Finding Melbourne's Nature

Send us Fan Mail

Neil Blake OAM has spent decades noticing and protecting nature in Melbourne’s urban landscape.

We walk along Darebin Creek in Reservoir, a place Neil knows incredibly well. He’s the Port Phillip Baykeeper, founding director of the Port Phillip EcoCentre and, in his own words, a “Tawny Tragic”.

As we search for Tawny Frogmouths along the creek, Neil shares his journey from growing up beside the Murray River to becoming a St Kilda park ranger and a lifelong advocate for urban waterways and wildlife. We talk about citizen science, Little Penguins, microplastics, Imperial Blue Butterflies, the importance of communication in conservation, and why building relationships can be as important as the science itself. 

Neil has also used music throughout his life to connect people with environmental issues. And at the end of the episode, you’ll hear a song written and performed by Neil beside Darebin Creek, with the creek itself as his backing band. 

Send us Fan Mail

Some of us have a relationship with Mullum Mullum Park without even realising it. If you’ve travelled through the EastLink tunnels, you’ve passed beneath this patch of bushland in Melbourne’s east.

Above the tunnels is a whole world that’s easy to miss. Forests and creek lines are home to an incredible diversity of wildlife, including the threatened Southern Toadlet.

I walk through Mullum Mullum with ecologist and herpetologist David De Angelis, President of Frogs Victoria. We talk about the fight to protect the Mullum Mullum Valley, the decline of Southern Toadlets around Melbourne, chytrid fungus, burrowing crayfish, and the reptiles and frogs that David has spent much of his life studying. Along the way, an unexpected encounter with a Tiger Snake takes the conversation in a slightly different direction.

Send us Fan Mail

Southern Brown Bandicoots were once among the most common and widespread mammals around Melbourne. Today their populations are much more fragmented, making the population at Royal Botanic Gardens Cranbourne especially important.

For this episode, I walk through the gardens with Eilish Roberts, Southern Brown Bandicoot Outreach Officer at Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria.

We talk about what bandicoots need to thrive, why Cranbourne has become such an important stronghold for them, and what it will take for them to persist in Melbourne’s growing suburban landscape. Eilish also explains why bandicoots are such important ecosystem engineers, turning over huge amounts of soil, spreading fungi and seeds, and helping create healthier conditions for plants and other wildlife.

Eilish cares deeply about bandicoots, and her work with communities is helping people understand the importance of this endangered native mammal.

The bandicoots at Cranbourne are a great example of what conservation around Melbourne can look like, and what it will take to keep threatened species as part of our suburbs into the future.

Send us Fan Mail

Gidja Walker OAM has spent more than four decades helping people understand and care for the Mornington Peninsula. An ecologist, ethnobotanist and artist, she has an extraordinary ability to see the connections between geology, plants, animals, water, history and culture.

In this episode, we spend time with Gidja on the southern Nepean Peninsula, exploring the Coastal Moonah Wodlands and Calcareous Swales that make this part of Melbourne so distinctive.

Our conversation moves through ancient Moonah, fungi and orchids, lost fauna, the wildlife living in Gidja’s own garden, and the importance of protecting the remnants of vegetation that have survived around us. Along the way, Gidja reflects on a lifetime spent observing, learning and working to protect the natural world.

Send us Fan Mail

Yellingbo Nature Conservation Area is a fascinating place. Covering around 600 hectares of forest, swamps and winding creek lines in the Yarra Valley, it is home to two critically endangered species: the Helmeted Honeyeater and the lowland population of Leadbeater’s Possum.

In this episode, I join senior ornithologist Bruce Quin on his rounds through Yellingbo, walking between supplementary feeding stations and encountering Helmeted Honeyeaters along the way.

Bruce has spent more than 33 years working with the Helmeted Honeyeater and has become one of the people most closely associated with its recovery. At its lowest points, the wild population fell to just 60 birds. Today, there are around 230 Helmeted Honeyeaters living in the wild across three populations. 

Their story is a remarkable example of what it takes to bring a species back from the brink of extinction. Habitat restoration, supplementary feeding, captive breeding, genetic rescue, monitoring and the work of many organisations and people have all played a part. 

As we walk, Bruce shares some of the extraordinary knowledge he has built over more than three decades with these birds. It’s a story not only about the Helmeted Honeyeater, but about what we can learn from its recovery and how that knowledge can help us care for threatened species into the future.

Finding Melbourne’s Nature is a series of walking conversations through reserves around Melbourne.

