you walk past them - it is particularly pleasing to see how our site demonstrates the contrast to the other parts of the dunes which are overgrown with weeds. Soon we will be able to remove the bamboo sticks and the beauty of biodiversity and local plant growth will become even more obvious. A joy for everyone!

(Photos: Robyn Benken and a kind passer-by)

Trinity College students clean up

2008-02-26T17:32:00.013+09:00

A group of UWA Trinity College students volunteered to spend some of their orientation week energy at a big beach clean up on Cottesloe main beach thismorning. It was hot work down there on the beach collecting rubbish but you can see from the photos on FLICKR that we all had a good time! A refreshing swim after the work was done was really enjoyed by everyone!
We were all astonished, yet again, by the numbers of cigarette butts discarded on the beach. Butts take many years to break down and are full of all sorts of toxins - so we plead with all the smokers out there to PLEASE dispose of butts in the bins provided. Thanks to everyone involved in today's clean up and best wishes to all the students, who come from all over WA and from across the globe, for a great year at UWA. Thanks too to Jade Hankin, Cottesloe's Sustainability Officer, for decking us all out in sturdy gloves and providing the zinc for our noses. (click on photo to enlarge)

Click on the link below to see photos from the beach today.
See more pictures at Flickr

Medal for Coastcare hero

2008-02-07T17:44:00.001+09:00

After the story here on our blog last week about Doug Mickle (and his many years of voluntary beach-cleaning work) the Post Newspaper contacted me. I arranged for them to meet up with Doug at Cottesloe beach today.

Kate Sputore, our North Metro Coastcare officer is so impressed with Doug's work that she was keen to present him with a Coastcare Local Hero medal and a bag of Coastcare goodies, at the same time today.
Kate presenting Doug with his 'gold' medal.

Australia Day local hero

2008-01-29T15:13:00.001+09:00

Early morning on Australia Day I was chatting to my 82 year old friend Doug Mickle as he collected rubbish on Cottesloe beach. I thought more about his long-term commitment to keeping our beautiful beach clean so I caught up with him today for a chat.
In 2003 Doug accepted an award from the Town of Cottesloe on behalf of all the people who regularly collect rubbish from our beach. Doug, however, must be the most consistent and dedicated coast-carer of all! The bags of rubbish in the photo are the result of about 6 days work. He sometimes stockpiles his bags for younger beach goers to carry up the steep ramps to the bin.

Q: So how long have you been collecting rubbish here Doug?
It's been about 10 years now in Cottesloe. I started in Kwinana when we lived there, we always took a bag to the beach when the family went for a swim and we picked up rubbish on the way home. I started swimming at Cottesloe once I moved to East Fremantle so I brought my habit with me!

Q: You grew up in Meekatharra I remember.
I was born in Meekatharra in (19)25, Dad had the hairdressers and the tobacconists. When I was 4 years old he bought the Meekatharra Hotel, which was actually burnt down about six weeks ago. I joined the RAAF and was in a construction squadron in Borneo in '45 when the war ended. Then I worked as a roustabout in woolsheds and all over the place.
I bought a block in 1952 at Mt Claremont for 43 pounds 10 shillings and built a house on it. Later I bought a milk-round in Kwinana and then a newsagency, it was all hard work but you get used to it. I was one of the people who started the golf club in Kwinana, I'm a life member now but someone stole my clubs and I don't play any more, I prefer to swim at Cottesloe now. I swim with the 'Cottesloe Crabs' in winter but I don't swim so hard these days. I had to have a heart stent put in a couple of years back, so now I have much more puff again to pick up all this rubbish!
Twenty five years ago I moved to East Fremantle and agreed to a few days work from 4am to 8am at the Browns Dairy depot. I stayed there working those hours for 10 years, then I retired at 65.

Q: Do you think the education messages about rubbish pollution have improved things on the beach.
There are more people and there is more rubbish. The type of rubbish changes, now about half of what I pick up is water bottles - many still full! Broken bottles are really bad, I guess I've saved the Life Savers lots of work over the years because I've picked up so much broken glass. I believe that there used to be more bottles smashed on purpose. There are fines for dumping rubbish but they never seem to enforce this. I think they should fine people.

Q: Cottesloe Coastcare volunteers speak to lots of community members and school groups, do you have a message for us to share.
This beautiful beach and water is here for us all to enjoy, let's look after it for everyone and for all the creatures on the dunes and in the water.

On that note Doug was keen to get the rubbish in the bin and then enjoy a swim

........................................................................................................................

Boxing Day, December 26th 2009:

I met up with Doug on the beach at about 8am today. He was carrying two big plastic bags full of broken glass, plastic water bottles, drink cans and other rubbish, a "normal morning's load" he told me. He was "warming up"before the Cottesloe Surf Lifesaving club Veterans swim ( 300m), later in the morning. Doug told me that there are three "over 80's "who swim at these meets! He says that he gets a "bit more puffed these days" but he will continue to clean our beach, as long as he can. An amazing bloke!

