Climate, Vegetation and Wildlife
Owing to the rain shadow created by the Otway Ranges to the southwest, the You Yangs are in the driest part of Victoria south of the Great Dividing Range. Annual rainfall is as little as 450 millimetres (18 in), with the result that the vegetation is grassland or low woodland rather than forest.
The You Yangs are home to more than 200 bird species such as White-naped, White-plumed, New Holland and Brown-capped Honeyeaters, Kookaburras, White-winged Choughs, Crested Shrike-tits, Purple-crowned Lorikeets, Eastern Yellow Robins, and Scarlet Robins, as well as Eastern Grey Kangaroos, Sugar Gliders, Brushtail and Ringtail Possums and Koalas. The nearby Serendip Sanctuary, a Victorian government wildlife research centre now open to the public, has been involved in breeding endangered Victorian wildlife species, such as the Australian Bustard.
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Famous quotes containing the words vegetation and/or wildlife:
“When the ground was partially bare of snow, and a few warm days had dried its surface somewhat, it was pleasant to compare the first tender signs of the infant year just peeping forth with the stately beauty of the withered vegetation which had withstood the winter ... decent weeds, at least, which widowed Nature wears.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)
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—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (18601904)