Wurrak and Burukil time

Banksia and parrot time

Mid-March-April – the bush responds as the first autumn rains rehydrate the often dry landscape. 

wurrak (Tree Banksia) flowers are soaked in water to extract the nectar and make a sweet drink. This is also a good time to collect sap from wararak (Silver Wattle) and Black Wattle, which can be eaten or mixed with ash to be used as glue for tool-making. gurndi (Cranberry Heath) berries ripen and are ready to eat.  

At Liang-a-nhuk (Mount Alexander) mosses spring to life with the first autumn rains, while fungi send up fruiting bodies on animal dung, through  leaf litter and on logs. Flowering Yellow Gums in the Muckleford Nature Conservation Reserve attract Swift Parrots, honey-eaters and lorikeets. 

• Some Orchids flower – including Parsons Bands, Autumn Greenhood, Striped Greenhood

• Spreading Wattle flowers

• Brushtail Possums breed

• Mosses spring to life with first autumn rains 

• Fungi respond to rain and send up fruiting bodies on animal dung, through leaf litter,  and on logs 

• Swift Parrots arrive from Tasmania and join many other honey-eater and lorikeet species feeding on flowering eucalypts such as Yellow Gum, Yehrip (Red Ironbark), and Grey Box 

• Bibron’s Toadlets can be heard in wet gullies

• Eastern Spinebills arrive from cooler habitats to the south and feed on nectar-rich flowers

• Flame Robins and Golden Whistlers arrive from cooler habitats

• Female Common Brown Butterflies become active after summer aestivation

• Grey Currawongs arrive and are signalled by their noisy call

• Rain Moths emerge from underground larvae and scatter eggs from the air around eucalypt trees.