The lizard in the bottle

2007-12-06T14:23:00.001+09:00

To celebrate Coastcare Week, Cottesloe Primary Year 4 students joined us at Cottesloe Beach for a marine debris collection. Kate Sputore, our Coastcare officer, talked about the problems that the litter we leave behind on our beaches causes marine animals and birds. A plastic bag looks like a jellyfish to seals and dolphins, but if swallowed may cause pain, internal injuries or even kill the animal.

Even small pieces of plastic can cause injury and death. Frauke shared the story of the baby albatross that died because its parents fed it small pieces of plastic, thinking it was food. The people who found the baby albatross belonged to the Tangaroa Blue Society which does fantastic work in the south west of WA cleaning up debris from the coast.

After last night's storm, the beach looked as if it had been swept clean of all rubbish but it was soon obvious that there was a lot of debris - especially small bits of plastic, cigarette butts and bottle tops. Bottles and cans, plastic bags, plastic spoons and other nasties were all soon collected and despatched into rubbish bags.

Just as we were leaving, Rumi, one of our sharp eyed collectors spotted a bottle with a beautiful West Coast Ctenotus lizard (Ctenotus fallens) trapped inside. It was obviously eager for a taste of lager but couldn't turn around to get out - or maybe was too drunk! Fortunately it was still alive so Kate gently ushered it to freedom. It reminded us all of the often unexpected effects of leaving rubbish on our beaches.

Thanks again to all the Year 4's, their teacher Mrs Ewing and the parents who came - you really made a difference!

"Let deeds not words be your adorning"

2007-12-02T22:03:00.000+09:00

This is one of the tenets of the Baha'i faith and how true to their belief were the hard working people who came for their "service activity" to help us weed and water the coastal plants at Grant Marine Park on the 25 November, a blustery Sunday morning.
Cheerfully and diligently the group collected some 15 large bags of weeds (mainly the innumerable seed heads of the dreaded onion weed, Trachyandra divaricata), loosened the soil around the plants and carried countless buckets of water to all the thirsty seedlings which have such a hard time establishing themselves in our harsh environment.
Cottesloe Coastcare is grateful for any help that assists our young and as yet small and fragile plants' fight for life during the long summer months when they must endure extended periods of dryness and aggressive competition for residual moisture and nutrients from so many more robust and fast growing weeds which threaten to displace and smother them.

A heartfelt thankyou to the Baha'i community for helping us to increase the survival rate of our coastal battlers!

(Photos taken by Zarin Salter)

community centenary celebrations

2007-11-24T21:50:00.000+09:00

On Sunday 18th November many groups from the Cottesloe community came together on the lawns of the Civic Centre to celebrate Cottesloe's 100th Birthday and to share ideas for the days ahead. Town of Cottesloe hosted a community afternoon and evening concert.

We had a fun day. CCA had a marquee with information about our projects and a fascinating photographic display showing historic photos and recent photos from the same sites - (where CCA volunteers have been active) and showing some good results in biodiversity conservation. Thanks Sue!

We ran a competition during the afternoon which was popular with many school children. There were 10 potted plants - the aim was to identify which plants were local native plants and which were troublesome weeds locally.

The weeds on show were all from South Africa and are taking the place of local plants along the foreshore. (click on photos to enlarge)

We encourage people to always think very carefully about their choice of garden plants, but particularly if you live near natural bush or foreshore areas. Some garden weed escapees can change the nature of our bushland for ever. Examples of such weeds are gazanias, veldt daisies, watsonias, freesias and yellow soldiers. To learn more about weeds in WA go to : http://members.iinet.net~weeds/

The Cottesloe Mayor, Kevin Morgan, announced the winners of the CCA Flotsam photo competition and presented Cottesloe beach towels to the winners. Click here for the winning pictures. The prizes were donated by Peter Dunn of Fun's Back Surf Shop at 120 Marine Pde, Cottesloe. Thank you Peter.

Asher with his photo prize towel from 'Fun's Back', Cottesloe.

Cottesloe Coastcare volunteers are celebrating 12 yrs of hard work along the foreshore but the challenges ahead are huge! If our local natural environment and biodiversity conservation were considered to be core business by the whole community much more could be achieved. Threats include weeds dumped by local residents, weed seeds blown in to the natural areas from near by gardens, diminishing ground water and rabbits destroying local vegetation - these are our biggest challenges. (And then there are the enormous future challenges from climate change).

Connecting Land, Shores and Oceans

2007-11-20T17:45:00.000+09:00

The above image was the symbol for the 4th Coastal Conference held in Denmark (WA) - land and sea along the coast were regarded as if through indigenous eyes as a living entity, as country to be protected. Almost 300 delegates from government agencies, educational institutions and community organisations exchanged information about their activities as managers and custodians of the immense coastal areas of WA - no less than 27.000 km (including the islands) of coastline with some 10.000 mainland beaches.

