Insect BioBlitz at Westgate Park
The BioBlitz at Westgate Park will be held on Monday 2 March, 10.30-12pm.
This week-long bioblitz in the City of Melbourne starts at Westgate Park. We will meet at the main carpark on Todd Road, Port Melbourne.
Mars Reid (Westgate Biodiversity: Bili Nursery & Landcare) and Dr Julian Brown (Melbourne University Ecologist) will take us on a guided walk to discover invertebrates and learn about plants in Westgate Park and common pollinator-plant interactions you might see, and where and how to look for these.
Register to join here.
Some examples of insects found in Westgate Park:
Xerochrysum palustre – the people’s choice
Westgate Biodiversity: Bili Nursery & Landcare are delighted to have Xerochrysum palustre – Swamp Everlasting – as our floral emblem for the City of Melbourne.
There are thought to be only 20 populations of Xerochrysum palustre left in Victoria. You can easily assist in conserving this critically endangered plant by growing it in your own garden, backyard or balcony.
See below to pre-order Xerochrysum palustre – Swamp Everlasting or any of the beautiful plants in the contest for the floral emblem of the City of Melbourne. Bili Nursery will let you know as soon as they are available.
Pre-ordering for Floral emblem plants
Swamp everlasting
Common billy buttons
Chocolate lily
Purple coral pea
Yam daisy, murrnong
Tall bluebell
Kangaroo grass
Rounded noon-flower
Austral storksbill
Next microbat survey 21 Feb -10pm to midnight
Here’s the report on our 17 January survey. Conditions : temp 26C, Wind slight SE 20km/ph 44% R humidity, Clear skies. Moon phase: full (not applicable).
Welcome to newbies: Robert Schiller, Tegan Gross Lovely Bat regulars : Rhonnie, Baida, Ricki, Esther, Bruce, and nice to see Caroline again. Sorely missed ☹ Jen & Pete.
Summer is such a difficult time for us to monitor the bat boxes in daylight and then wait until sunset and beyond until the bats are feeding by night in order for us to record their calls on the echo meters. We decided to just monitor the boxes this time and have a discussion afterwards about next steps in the programme.
It was a beautiful clear warm summer afternoon and the swans are nesting on the lake again, the pelicans have also returned. We found single bats in boxes 16 & 14 both double chambered, box 1 (3 chambered) box 8 and 10 (double chambered) The bat in box 1 looked a bit different to the usual Goulds Wattled bats we usually see- more fur – bigger ears?? Hard to tell!
Plenty of marbled geckos co habiting in many boxes – it’s great to have full-time cleaners keeping the spiders (and webs away 19/13/3/) although we did need the housekeeping duster on a few occasions!
It was so warm that we felt very thirsty so stopped off at The North Port for a long cool drink and something to eat!
Discussions were what do we know (summary)
- Bat numbers in boxes are increasing with more bats in boxes seen in 2025 than 2024. (will drill down on this as we have more access to more boxes since removing covers.
- Multiple bats seen roosting together for the first time– mostly during cold month ( May 2025 had 5 bats in no 13 – North facing)
- Bats move around a lot – they don’t stay long in 1 place (maybe due to temp/parasites/predators/disturbance?)
- So far we have seen Goulds Wattled bats or poss Chocolate Wattled bats use our boxes.
(both design types)
- Goulds wattled bats are not that fussy!
What we don’t know (lots)
- Are other bat species feeding in Westgate Park – (have 1 faint recording of a Lt forest bat and poss Myotis/long eared picked up by Marie when she visited us)
- Why are some nights busy with bats and others not? Too early/too bright/ too many gulls/other?
- Why are only Goulds Wattled bats using boxes? Is the design too big for smaller bat species?
Something else?
- Bats are sharing boxes in colder months – temp check? Add more south facing boxes?
- Do we just need to monitor for longer and just be patient?
What do we need to do next… Box 7 needs to be taken down and repaired and box 17 needs to be put back up the tree where it fell. Box 15 now has a wasp nest in it – leave until winter and remove it!/?
There are still bottom chambers that require removing for monitoring so that we can check if bats are using them (4 , 5 & 2 on the hill and 1 isolated box near the Melbourne water works.)
