Guided tour of rare bushland

A guided tour of rare bushland at the Umina campus of Brisbane Water Secondary College will be held at an open day, which will run between 10:30am and 1:30pm on Saturday, June 15.

The open day will provide information about rare bushland and an endangered bird nesting at the school.

Experts will describe the features and threats to the survival of the bushland, known as Umina Coastal Sandplain Woodland, and to the nesting pair of Bush Stone-curlew birds.

Staff from the National Parks and Wildlife Service, which is responsible for the management of threatened species, and from the Rumbalara Environmental Education Centre in Gosford, which has conducted educational activities in the bushland, will also attend.

Brisbane Water Secondary College Umina campus P and C president Mr Bruce Graf said talks would be given by ecologist Mr Robert Payne who would speak about his research into Umina Coastal Sandplain Woodland and by Dr Catherine Price who would speak about the Bush Stone-curlew, the subject of her PhD thesis.

The open day is part of a project conducted by the college parents' and citizens' association, which is supported by the Hunter-Central Rivers Catchment Management Authority.

The project has also included protective fencing for a Bush Stone-curlew nesting site and signs describing the birds and the bushland at the campus.

Less than 15 hectares remain of the bushland, listed officially as an Endangered Ecological Community, which once covered the Woy Woy sandplain.

A population of fewer than 20 Bush Stone-curlews remains on the Central Coast, with just one breeding pair nesting at Umina campus and others nesting at Davistown and St Hubert's Island.

Media Release, 29 May 2013

Bruce Graf, Brisbane Water Secondary College Umina campus P and C