Two committee members of the Cottesloe Coastcare Association received funding to attend the conference to contribute to, share with, and learn from the knowledge and experience of so many committed people caring for our coast. The palpable good will, enthusiasm and willingness for hard work demonstrated by everyone inspired hope and optimism for the future inspite of the huge pressures of increasing numbers of people threatening to 'love our coast to death'.

One whole day was designated as a Community Forum to discuss Coastal Issues, Local Solutions. Some 20 community groups presented projects which showed how caring and committed individuals and small groups can make real differences, especially if they act in partnership with local councils and collaborate with a wide range of agencies. One of the most heart warming sights was a young woman who carried a baby kangaroo around with her in a shoulder bag because the joey still needed four-hourly bottle feeds. She belonged to the WA Seabird Rescue, a small group who rescues injured wildlife - they are in dire need of more helpers: if you would like to become involved, ring 9474 9055!

You can find more information about the conference, the key-note speakers, main issues and suggested solutions on our website: http://www.cottesloecoastcare.org/

The good news and the bad news

2007-10-04T16:31:00.000+08:00

On Wednesday 3rd October fifteen hard working Cottesloe Coastcarers met at Vlamingh Memorial in South Cottesloe, to remove plant guards before summer and to do some hand weeding.

Armed with our tools and a plan of "what weeds to attack and how to attack them", we put in a good morning's work. Rose Pelargonium (Pelargonium capitatum) and Sea Spinach ( Tetragonia decumbens) are both weeds which displace and smother local plants. These are species we have targetted with a zero tolerance approach.

We had such a good working session and we know that our hard work is beneficial to the health of our local environment. A big thanks to everyone!

( picture of Sally re-cycling plant guards)

Our youngest helper yesterday, Jago, ( pictured with his dad, Stuart), is growing up in a home where he will learn about the vital importance of local biodiversity and this will become part of his everyday thinking. Sadly there are still so many adults who treat our natural areas with disdain.

Sometimes we feel overwhelmed by the mass of weeds engulfing the natural bush areas. But we get really upset when local people dump garden rubbish in the dunes. We are also exasperated when garden plants spread, by seed from gardens into adjacent natural areas.We need 'people watch' as well as 'weed watch'! Please report any weed dumping which you observe to your local government authority.

Examples of troublesome weeds which we target along the sand dunes that have escaped from local gardens are Gazanias (Gazania linearis), Sweet Allysum (Lobularia maritima), Lupins (Lupinus cosentinii) and white garden (Michaelmas) Daisy. Photo in the centre is of gazanias and the photo on the right is of garden daisies, in local bushland.

An excellent little book the 'Bringing back the Bush', written in 1988 by Joan Bradley, is an inspiration to us. If anyone is interested in purchasing this book: it is available at the Wildflower Society, at Aspects in Kings Park and can be ordered through CSIRO. http://www.publish.csiro.au/pid/2690.htm

There's a summary of Joan Bradley's approach at:

http://asgap.org.au/APOL4/dec96-5.html

After we finished our weeding session yesterday I went for a walk along the dual use path. I was horrified to see that someone had, once again, dumped fresh garden waste, full of weed seeds, into the tea trees next to the sand dunes. 500m further along the path I noticed that someone had, yet again, dumped lawn clippings - full of kikuyu seed - , among the native vegetation at Mudurup Rocks. Lawn grass is one of the worst weeds displacing the natural vegetation at this precious site. Mudurup Rocks is particularly important as it is the only place in Cottesloe where several local plant species still survive. Coastcare volunteers collect seed every year from these plants so that we can reintroduce these species to eroded and degraded nearby dunes. Mudurup is already under severe threat from weeds.

For further information on weeds go to: http://www.cottesloecoastcare.org/links.html

Annual Bush to Beach Walk 2007

2007-10-02T11:14:00.000+08:00

On Sunday 30th September approximately 30 people, many of whom are members of local environmental groups, met at Swanbourne beach to take a guided bush walk to the River. To see a full account of our lovely day see Dani Boase-Jelinek's blog account with photos. click here to go to Dani's blog.

Pictures I took yesterday at Allen Park in Swanbourne - (L) Old Man's Beard (Clematis linearifolia), (Centre) Feather Spear Grass (Austrostipa elegantissima), (R) Coastal Honeymyrtle (Melaleuca systena).

A big thanks to Dani (Friends of Shenton Bushland), Soozie (Friends of Lake Claremont) and Lesley (Friends of Allen Park) for their brilliant organisation of the event, again. Thanks also to Western Endeavour Rotary for their excellent catering for our lunch.

'Lots o' Fotsam' nature study

2007-09-12T13:08:00.000+08:00

Today Cottesloe Primary School year 4's with some parents and their teacher, Mrs Marion Ewing joined Cottesloe Coastcare volunteers on the beach. We met marine experts Loisette Marsh, Mike Gregson and Kate Sputore for a marine nature walk.

We all braved some gusty wind and a few rain showers to collect 'lots o'flotsam' along the sea shore.

