A model for change
For Kelly Price, Tarcutta Hills Reserve Manager, healthy Country is something you can hear and see. “When you drive into the reserve suddenly everything comes to life,”
At Tarcutta Hills we’re nursing back to health Tarcutta’s precious Grassy White Box Woodlands, which were once part of a network covering some 10 million hectares.
Dramatic changes to the landscape have taken a heavy toll on these woodlands, and experts believe they’re now one of the most highly fragmented and poorly protected ecosystems in Australia.
They’ve been particularly hard hit in the Tarcutta region, putting many bird species that depend on them at risk of local extinction.
Over 100 bird species still feed and forage at Tarcutta, some of them among NSW’s most vulnerable. They include Varied Sittellas, Brown Treecreepers, Superb Parrots, Speckled Warblers, Black-chinned Honeyeaters, Hooded Robins and Diamond Firetails.
If we’re lucky, winter sees the arrival of Swift Parrots as they move up and down south-eastern Australia and across to Tasmania.
These birds are nationally listed as Critically Endangered – there are thought to be just 1,000 breeding pairs left.
All this is protected thanks to our generous supporters.
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Speckled warbler. Photo Wayne Lawler/EcoPix.
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Bush Heritage ecologist Dr Matt Appleby inspects trees at Tarcutta Hills. Photo Annette Ruzicka.
Tarcutta Hills Reserve protects
Animals: Squirrel Glider, Yellow-footed Antechinus, Tree Skink, Spotted Grass Frog, Swift Parrot (nationally Critically Endangered), Gang-Gang Cockatoo (nationally Endangered).
Plants: White Cypress Pine, Small-leaf Bush Pea, Many-flowered Mat-rush, Kurrajong.
Vegetation communities: Mugga Ironbark Scribbly Gum open forest, Grassy White Box woodland and forest (nationally critically endangered), Red Stringybark open forest.
What we’re doing
By protecting and increasing the area of Grassy White Box Woodlands at Tarcutta, we’re playing a small but important part in Australia’s Swift Parrot Recovery Plan, an initiative to increase the amount of habitat available to this nationally endangered bird.
This work also contributes to bolstering what remains of Australia’s Grassy White Box Woodlands, a critically endangered ecological community.
Our podcast, Big Sky Country, featured the following episode explaining our work reintroducing cultural burns to the landscape at Tarcutta Hills.
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Yellow-tufted Honeyeater. Photo by Kelly Dixon.
Birds of a feather flock together
An important part of the Reserve Ecologist’s work is keeping a close eye on the changing face of local bird populations.
In drier times we see a lot of flowering eucalypts, which attract nectivorous birds such as the Little Lorikeet, Yellow-tufted Honeyeater and Red Wattle Bird.
Wetter weather means fewer flowering trees but more growth in the tree tops, and more leaf litter on the ground. This leads to an increase in crown-feeders, such as the Striated Thornbill and Olive-backed Oriole, and ground-foragers such as the Speckled Warbler and Buff-rumped Thornbill.
Expansion
In late 2020 a 288 hectare parcel of neighbouring land was purchased, extending the reserve to 738 hectares in total.
The new block features a rare, large and healthy example of a critically endangered ecological community called ‘White Box-Yellow Box-Blakely’s Red Gum Grassy Woodlands and Grasslands’, which provides habitat for woodland birds such as Swift Parrots, Diamond Firetails and several species of robin.
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Squirrel Glider at Tarcutta Reserve. Photo by Wayne Lawler/EcoPix.
Tarcutta’s purchase was made possible with funds from the Commonwealth’s National Reserve System Program, as well as our generous supporters.