Send us Fan Mail

Newport Lakes is one of Melbourne's most remarkable examples of ecological restoration. Once a working bluestone quarry, it has been carefully transformed into lakes and a rich variety of habitats that now support a remarkable diversity of wildlife. It isn't a recreation of the landscape that once existed here, but an example of how a profoundly altered place can become ecologically rich once again.

In this episode of Finding Melbourne's Nature, I walk through the reserve with Dr Dominique Hes, researcher, educator and author of The Stories of Newport Lakes.

Dominique has spent much of her career exploring how people form relationships with places, and how those relationships shape the way we care for them. As we walk, she shares the story of Newport Lakes, the community that fought to protect it, the people who helped shape it, and why understanding the story of a place can change the way we see it.

This is a conversation about restoration, community, and the idea that even landscapes changed by people can become thriving places for both nature and us.

Send us Fan Mail

George Paras has spent more than four decades caring for Gresswell Forest. For more than 36 of those years, he worked as a ranger at La Trobe’s Nangak Tamboree Wildlife Sanctuary, helping restore this forest and the surrounding bushland. Today, he continues to work in ecological restoration and environmental education, and is an incredible source of knowledge when it comes to how these systems actually work.

In this episode, we walk through Gresswell Forest in Melbourne’s north-east, one of the city’s earliest ecological restoration sites. As we go, George shares stories from decades on the ground, from fish moving through Melbourne’s waterways to dormant seed banks, butterflies, sugar gliders and ancient River Red Gums.

More than anything, this is a conversation about relationships. George explains how plants, fungi, insects, birds and mammals are connected in ways we rarely notice, and why understanding those connections is key to restoring healthy landscapes.

Send us Fan Mail

What happens when we make the night brighter?

In this episode of Finding Melbourne's Nature, we head to Uambi Reserve in Heathmont with wildlife ecologist Dr Kaori Yokochi from Deakin University to explore the hidden world of microbats, darkness and urban ecology.

Kaori explains why darkness is just as important to ecosystems as daylight, how artificial light is affecting wildlife across Melbourne, and why something as simple as closing your curtains or changing the lights around your home can make a real difference.

Along the way we talk about microbats, dark corridors, citizen science, growing up in rural Japan, and why cities still have the potential to be incredible places for wildlife.

I loved every minute of this experience. Kaori has an incredible gift for explaining complex ideas with warmth and clarity, and I learnt something every time she spoke.

Recorded on Trust for Nature's beautiful Uambi Reserve in Heathmont.

Send us Fan Mail

This is our most botanical episode yet. Prepare to get a little plant nerdy.

Professor's Hill Reserve, in North Warrandyte within Nillumbik Shire, might only cover five hectares, but it contains one of Melbourne's richest and most significant patches of native bushland.

In this episode, I walk with botanist David Cameron, whose work has shaped the way Victoria understands and protects its native flora. Over five decades, David has surveyed vegetation across the state, helped develop the Victorian Biodiversity Atlas, assessed threatened plant species, and become one of Victoria's leading botanical minds.

As we wander through Professor's Hill, David reveals how botanists read a landscape. From rare orchids and mosses to towering eucalypts, every few steps uncover another clue about how this remarkable reserve functions.

We also hear the story of how David's knowledge helped save Professor's Hill from development, with Nillumbik Shire Council ultimately acquiring the land and protecting it as a public reserve. It's a fascinating reminder that careful science, community advocacy and local government can work together to conserve places that might otherwise have been lost.

Whether you're a seasoned plant enthusiast or simply curious about the hidden stories beneath your feet, this episode offers a rare opportunity to see the Australian bush through the eyes of one of Victoria's most respected botanists.

Send us Fan Mail

At Pinkerton Forest in Mount Cottrell, on Melbourne’s western edge, we’re walking through one of the last remaining patches of grassy woodland in this part of the state.

In this episode of Finding Melbourne’s Nature, I sit down with Daryl Akers, who’s been closely involved in caring for this reserve over many years.

We talk about what this place once was, a much larger landscape of woodland and grassland, and what’s left now.

As we walk through the site, Daryl shares the story of the forest’s recovery. Old grey box trees, some hundreds of years old, natural regeneration starting to come through, and the steady work of removing weeds and rebuilding the understory.

We also talk about what’s at stake. Ongoing development across Melbourne’s west, the loss of habitat, and the role small patches like this play as refuges for wildlife.

It’s a quiet place, but there’s a lot going on. Birds of prey overhead, hollows being fought over, kangaroos moving in as surrounding land changes.

And behind it all, a small group of volunteers doing the long, steady work of keeping it going.