You will see in the pictures that the students then helped sort the material into groups of plants and animals. ( click on photos to enlarge them)

Some of us put the Sponges in with the plants but we soon learned that the sponges we found on the beach are actually the horny skeletons of many-celled animals. The Sponges, which are sedentry, mostly live in deep water, they can be brilliantly coloured and they filter their food from the water.

Kate showed us two species of sea grasses - which are flowering plants with roots and leaves. We had picked up some wire weed and some ribbon weed.

Then the seaweeds (many-celled algae) were divided into their classes. Among the green algae we found some Sea Lettuce and several beautiful green balls or 'Velvet Golf Balls'. We also collected various different species of red algae and brown algae. The children all seemed to know the name of the thick leathery brown algae or 'kelp'. We found one sea weed which was white and crisp. It was explained to us that this was a red algae that had been bleached by the sun and had also become lime-coated (calcified).

We learned about Jellyfish from Loisette, one jellyfish is the Blue Bottle and they were common on the beach today. Loisette showed us a Sea Urchin with its mouth in the middle of its underside and she told us how they move up and down Kelp columns as they feed, using their beak-like, self sharpening teeth! Other urchins we found had lost their spines. Molluscs were common too - we picked up turban shells, abalone shells, limpets, and cuttlebones.

We found several egg cases of Port Jackson Sharks and one small egg case from a Cat Shark. Kate told us that the female Port Jackson Shark uses her head to screw the egg case into a hole in the rock and there the baby shark develops over many months. Eventually it uses the sharp point on its head to help it escape its egg-case

Boys holding shark egg- cases.

We learnt lots of other fascinating information too and if you would like to learn more: click here to go to Coastcare's 'lots of flotsam'article, which inspired us all to take today's nature walk. After our lesson we returned all the plants and animals to the beach.
Thanks to everyone involved!

Scotch College boys flex their muscles

2007-08-22T16:47:00.000+08:00

On August 22nd Cottesloe Coastcare volunteers were pleased to be joined by sixteen Year 8 students from Scotch College and their teachers, Lisa Evans and Dan Quinlivan. There was lots of work to do at Grant Marine Park in North Cottesloe. The recent rain has been great for the local plants but the weeds are also growing rapidly, so there was plenty of hand weeding to do.

(click on photo to enlarge)

On some exposed areas on the west side of the secondary dune the native plants are only growing slowly. We placed appropriate brush material on the slopes in an effort to stop people walking there and eroding the area further and to give the small plants some wind protection.

Town of Cottesloe mulches its tree prunings and this material is useful as a weed supressing agent, it helps to keep the roots of the plants cooler in summer and reduces moisture loss. Mulch also lets people know that the area is being cared for, we hope that this will encourage pedestrians and their dogs to walk on the paths.

Many thanks to all the boys for their hard work and interest in supporting the work of Cottesloe Coastcare. We have appreciated students from Scotch College helping us for about 8 years. Thanks also to Mr Quinlivan and Ms Evans for organising the working bee. We look forward to your next visit!

To bag or not to bag?

2007-08-10T13:42:00.002+08:00

To bag or not to bag - this is the question we ask ourselves each time we plant seedlings at our foreshore project sites. After ten years of experience in our efforts for good plant survival results, the volunteers of Cottesloe Coastcare have learnt about some of the pros and cons of using plant guards.

In a nutshell: we have learnt that plant guards are sometimes required but that weed removal followed by early winter planting gives us the best plant survival results.

We have found that guards are useful:

when rabbits are present
sometimes to mark out a revegetated area

And guards are not useful if they are:

used in shifting sand

not well installed

not maintained regularly

leading to vandalism

left on the plants for too long

If you are interested in our experiences click here to read the full article. Included are some website links with further observations.

Also included is a precis of a science research paper by Shane Turner and Bernard McLean of Botanic Gardens and Parks Authority, Perth, WA; 'Optimisation of Greenstock Survival for Restoration of Bold Park'.The study concerns a re-vegetation programme (2002 - 2005), to evaluate site conditions, planting techniques, planting time impacts, the impact of tree guards and weed control on greenstock establishment.

We would appreciate comments from others willing to share their 'bagging' experiences with us. Please add your comment to the blog or email us at: info@cottesloecoastcare.org

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August 29th -Richard sent this photo of a Banksia which was left in its tree guard for many years!! You will see a note from Richard about the 'to bag or not to bag' question in 'comments'.

....................................................................................................................................

Further on the subject of the pros and cons of plant guards. I received the email and photos below on 30th November 2009.

