The Reserve
How we care for it
Caring for Perry Lakes is practical, hands-on work — pulling weeds, putting plants in the ground, measuring water quality, watching what comes and goes. Here’s what we do, season by season.
Photo: Ian Stewart
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Hands in the ground
Physical restoration
Outdoors, hands-on, and open to everyone — no experience needed. This is the most accessible way to care for the reserve, and the backbone of everything we do.
Monthly field works
On the third Sunday of each month (March through November) volunteers gather at Perry Lakes to weed, plant and restore. Led by our Works Coordinator in partnership with the Town of Cambridge. Morning tea provided. No experience needed — just wear sturdy shoes and bring sun protection.
A deeper kind of attention
Watching, measuring, recording — that’s citizen science
Alongside the physical work, FoPL volunteers watch, measure, and record. Water levels, water quality, bird activity, fauna sightings, seasonal changes — this observational work is citizen science, and it’s just as important as pulling weeds.
You don’t need a science background to contribute. What you need is a willingness to learn and a commitment to showing up regularly. Our citizen scientists are trained and mentored by experts — Dr Don McFarlane on water science, Dr Andrew Burbidge on wildlife — and the data they collect is real, used, and meaningful.
“Every reading, every sighting, every session adds to a picture of the reserve that no single expert could build alone.”
Our Science Mentors
Dr Don McFarlane
Hydrogeologist, Adjunct Professor UWA
Dr Andrew Burbidge
Conservation biologist, 45 years in WA wildlife
Tony Harding
Works Coordinator, field ecology
Science you can do
Monitoring & citizen science
The same commitment, a different toolkit. These activities build skills and produce data that’s genuinely used — and most start with simply showing up.
Water monitoring
Volunteers measure water levels in both lakes and groundwater bores, track daily rainfall and evaporation, and test water quality using Hanna multiparameter equipment supplied by the Town of Cambridge. This data builds a continuous record of lake health over time — invaluable for understanding how the reserve is responding to the replenishment scheme and seasonal variation.
Animal surveys
Regular surveys record the presence, number and location of fauna across the reserve — waterbirds, turtles, quenda, frogs, bats and more. Survey methods are standardised so data is comparable over time. Our wildlife data is already revealing patterns in how species use the reserve as water levels change.
Spot It · Share It
Not every observation needs to be part of a formal survey. Anyone who visits the reserve can log a sighting — a bird species they haven’t seen before, a turtle on the bank, a frog calling after rain. Every record adds to our understanding of what lives here and when. Scan the QR code at the car park or submit online.
Education and upskilling
FoPL runs training sessions and education evenings to build the skills of our citizen scientists. Our inaugural Citizen Science Education Evening in August 2025 covered water quality testing methods, survey protocols, and data recording. Resources from the evening are available in Research & Learning.
Working in partnership
Professional management and community attention, in the same direction
Everything FoPL does happens in partnership with the Town of Cambridge, which manages Perry Lakes Reserve under the Perry Lakes Reserve Management Plan 2021–2031. The Town leads on infrastructure, water management, major vegetation works, and professional ecological management. FoPL contributes community labour, monitoring data, education, advocacy, and the kind of consistent presence that makes the reserve feel looked after.
This partnership is what makes the model work. The reserve benefits from professional management and community attention working in the same direction, toward the same goals.
Whether you’re here to pull weeds or measure water quality — there’s a place for you.
Perry Lakes needs people who show up. Whatever your background, whatever you can spare — an hour on a Tuesday, a Sunday morning once a month, or a willingness to learn something new at a field session — it all makes a difference.