Ocean Grove Nature Reserve
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The Ocean Grove Nature Reserve is a rectangular, 1.43 km2
nature reserve A nature reserve (also known as a wildlife refuge, wildlife sanctuary, biosphere reserve or bioreserve, natural or nature preserve, or nature conservation area) is a protected area of importance for flora, fauna, funga, or features of geologic ...
next to the town of Ocean Grove and 25 km south-east of the city of
Geelong Geelong ( ) (Wathawurrung language, Wathawurrung: ''Djilang''/''Djalang'') is a port city in Victoria, Australia, located at the eastern end of Corio Bay (the smaller western portion of Port Phillip Bay) and the left bank of Barwon River (Victo ...
, on the
Bellarine Peninsula The Bellarine Peninsula (Wadawurrung language, Wadawurrung: ''Balla-wein'' or ''Biteyong'') is a peninsula located south-west of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia, surrounded by Port Phillip, Corio Bay and Bass Strait. The peninsula, together wi ...
,
Victoria, Australia Victoria, commonly abbreviated as Vic, is a state in southeastern Australia. It is the second-smallest state (after Tasmania), with a land area of ; the second-most-populated state (after New South Wales), with a population of over 7 million; ...
. It contains the only significant remnant of native
woodland A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with woody plants (trees and shrubs), or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the '' plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunli ...
on the Bellarine Peninsula as it was prior to European settlement and the extensive
land clearing Deforestation or forest clearance is the removal and destruction of a forest or stand of trees from land that is then converted to non-forest use. Deforestation can involve conversion of forest land to farms, ranches, or urban use. About ...
that ensued. It is surrounded by agricultural land and a housing estate and is managed by
Parks Victoria Parks Victoria is a government agency of the state of Victoria, Australia. Parks Victoria was established in December 1996 as a statutory authority, reporting to the Victorian Minister for Environment. The ''Parks Victoria Act 2018'' updates ...
. Records of its birdlife illustrate the changes occurring in an isolated woodland remnant.


History

The origins of the reserve go back to the formation of a committee in 1962, at the instigation of the
Geelong Field Naturalists Club The Geelong Field Naturalists Club (GFNC) is an Australian regional amateur scientific natural history and conservation society which was originally founded in the 1890s and re-established in 1961 in its present form. It is based in Geelong, V ...
and its President, Jack Wheeler. The aim was to launch an appeal for funds to acquire an uncleared block of privately owned
bushland In Australia, bushland is a blanket term for land which supports remnant natural area, remnant vegetation or land which is disturbed but still retains a predominance of the original floristics and structure. Human survival in bushland has a wh ...
to protect it from development, with the funds raised enabling the purchase of an initial 81 ha. The reserve was opened to the public in 1971. In 1973 an adjacent 62 ha of partly cleared land, now the eastern section of the reserve, was purchased.Hart ''et al''. (2005). Since the reserve was established, management actions have included the construction of a central
wetland A wetland is a distinct semi-aquatic ecosystem whose groundcovers are flooded or saturated in water, either permanently, for years or decades, or only seasonally. Flooding results in oxygen-poor ( anoxic) processes taking place, especially ...
and walking tracks, as well as
bird hide A bird hide (blind or bird blind in North America) is a shelter, often camouflaged, that is used to observe wildlife, especially birds, at close quarters. Although hides or hunting blinds were once built chiefly as hunting aids, they are now comm ...
s, an information centre, carpark and picnic ground. The woodland has become denser. There has been damage both from deliberately lit
fires Fire is the rapid oxidation of a fuel in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction products. Flames, the most visible portion of the fire, are produced in the combustion reaction when the fuel ...
and from the construction of
breaks Break or Breaks or The Break may refer to: Time off from duties * Recess (break), time in which a group of people is temporarily dismissed from its duties * Break (work), time off during a shift/recess ** Coffee break, a short mid-morning rest ...
for
fire control Fire control is the practice of reducing the heat output of a fire, reducing the area over which the fire exists, or suppressing or extinguishing the fire by depriving it of fuel, oxygen, or heat (see fire triangle). Fire prevention and control ...
. A period of drought in 2000–2003 killed many eucalypts, following which
flowering Flowers, also known as blooms and blossoms, are the reproductive structures of flowering plants ( angiosperms). Typically, they are structured in four circular levels, called whorls, around the end of a stalk. These whorls include: calyx, m ...
has been less prolific and large concentrations of
honeyeater The honeyeaters are a large and diverse family, Meliphagidae, of small to medium-sized birds. The family includes the Australian chats, myzomelas, friarbirds, wattlebirds, miners and melidectes. They are most common in Australia and New Gui ...
s have decreased.