I attended a microbat echo monitoring event in January hosted by Friends of Nature Watch in Beaumaris and many Little Forest bats appeared after 9:15 (along with a few Goulds Wattled) I learnt that some microbats such as Free-tailed bats do not appear until much later in the night.
We decided we need to monitor for echolocation later in the park next time to see if there are more bats or different bat species visiting. We also need a static echo meter that we can leave overnight and check for different bats at different times throughout the night. Looking into borrowing or renting one first over summer.
Other talk about putting up additional bat boxes away from where the new DATA CENTRE location will be; so that when construction starts with noise and lights the bats will have other spaces to go.
We should also check that minimum lumen lights with sensors are considered in the design stage if we possibly can. P Owl could also lose the park habitat if this is not considered.
Minimise lights for construction stage as well.
Can we utilise Data Centre walls for microbat box habitat? (they like warm places !)
We’ll also be researching or prototyping other types of “boxes’ that may be more desirable to other bat species… little forest bats, long eared bats etc once all-night echo location results are in.
If anyone has experience in this area please reach out.
Linda
2 Feb bird survey
Lack of rain during the last two months or so is desiccating the park, and dieback of understory vegetation is common. Nevertheless, in these harsh dry conditions bird diversity remains high, although numbers are down for some species, most notably honeyeaters especially the White-plumed and New Holland Honeyeaters.
Evaporation from the saltwater lake has exposed mudflats, which are attracting Pied Stilts and Black-fronted Dotterels.
5 Jan bird survey
The number of bird species recorded today was high with a good tally of 52 species, but aside from Brown Quail they are all species regularly found in Westgate Park. In stark contrast almost every species under Opportunistic Sightings are rare or infrequent visitors to the park, adding another 13 species to the total tally. The most significant was a Tawny Frogmouth, not previously recorded here plus some very occasional visitors such as a Grey Shrike-thrush, Yellow-tailed Black-Cockatoo, Tree Martin and of course the continuing presence of a male Powerful Owl.
Whilst the number of Fairy-wrens was lower than usual, along with Scrub-wrens and Silver Gulls, today’s survey was very encouraging with plenty of breeding activity by water birds. Black-fronted Dotterels have returned to the saltwater lake.
Small patches of algae are forming in parts of the freshwater lake, but overall the water quality appears to be good, as it is supporting good numbers of Hoary-headed Grebes and cormorants. Furthermore, evidence that the lake and other freshwater bodies are in good condition is the high number of dragonflies and damselflies present in the park over the last few weeks – see photos of some of them on the last page. They no doubt are a good food source for many birds.
City of Melbourne managing Westgate Park
On 1 January 2026, the management of this substantial inner urban park of 36 hectares was transferred to the City of Melbourne.
We saw the benefits of this move a decade ago. Now, four years after Council agreed, the transition has begun!
Big thanks to the then Lord Mayor, Sally Capp for her determination and especially the advocacy of Lecki Ord, Janet Bolitho, George Fotheringham, the late Tony Flude and so many others in the Westgate Biodiversity team.
We are proud of our 30-year history of volunteers turning this land into the biodiverse gem that is today. We now look forward to working with the City of Melbourne, drawing on their expertise in urban ecology, open space and water management, their interest in citizen science, their capacity to substantially improve park facilities and to bring more people to this part of Melbourne.
Westgate Park sits in the City of Melbourne with commanding views of the city, the 1km long bank of the Birrarung River’s edge, the wetlands, the saltmarsh and the rich indigenous bushland ecosystem that has emerged.
We look forward to constructive relationships with Fishermans Bend and the many businesses that surround the Park.
At last Bili Nursery and Bili Landcare will be together in a purpose-built but modest compound near the Westgate Bridge in the Wharf Road Triangle, early in 2026. This will allow significant expansion of Bili Nursery’s capacity to serve councils and the broader community with indigenous plants, including those that are rare – a crucially important step in supporting biodiversity.
We are keen to conduct more citizen science and to share the discoveries of fauna and fungi that settle in or pass through the Park
So far 177 bird species were recorded in monthly surveys spanning over 20 years. Underground fungal networks have formed with more than 80 species, many of them mycorrhizal. Reptiles, native rats, possums, yabbies, turtles, frogs and widely diverse insects are present, thanks to the food and protection that comes with indigenous vegetation. See some examples below.