Subject FW: Snake hazard from tree guards

I have wondered about the purpose of the 12 holes in the plastic tree guards. I doubt if they are needed in our climate for reducing humidity. In this case they have killed a dugite.Anyone know of other cases ? It's the first I've seen. Should we use guards without holes ? James

Subject: Snake Date: Sat, 28 Nov 2009 08:52:05 +0800
Hello James, Attached are four photos that I took of the snake. We measured it yesterday when we took the photos. It was hard to get an exact measurement as it was pretty stiff, but somewhere between 49 and 52 cm long Two photos are from outside the plastic bag, and two inside. Richard

A fantastic community effort

2007-07-15T20:27:00.000+08:00

On Saturday 14th July twenty four adults and three children put in a fantastic morning's work at the Bryan Way foredune, Envirofund project site. We planted 500 local native seedlings and carried water, bucketed out of wheelie bins, up and down the steep dune. The sun shone and it was a glorious, still July morning.

Angela, Hannes, Maika and Linea ( pictured) are visiting from Germany and were happy to lend a hand on the beautiful winter morning. William, a Hale student (also pictured) gave up his Saturday morning to assist the work of Cottesloe Coastcare, for his voluntary community commitment as part of his studies.

'Daisies Deli' on Grant Street Cottesloe, donated our morning tea of the most delicious freshly baked muffins. A big thanks to Ken at Daisies and to everyone else who worked so hard to make the working bee such a success.

Expert planting by Year 4's.

2007-07-04T20:16:00.000+08:00

Today, Wednesday 4th July, Cottesloe Coastcare volunteers had the help of Cottesloe Primary Year 4's, teachers and some enthusiastic parents to plant local seedlings at the Bryan Way foredune Envirofund project site.

Kate Sputore, The North Metro Coastcare Officer with students.

When we started work at 8.45am there was some rain and it was chilly and windy but you can see from the photos that everyone was eager to get to work and about 300 local native seedlings were expertly planted and watered in.

The students had an earlier session with Coastcare ( click here to see our earlier posting) when we all learnt about how some local plants have adapted to living in the harsh sand dune environment. Today we were all very impressed to hear that many of the children remembered information from their earlier lesson.

Year 4 students at work

One of the local residents of the foredune, which we dug up ( and carefully returned to its sandy home), is this lizard pictured, a West coast line-spotted lerista.

The lizard is an accomplished sand swimmer and many of the small snake-like tracks we see on the beach and dunes are caused by this lizard moving beneath the surface.

A big thankyou to teachers and parents for an excellent coastcaring morning and special thanks to Year 4 teacher, Mrs Marion Ewing.

Angels in the Dunes?

2007-07-02T16:28:00.000+08:00

The heavens must have thought that angels were coming to help us plant - instead of the rain and wind that was forecast for Wednesday morning the 27th June, we had sunshine and blue skies! We were so lucky - just as we had finished planting the seedlings, the clouds burst and it rained beautifully to give them a good start for their growth. Was it because the 52 lovely students from St Mary's had a special connection to the weather god?!

Here is half of the group listening attentively to the demonstration on how to plant our precious seedlings:Meanwhile, the other half of the girls was walking along the beach, collecting rubbish and learning about marine life with our Coastcare Officer. Then they swapped. Both groups split into three- and foursomes with CCA volunteers and planted six different species of 200 Cottesloe coastal natives into prepared holes on our new Bryan Way foredune project.

For the girls it was a positive, hands-on experience of doing something pleasurable and practical, tangible and useful for the environment, and we appreciated their enthusiasm and obvious interest. Maybe they'll visit Cottesloe in a couple of years' time and see with joy how well their plants have grown and how much more interesting the dunes look with the weeds replaced by a wonderful display of local biodiversity.

(Photo taken by Sue Freeth)

CCA's Mountain Goat Challenge

2007-06-21T13:53:00.000+08:00

Casual Cottesloe beachwalkers would have been bemused at the somewhat ungainly rearviews they may have seen on the 18 June, our second planting day at the Bryan Way project: it was a real challenge to dig holes, plant the seedlings and somehow manage to keep the water buckets upright on the hard & rocky, steep slope! Some of us wished for more youthful agility and more obedient leg muscles - however, our small group of indefatigable mountain goats succeeded in planting some 200 new seedlings, including those lovely sedges you see at the top of the photo.

As always at our beautiful worksites, the ocean lay shimmering beneath us and an elegant white yacht added to our aesthetic pleasures
[Photos taken by Kate Sputore]

Premier Planting at our New Project

2007-06-12T14:00:00.000+08:00

Here is Robyn wielding her baton to get the CCA Choir warmed up for a perfect day's work - the blue sky and a shimmering ocean made the planting of the first 300 seedlings at our new project opposite Bryan Way a pure pleasure.

The seedlings comprised various species (including rhagodia, club rushes and prickle lilies, coastal daisies, sword sedges and wallaby saltbushes) which were ready to be planted from those propagated by Apace from the seeds we had collected and the cuttings we had taken in the Cottesloe area . In order to give them the best possible chance to settle into the dune, we dug ample holes (the photo shows Mike in action with his very own super-sized spade)

and watered them in with buckets carried from the wheely-bins which Paul from the Cottesloe Council Depot had volunteered to fill for us on this Saturday morning, the 9th of June.

Here is Laurel, one of the inaugural CCA volunteers, carrying water to the plants.

