January Working Bee at Wilson’s Reserve in East Ivanhoe, Victoria, Australia.

Wilson’s Reserve was pasture on the Yarra river flood plain. For years the Friends of Wilson’s Reserve has been working to restore the bush to provide habitat for native birds and wildlife. Slowly, slowly we are succeeding. People come from all over Melbourne to see the native birds. Today we concentrated on pulling out invasive weeds.

Rambling dock root was tenacious. It took two of us working together to get the tuber out of the ground. The dock will ramble over trees and kill them.

Fifteen people worked together for two hours.

Afterwards we enjoyed tea, coffee, and biscuits (cookies). Everyone knew they’d made a difference today. The feeling of power was overwhelming.

After all the hard work and biscuits we were treated to a nature show. A young channel-billed cuckoo was up in a tree tricking a little raven into feeding it.