Flora and fauna


Flora

Vegetation communities present include areas of
eucalypt Eucalypt is any woody plant with Capsule (fruit), capsule fruiting bodies belonging to one of seven closely related genera (of the tribe Eucalypteae) found across Australia: ''Eucalyptus'', ''Corymbia'', ''Angophora'', ''Stockwellia'', ''Allosyn ...
woodland with Austral grasstrees, coastal manna gums, drooping sheoaks, and the endangered Bellarine form of yellow gum. black sheoaks,
black wattle Black wattle is the common name for a number of species of trees that are native to Australia, as listed below: *''Acacia aulacocarpa'' *''Acacia auriculiformis'', also known as Darwin Black Wattle or northern black wattle; *''Acacia concurrens ...
s,
golden wattle ''Acacia pycnantha'', most commonly known as the golden wattle, is a tree of the family Fabaceae. It grows to a height of and has phyllodes (flattened leaf stalks) instead of true leaves. The profuse fragrant, golden flowers appear in late ...
s, prickly hedge wattles, coast tea-trees and silver banksias are scattered through the reserve. In a plant list of 178 species, some 22 kinds of
orchid Orchids are plants that belong to the family Orchidaceae (), a diverse and widespread group of flowering plants with blooms that are often colourful and fragrant. Orchids are cosmopolitan plants that are found in almost every habitat on Eart ...
have been recorded.Parks Victoria: Ocean Grove Nature Reserve


Fauna

Terrestrial mammals recorded from the reserve include red-necked wallabies,
swamp wallabies The swamp wallaby (''Wallabia bicolor'') is a small macropod marsupial of eastern Australia. This wallaby is also commonly known as the black wallaby, with other names including black-tailed wallaby, fern wallaby, black pademelon, stinker (in Que ...
and
short-beaked echidna The short-beaked echidna (''Tachyglossus aculeatus''), also called the short-nosed echidna, is one of four living species of echidna, and the only member of the genus ''Tachyglossus'', from Ancient Greek (), meaning "fast", and (), meaning ...
s. Common ringtail and
brushtail possums The brushtail possums are the members of the genus ''Trichosurus'' in the Phalangeridae, a family of marsupials. They are native to Australia (including Tasmania) and some small nearby islands. Unique among marsupials, they have shifted the hypax ...
s, as well as a variety of
bats Bats are flying mammals of the order Chiroptera (). With their forelimbs adapted as wings, they are the only mammals capable of true and sustained flight. Bats are more agile in flight than most birds, flying with their very long spread-out ...
, are active at night.
Koala The koala (''Phascolarctos cinereus''), sometimes inaccurately called the koala bear, is an arboreal herbivorous marsupial native to Australia. It is the only Extant taxon, extant representative of the Family (biology), family ''Phascolar ...
s are sometimes seen. Reptiles present are lowland copperheads and several lizards, including
blue-tongued skink Blue-tongued skinks comprise the Australasian genus ''Tiliqua'', which contains some of the largest members of the skink family (biology), family (Scincidae). They are commonly called blue-tongued lizards or simply blue-tongues or blueys in Aust ...
s and
jacky dragon The jacky dragon (''Amphibolurus muricatus'') is a type of lizard native to south-eastern Australia. Other common names include blood-sucker, stonewalker, and tree dragon. It was one of the first Australian reptiles to be named by Europeans, or ...
s. A notable invertebrate formerly present was the endangered lycaenid butterfly, the small ant-blue; it is believed to be extinct in the reserve as a result of habitat disturbance. Marine mammals,
cetacean Cetacea (; , ) is an infraorder of aquatic mammals belonging to the order Artiodactyla that includes whales, dolphins and porpoises. Key characteristics are their fully aquatic lifestyle, streamlined body shape, often large size and exclusively c ...
s and
pinniped Pinnipeds (pronounced ), commonly known as seals, are a widely range (biology), distributed and diverse clade of carnivorous, fin-footed, semiaquatic, mostly marine mammals. They comprise the extant taxon, extant families Odobenidae (whose onl ...
s, occur off the nearby coastline. Rare
southern right whale The southern right whale (''Eubalaena australis'') is a baleen whale, one of three species classified as right whales belonging to the genus ''Eubalaena''. Southern right whales inhabit oceans south of the Equator, between the latitudes of 20Â ...
s and endemic
Burrunan dolphin The Burrunan dolphin (''Tursiops australis'') is a proposed species of bottlenose dolphin found in parts of Victoria, Australia first described in 2011. Its exact taxonomy is debated: numerous studies support it as being a separate species within ...
s, and southern humpback whalesFowles S., 201
Spectators have a whale of a time
Apollo's View Accommodation. Retrieved 2 June 2014
and
killer whale The orca (''Orcinus orca''), or killer whale, is a toothed whale and the largest member of the oceanic dolphin family. The only extant species in the genus '' Orcinus'', it is recognizable by its black-and-white-patterned body. A cosmopolit ...
s migrate the area, and
Australian sea lion The Australian sea lion (''Neophoca cinerea''), also known as the Australian sea-lion or Australian sealion, is a species of sea lion that is the only endemic pinniped in Australia. It is currently Monotypic taxon, monotypic in the genus ''Neopho ...
s and
Australian fur seal The brown fur seal (''Arctocephalus pusillus''), also known as the Cape fur seal, and Afro-Australian fur seal, is a species of fur seal. Description The brown fur seal is the largest and most robust member of the fur seals. It has a large an ...
s may be found resting on beaches.