For three hours the slope on the site (we started on the most difficult part!) was the scene of intense actvity - about 14 volunteers getting their hands and knees dirty and straining to keep their balance on the steep terrain:

However, no planting day organised by Robyn is without a delicious interval - this time we had sumptious home-made scones with cream and jam that proved too tempting for everybody!

Even the most unsuspecting passer-by cannot resist being coaxed by Malcolm into planting at least one seedling - here it was the turn of a not any longer so casual visitor from overseas:

By lunchtime the water was used up and we all considered this to be a good sign that we had done enough - in fact most of us felt quite exhausted, but also immensely satisfied: can you see the pleasure in our faces?

(Text by Robyn and Frauke, photos taken by Robyn and Dieter)

Painstaking Preparations for our Precious Plants

2007-05-10T12:29:00.000+08:00

Before the pleasures of planting, dune restoration requires careful preparation - seeds are collected, cleaned and propagated; weeds removed from the site; rocks, bricks and rubbish bagged and carted away, and brush laid to prevent erosion.

For some years, Cottesloe Coastcare volunteers have developed their skills in collecting seeds from those remnant local coastal species that we saved, planted and nurtured at Grant Marine Park, Mudurup Rocks and the Vlamingh Memorial site.

The seeds are cleaned and further processed at APACE in Fremantle where volunteers also participate in specially conducted courses.

For our new project at the foredune opposite Bryan Way, we have some 2000 seedlings comprising 19 local species prepared for planting in June.

This image shows the foredune opposite as it was: highly degraded and full of introduced species.

The first step in our site preparation was the removal of spreading weeds like Sea Spinach (Tetragonia decumbens), Onion Weed (Trachyandra divaricata) and various introduced grasses as well as woody weeds like Victorian Tee-Tree, Tamarisk and Agave Americana:

As you can see, Cottesloe Council workers worked with enthusiasm and we were able to use parts of the shrubs as brushing to avoid erosion. Some of the dead weeds will come in useful as mulch.

Several weed species cannot be successfully removed by hand and some chemical weeding must be done. We contracted the expert services of David Taggart of Biara Conservation Services to do the herbicide work at the site, to help prepare the site for planting once the rains commence.

Once the site was cleared of nature's introduced species, we had to clear it of human intrusions - we felt a bit like coolies, bagging house bricks and concrete debris that had been dumped at the site over the years as well as more recent throw-aways:
After a couple of hours of lugging the bags full of stones, concrete and rubbish up the dunes, we had filled a whole trailer and the site looked neat and tidy, ready for planting.

Eventually, when our coastal natives thrive at this site, the habitat for our local dune residents will be so much more pleasurable!

Year 4, Cottesloe Botanists

2007-04-05T15:14:00.000+08:00

Recently, Year 4 students from Cottesloe Primary with their teachers, Mrs Marion Ewing and Mr Lawrie Prestage, walked to Cottesloe beach to meet Kate Sputore, the North Metro Coastcare Officer and Robyn Benken from CCA. The Norfolk Island pines above Cottesloe's main beach provided the shady classroom. We learnt about local native plants and how they have adapted for survival on sand dunes, in harsh salt-laden winds.

Kate and Year 4's

The students completed work sheets on four important dune plant species. The plants we studied are Lepidosperma gladiatum or coast sword sedge, Spinifex longifolius or long-leaved spinifex, Leucophyta brownii or cushion bush and Acacia cyclops or red-eyed wattle. The work sheets prepared by the four teams of students are now up (at the link, highlighted here) on our website. For more information on these plants and other species local to Cottesloe, go to our website and click on 'Plants to Plant'
The children said that they were looking forward to returning to the outdoor classroom in the winter to plant these species and other seedlings at the new CCA project site on the Bryan Way foredune.
Cottesloe Coastcare volunteers are delighted to have on-going partnerships like this one, with dedicated teachers interested in the local natural environment and prepared to share this interest with their students. A big thank you to everyone concerned.

Coastcarers in Cyberspace

2007-04-04T13:33:00.000+08:00

CCA's new website launch by the Hon Julie Bishop MP, Federal member for Curtin, Minister for Education, Science and Training & the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Women's Issues. (pictured with CCA Chairman, Associate Professor Michael Ewing).

On Monday evening, April 2nd the Hon Julie Bishop MP removed a red ribbon from a computer at the Cottesloe, Mosman Park and Peppermint Grove Library and unveiled the new website of the Cottesloe Coastcare Association.

About forty Coastcare volunteers were able to view the exciting new site at ‘www.cottesloecoastcare.org’, for the first time. Cottesloe Coastcare’s Chair, Associate Professor Michael Ewing welcomed the Minister, Cottesloe’s Mayor Kevin Morgan and CEO Stephen Tindale and guests. Prof. Ewing especially thanked Sue, Rob and Mike Freeth for their technological wizadry which created such an exciting new communication tool for CCA.

