Wedderburn and the surrounding area is an amazing place for getting out in the bush and exploring the flora and fauna in the area.
Wedderburn has a Facebook group that people can join and post photographs of the flora and fauna seen within a 30km radius of the town. You don't have to live in Wedderburn to join and contributions are very welcome. Why not visit and join the Wedderburn Flora and Fauna Group?
Then there are the kangaroos, wallabies, echidnas and other native animals that inhabit our bushland in the area.
There are a large number of bird species in an around Wedderburn. With the large amount of Box/Ironbark Forest and Mallee scrub vegetation, the area is a twitcher's paradise. You will see many birds all around the place but some favourite places would be:-
- Wychitella Forest area - link to map click here
- Mt Korong - link to map click here
- Kooyoora State Park - Parks Victoria has information on this area that you can access by at this link.
- State forest around Wedderburn. The town is surrounded by bush. You won't have to go far to see some flora and fauna. We are currently working on some maps to provide people, but Google is always a good starting point. This is a link to the Google map for the area.
There are a couple of useful apps you can get for your phone as well that can help you identify birds.
Pizzey and Knight Birds of Australia Digital Edition
This is available for phone and tablet from these links - iphone and android. It is an excellent app for identifying birds and includes recordings of bird calls. This will cost you $49.99 currently but is a one off purchase. This is the app the author uses and is rated at 4.9 overall on the iphone app store.
Morcombe’s Birds of Australia
Another well known app and cheaper than Pizzey and Knights. It is available from these links - iphone and android. Rated at 3.9 in the iphone app store. Again, this app is available for phones and tablets.
Flora
Springtime provides a feast of wildflowers including many native orchids if you walk gently and quietly through the bush with your eyes peeled. Of course there is a huge variety of eucalypts including box, ironbark and mallee.
For assistance in identifying various plants, one of the best sites is Victorian Flora. It has a huge range of species, locations and photographs and is well worth a visit. Suggest you bookmark it as a reference point.
Another useful method is to upload a photo of the plant to Google images. Google can often suggest the name of the plant or at least show images of plants similar to the one you've uploaded.
Birds
There are many useful sites for "twitchers" or "birders" to help with the identification of birds.
Ebird, although an international site, has very useful information. If you go to Ebird Hotspots and put Wedderburn, Vic in the location, you can see various locations around Wedderburn where birds have been sighted and their names.
Flora, Fauna and Birds
A great site for all things nautre is iNaturalist. It's free to join and you can record your sightings. For Wedderburn, if you go to the Observations link, it will show you what has been seen here. Of course, not everyone is a member of this site and not all sightings are recorded.
Summary
So now you have lots of information to let you get out and enjoy the bush around Wedderburn. If you have any questions, just pop into the Facebook page and ask. One of our friendly members will be sure to offer assistance.