All we need is a Zebra crossing

Sunday’s biolink building crew

National Tree Day on 26 July this year was a momentous day for Terry the Tractor and Friends. As previously reported, for the last 8 months, Strath Creek Landcare Group has been fencing off and replanting the riparian zone bordering the King Parrot Creek on Jeanette Williams’s property so as to exclude livestock from the creek. Protecting the King Parrot Creek in this way has been a major focus of the group for decades.

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What was special about the work last Sunday was that the 850 trees and shrubs planted formed the link between the established wildlife corridor along the King Parrot Creek and an established wildlife corridor that runs through the Three Sisters (home of Terry the Tractor), extending almost to the Mount Disappointment State Forest. Once the plants have become established, animals will be able to travel up and down the King Parrot Creek along these wildlife corridors to visit relatives (and hopefully future partners) in the higher grounds of Mount Disappointment and vice versa.

Site of zebra crossing???

The nagging question in my mind is how this faunal traffic will cross the Flowerdale–Broadford Road. Birds can obviously fly across. Animals, if they are clever enough, can use the two large culverts under the road when there is no water flowing through them. But what about in winter? We’ll probably need to consider installing a Zebra crossing.

Thank you to Jeanette, who set aside land for the new trees and shrubs and cooked up home-chicory-smoked-gourmet

Terry – out standing in his field

sausages for lunch. Thanks also to all who turned up on a chilly but dry (at least until lunch time) planting day and to those who have put time and energy into the fencing over the last 8 months. Thanks to the Goulburn Broken CMA for supporting the work. And last, thanks to Terry (without Tractor on Sunday) for spurring us on. Terry deserves a Nobel Prize, for as the picture shows, he is out standing in his field. Well, Jeanette’s field.