Top - Elizabeth Spoor, Robert Powell, Pat Elder, Sue Medalia & Sue Conlan with CCA online

L - Mike Ewing, Greg Boland, Julie Bishop MP, Sue Freeth and Megan Ewing viewing the website presentation on the big screen.

R- The Minister & Town of Cottesloe Mayor, Kevin Morgan

Cottesloe’s Mayor, Kevin Morgan spoke about the eleven years of working partnership between the Town of Cottesloe and CCA, and thanked the volunteers for all their important work. The Mayor noted that for every dollar Coastcare raises through Federal and State Government sponsorship, volunteers contribute considerably more through their unpaid labour.

The Hon Julie Bishop also officially launched CCA’s latest project on the Cottesloe foreshore. The Minister said “this is CCA's fifth project which has been funded by the Commonwealth Government, in partnership with Town of Cottesloe”. The total funding received from the Commonwealth Government is in the order of $42,000.
The 18 month Envirofund /NHT project, Round 8, was announced late last year and CCA received $6,850 towards the restoration of a high profile foredune opposite Bryan Way on the central Cottesloe foreshore, in partnership with Town of Cottesloe.
At present the site is weed infested and prone to erosion. Volunteers have collected local seed from 18 local plant species and approximately 2000 seedlings are being grown at APACE nursery, for planting in winter. Students from Murdoch and Curtin Universities, Cottesloe Primary, Scotch College and St Hildas have shown interest to be involved in this project - with on the ground work or preparing articles for CCA’s blog and website.

Bin 07 - Stash, Trash and Treasures

2007-03-08T12:08:00.000+09:00

Who would stash 6 bottles of red wine under a bush near Cottesloe beach? Who would throw away a brand new canvas sports bag? How did a larger than life-size somewhat goulish plastic skin-coloured costume hand find its way into the Cottesloe dunes? And who would have lugged a large and heavy, beautifully carved and painted wooden golf hole marker all the way to our beach? Or a large car wheel with its tyre still attached?

These were some of the questions we asked ourselves at the Cottesloe Coastcare Clean-Up Australa Day site on Sunday 4 March 2007 – some 30 volunteers (including 8 children with their parents) registered between 9.00 and 11.00 am for our part in the national clean-up rubbish collection day and altogether we collected some 100kg of objects that were thrown (or stashed) away. Most of it was rubbish, of course – mainly (about 80!) glass beer bottles and plastic drink bottles, food wrappers and containers, broken glass, bottle and can tops and rings and miscellaneous pieces of plastic, polyestyrene and rope. But there were also some surprising finds – a snorkel complete with mask, several goggles, t-shirts, 2 pairs of undies, and sun glasses. We did find lots of cigarette butts, especially around benches, bus stops etc, but there were fewer than in previous years – is the message slowly spreading that they are not ‘biodegradable’ but take up to 10 years to degrade and actually are so toxic that they present a danger to our wildlife?

The feedback from most volunteer rubbish collectors was that in general the 2.5km Cottesloe beach front we targeted north and south from the ‘Dutch Inn’ site (at the corner of Marine Parade and Beach Street) was ‘reasonably clean’and better than last year. Maybe this is the result of regular Council cleaning? Or is it the effect of those many (and increasing numbers of) concerned people who regularly pick up rubbish as they go for their walks along our beautiful beach?

The Cottesloe Coastcare Association with great support from the Cottesloe Council has been involved in the Clean-Up Australia Day for many years and the response from our community – including a large number of school and university students – has been absolutely wonderful. It is very pleasing to see our coastline benefiting from this combined effort – a cleaner environment is a better habitat for our flora and fauna and a joy for everyone.

(Photos taken by Robyn Benken)

Valentine's flowers

2007-02-18T12:29:00.000+09:00

There were no red roses delivered to my door on Valentine's Day but there are always some local plants putting on a show along the Cottesloe foreshore - for Valentines and non-Valentines alike, so I took my camera and went for a walk.

Towards the end of summer the female plants of Rhagodia baccata (berry saltbush) can be covered in deep-red berries. The berries are eaten by birds and bobtail lizards. A small butterfly, the saltbush blue, breeds on the plant. Berry saltbush is a common, spreading shrub of the Cottesloe foreshore and grows to 2m high.These two photos were taken in South Cottesloe, near Vlamingh Memorial, a site where Coastcare volunteers have been doing restoration work.

Rottnest tea-tree or Melaleuca lanceolata (moonah) is flowering prolifically at present at many places along the foreshore. It is a hardy coastal species which grows to 5m and can develop a dense canopy right down to the ground. The canopy is a protection from sand and salt blasts. The picture on the left from South Cottesloe shows the wind pruned shapes of these very low tea-trees which receive the full brunt of the weather. Other specimens in John Black Dune Park in a more protected area are 4- 5m high. The summer flowers attract native bees and wasps and the trees provide bird habitat.