Birds

The reserve has been popular with
birdwatchers Birdwatching, or birding, is the observing of birds, either as a recreational activity or as a form of citizen science. A birdwatcher may observe by using their naked eye, by using a visual enhancement device such as binoculars or a telescop ...
since its inception. An article in the ''Geelong Bird Report'' for 2004 analysed records of birds in the reserve from 1970 to 2005. It contains an annotated list of 167 species, with 57 of them confirmed as having bred there. Birds that used to occur in the reserve but have become extinct, not only there but throughout the Bellarine Peninsula, are the
bush stone-curlew The bush stone-curlew or bush thick-knee (''Burhinus grallarius'', obsolete name ''Burhinus magnirostris'') is a large, ground-dwelling bird Endemism, endemic to Australia. Its favoured habitat is open plains and woodlands, where it stalks slowly ...
and
grey-crowned babbler The grey-crowned babbler (''Pomatostomus temporalis'') is a species of bird in the family Pomatostomidae. They are found in Australia and New Guinea (Indonesia and Papua New Guinea). Its habitats include Tropical and subtropical dry broadleaf fo ...
. Other birds that have declined or disappeared over the 35-year period studied include
white-throated treecreeper The white-throated treecreeper (''Cormobates leucophaea'') is an Australian treecreeper found in the forests of eastern Australia. It is also called Dilmun in the Gathang language of the Worimi people, who reside in eastern Port Stephens and Grea ...
s, buff-rumped thornbills, scarlet robins, varied sittellas and restless flycatchers, all species of woodland habitats. Birds that have become established in and around the reserve, or increased in numbers over the period, include collared sparrowhawks, little corellas, red-rumped parrots, noisy miners, the introduced species, introduced spotted doves, European greenfinches and common mynas, as well as, with the construction of the reserve's wetland and other nearby waterpoints, various waterbirds. The authors of the report comment:
The woodland in the reserve has been isolated for many decades, and yet some bird declines and extinctions have occurred only in the last ten or fifteen years. Bird numbers can clearly fall insidiously, reaching a crisis point many years after the most obvious alterations in the landscape from clearing and settlement. The final crashes may seem abrupt, but their foundations could have been laid long ago. Birds may survive and breed in sub-optimal habitats in the short term, but some populations may eventually become unsustainable, perhaps because of low numbers overall, restrictions on natural movements, or a decrease in breeding success. Birds in woodlands isolated by clearing are particularly susceptible to prolonged dry periods. In very isolated woodland remnants, populations lost to extinction are unlikely to be replenished from outside.
However, the reserve is still important as a stopover in the local and migratory movements of some birds, including the subspecies of striated pardalote, grey fantail and silvereye that breed in Tasmania. Other birds that pass through the reserve, or visit it seasonally, are rufous fantails, flame robins, yellow-faced honeyeater, yellow-faced and white-naped honeyeaters, and mistletoebirds. The authors of the report conclude:
... as an ‘island’ of original Bellarine Peninsula woodland, the reserve still has great value, not just for birds, but as a living example of a threatened natural community, also encompassing plants, mammals and invertebrates. Since its proclamation, it has always played a valuable role in fostering community awareness and education about the natural environment. It remains a monument to the efforts of its founders and of those volunteers who have continued their work.


References

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External links


Friends of Ocean Grove Nature Reserve
Bellarine Peninsula Nature reserves in Victoria (state) Protected areas established in 1971 1971 establishments in Australia