We are grateful to Parks Victoria which, for many years, trusted us to care for the Park and supported our efforts.
Sincere thanks to the Victorian Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action whose funds were set aside in 2015 by Minister for Water, Lisa Neville.
We guarantee they will at last be put to good use!
A snapshop of fauna and fungi observed at Westgate Park
Westgate Biodiversity wishes you a happy Christmas
Bili Nursery will be open during Summer Monday to Friday, other than the prescribed public holidays.
Microbat survey report, Sat 15 Nov
At last a warm day in Melbourne! Still was good to see some rain throughout the week, and the frogs and mole crickets were in full song. Many of us feeling a little tired after the AGM but buoyed by the fantastic talk by Russell Lark – Head Gardener of the Melbourne Arts Precinct Corporation Laak Boorndap 1800m2 urban garden!
The evening was calm, quiet and humid. Along the way we also did some quick-fix weeding and rubbish collection – a lovely leisurely stroll. With our core group of 7 human monitors and a Bat-Cat “Cookie” (on lead) we set off and straight away found 2 out of 2 bats in the first 2 boxes.
As we are close to bat pupping season we decided to just do a quick check with the red light torch and take a note which bat species we found. We also decided it would be a good idea to check the pardalote bird boxes to see if they were being occupied.
All Goulds Wattled bats 16/45/43/10/11, both types of boxes occupied.
The 2 pardalote boxes we checked near Todd Rd entrance were empty, surprisingly it looked as if bat droppings may be evident. Disappointingly, at sunset and until 9:30 the echometers hardly registered bat calls. There were quite a few construction lights towards Lorimer St with circling silver gulls overhead – probably attracted to the moths. Are the lights/gulls keeping them away? We could see so many insects circling above our heads, there really was no lack of food!
I checked the recordings – one at 9:14 47 Mhz Little Forest bat? Another 2 at 9:27 28 Mhz flat hockey stick – Goulds Wattled Bat.
We were disappointed not to find many bats flying around in the calm night. We really need to borrow a passive in-situ echo recorder to monitor the late night skies when we can’t. If anyone knows where we can borrow one to set up over the next 3 months could you please let me know?
Many thanks all, Linda.
Conditions: Cloudy, 17 degrees C, Wind from South, Force 3, 13km/hour reducing to calm. Sunset 8:09pm 22% moon waning. High humidity 76%.
1 Dec bird survey
Although unseasonal weather suppressed bird activity during this survey, leading to a lower than usual species count, there were some interesting observations. The number of Welcome Swallows is significantly higher than all recent surveys since February 2024 with an estimated 80 counted. Moreover, half the male Superb Fairy-wrens counted were blue, most of which would be young males supporting a family group. This indicates favorable habitat conditions no doubt due to abundant food such as insects and other invertebrates. These young males rapidly revert to brown ‘eclipse’ plumage when conditions become harder with less food available.
Water levels in both main lakes are very high. From observations on the large freshwater lake both grebe species have indicated breeding intentions but cannot find anywhere suitable for nesting due to the rising water level covering almost all the protruding grass stumps and other semi submerged vegetation. The images below nicely capture the grebes and their behavior in response to these conditions.
The male Powerful Owl, first seen in the June survey and last seen on 21 November appears to be continuing its presence in the park. It is reassuring to have an image of a Common Ringtail Possum with two young in a drey, indicating that Westgate Park’s possum population is breeding thus providing a reliable supply of food for the Powerful Owl.
Clearing the HWT site next door has encouraged an increased number of Noisy Miners to move in, but they remain confined to the park’s boundary with that site. The planned data centre however, reportedly proposed to be eight stories high, could be detrimental for bird activity in the north-east corner of the park. Currently the site usually hosts a big population of Silver Gulls.
10 Nov bird survey
Today’s survey took place in poor weather although the rain held off. However, general rains and accidental flows over the last six weeks have filled both major water bodies. The greater depth discourages several water bird species and there are few mudflats for waders such as dotterels. These are the main factors responsible for the somewhat smaller bird tally than usual. However, frogs are back in numbers.
On the other hand, thanks especially to Ursula’s observational skills, the number of additional sightings is as encouraging as ever. A highlight is the appearance of a White-browed Wood Swallow, a first for the Park, and a recent visit by a Barn Owl.