A tiny butterfly, a common grass blue which has a wing span of only 2cms is sipping nectar from Rottnest teatree flowers in the picture below. These little butterflies breed on pea plants such as Chorizema dicksonii (yellow-eyed flame-pea)

I think red roses are OK but I would prefer our beautiful local plants any day and my Valentine is not complaining either!

Heavenly bodies

2007-01-27T14:14:00.000+09:00

Grant Marine Park was a popular place for comet spotting last week. Each night hundreds of people were dotted along the Cottesloe beachfront looking for Comet McNaught as it became visible at sunset. Thursday 18th January was one of the best nights for viewing with a clear sky but even when there was cloud glimpses could still be seen.

It was great to see that people were careful to keep off the planted areas and stayed on the paths - thank you everyone!

According to the Perth Observatory Comet McNaught only comes around once every 100,000 years and is the brightest comet we have seen in 40 years. It was discovered by astronomer Rob McNaught at Siding Spring Observatory, NSW, in August 2006. More information and some good photos taken in WA can be seen on the Observatory website at http://www.perthobservatory.wa.gov.au/information/comet_mcnaught.html

Photos taken from all over the world can be seen at http://www.spaceweather.com/comets/gallery_mcnaught_page18.php

Thanks to Jamie and family and Rob for the photos on this page.

Article written by Sue.

Invaluable Volunteers

2007-01-16T16:34:00.000+09:00

"Volunteers don't get paid for what they do, not because they're worthless but because they're priceless".

Thanks to Issue 18 of the 'Leeuwin Challenge' Newsletter for this quote.

CCA volunteers at work - (L) Valerie and Sue potting up cuttings at APACE Nursery, (centre) Laurel and David at Seadragon Festival 2006, (R)Ronnie and family applying mulch around local plants at Grant Marine Park.

Making Waves 2006

2006-12-08T09:21:00.000+09:00

Sue and Frauke attended the Making Waves Symposium, which highlighted some of the Natural Resource Management projects and initiatives underway in our marine and coastal environments in WA. The day was organised as part of the National Heritage Trust and National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality programs.

Highlights

These presentations impressed us most, but there were many others!

Welcome

Richard Walleys’ mesmerizing rendition of whales and dolphins on the didgeridoo as part of the traditional “Welcome to Country”. It was spine tingling.

Marine Futures

The most stunning project and an excellent example for the collaborative approach typical of so many research initiatives presented at this Symposium. Based at the University of WA and funded by the Natural Heritage Trust, the project combines the resources and expertise of no less than five regional Natural Resource Managements Councils, four WA Government agencies and Fugro Survey Ltd.

The main objectives of the project are
- exemplary mapping of some 1000 square kilometres [of a staggering 60.000!] of WA’s ocean floor between Eucla and Kalbarri
- biodiversity assessments
- analysis of the impact human use has on the marine envrionment

to provide base line data for informed decisions on sustainable Natural Resource Management.

For us it was exciting to listen to the animated presenter and gawk at the latest technology of towed video surveys above the ocean floor in action. Keep yourself informed about this awe-inspiring venture by checking out its website: http://www.marinefutures.com.au/.

Monitor Fish Habitats at the Houtman Abrolhos Islands

One of the attractive aspects of this Symposium was the participation of so many young scientists engaged in practical research with beneficial outcomes for the more informed and therefore [we hope] better management of our unique biodiversity. Using baited stereo-video systems [stereo BRUVs] to examine the different effects of fishing and protection on coral reef fishes at the above habitats, D.L. Watson and her team collected data which will enhance understanding of the diversity and structure of reef fish assemblages and assist sustainable management. It was a pleasure for us to watch this utilisation of modern technology with such tangible outcomes.

Movements and Habitats of Australian Sea Lions along WA’s Coast

Richard Campbell and his team [Dept of Fisheries] have used satellite geolocation instruments and time-depth recorders to map the astonishingly varied and wide-ranging movements and foraging behaviour of WA’s sea lions from four remaining breeding colonies. It is scary to realise that there are only 800 of this rare species left. This project has given us insights into until now unknown behaviour patterns and will assist in attempts to save the threatened colonies. One heartening immediate outcome is the mandatory modification of rock lobster fishery pots to prevent the drowning of young sea lions captured in them – a simple bolt attached to the bottom of the pots!

Fish Faunas of South Coast Estuaries

Ben Chuwen and his colleagues from Murdoch University are looking at the fish populations in six south coast estuaries ranging from the Broke to Stokes inlets. These areas are popular fishing spots for both commercial and recreational fishermen. The effects of environmental changes in the estuaries and their catchments have been noticed in recent years and there have been significant fish kills – increased salinity is thought to be the cause. The project aims to understand the environmental variables that influence the success of different fish species.

Beach Health Program

Karen Wheeler from the Department of Water spoke about the project to identify contaminants in stormwater that is discharged to recreational ocean beaches in the Perth region. Some specific sites of concern were identified, including high microbial counts from one of the Cottesloe drains..

[Text by Sue and Frauke, photo taken by Rob]