This is the case with several plants growing locally.

The bluebell creeper and sweet pittosporum are examples, as are several wattles and melaleucas, and more.

One of the more recent of these “native weeds” is the burgan, or kunzea, a three-metre shrub resembling a tea tree.

A flowering shrub is attractive, as can be seen by the accompanying recent photo.

The flowers are smaller than those of most tea trees, with prominent stamens.

There are a few different forms of this plant, with the pest one currently known – pending detailed research and re-classification – as forest burgan, or kunzea species upright form.

It is native to eastern Victoria. Differences between the different forms is said by experts to be “often slight at best”, and is further compounded by hybridisation.

This weedy one has a reputation for adopting disturbed sites such as roadsides, which is exactly where today’s photo was taken (at Scarsdale).

There are five sorts of kunzea – including the weedy one – that were once all named as Kunzea ericoides. Burgan is an aboriginal name for either this form or a very similar one.

A smaller, more spreading plant known as Yarra burgan occurs along the lower Moorabool River and also at Bannockburn. It is not a weed there.

Something about the last 10-20 years has favoured the spread of this shrub. It was hardly known here 40 years ago.

A sparrow happily chirping with its mates is no more due to the amazingly rapid attack of a bird of prey.

Witnessed a week ago in Drummond Street North in Ballarat, the unfortunate sparrow was with several others at the top of a shrub when – like lightning – a hawk dashed in, grabbed the topmost sparrow, went to ground with its prey and killed it with a bite to the neck. The predator – totally involved in its kill – was oblivious to being closely watched in the backyard. No doubt a seasoned strategist, it had taken advantage of bright westerly sunlight to dart in to surprise the smaller bird with the sun in its eyes.

The hawk – described as being well-camouflaged when it was on the ground with its prey – was probably a brown goshawk or a collared sparrowhawk.

These are the bird hawks – they dash amazingly rapidly through trees and shrubs after unwary small birds. Their agility and speed in what must often be unfamiliar territory is remarkable. There are small numbers in and around Ballarat.