Sydney Blue Gum Forest in the Heart of St Ives

Overview

Dalrymple-Hay Nature Reserve protects a small but remarkably important patch of remnant bushland in St Ives, about 15km from central Sydney. What makes it stand out is not its size but the kind of forest it holds: one of the few remaining stands of Blue Gum and Blackbutt forest in the Sydney region, on fertile Wianamatta Shale soils rather than the sandstone country that dominates so much of the city’s bushland.

Together with neighbouring Browns Forest and nearby remnants on surrounding land, the reserve forms part of one of the larger surviving pieces of Sydney Blue Gum High Forest. That gives the place a very different feel from many Sydney bush reserves, with tall canopy trees, a denser understorey and a greener, moister character through the gullies and drainage lines.

Highlights

The reserve’s defining feature is its tall blue gum forest canopy, with blackbutt mixed through the upper forest and pockets of turpentine lower down. In the gullies and along the creeklines, the vegetation shifts again, with rainforest and mesic species adding a softer, shaded feel beneath the larger eucalypts.

The landscape also has a distinct geological story. Shale caps the ridge here above Hawkesbury Sandstone, creating richer soils than most nearby bushland and helping support the lush forest structure that survives in the reserve. Small creeks rise within the reserve itself and feed the headwaters of High Ridge Creek, adding to the sense of a cool, tucked-away pocket of bush in the middle of suburbia.

Best Time to Visit

This is a place that changes subtly rather than dramatically through the year, so it can be rewarding in any season. Early morning tends to be the most appealing time for the sounds of birds, when the forest is especially lively and the softer light suits the tall canopy and shaded understorey.

After wetter periods, the reserve’s creeklines and lower slopes show off its greener side, while the higher ground feels a little more open and exposed in summer. Because the forest is shaped by moist gullies as well as ridge-top country, it often feels cooler and more sheltered than you might expect for suburban Sydney bushland.

Plants and Animals

Plant life is the heart of Dalrymple-Hay. The reserve conserves Sydney Blue Gum High Forest, an endangered ecological community now reduced to only a small fraction of its former extent. Blue gum and blackbutt are the signature canopy trees, with grey ironbark and Sydney red gum on the higher slopes, forest oak in parts of the north-eastern section, and species such as lilly pilly and sweet pittosporum in the moister gullies.

The forest structure supports a good range of wildlife, especially birds and small mammals. Commonly seen mammals include brushtail and ringtail possums, sugar gliders and grey-headed flying-foxes. Birdlife is one of the reserve’s strengths, with species recorded here including king parrots, eastern rosellas, crimson rosellas, rainbow lorikeets, eastern yellow robins, eastern spinebills, silvereyes and scrubwrens. The combination of mature forest, understorey cover and links to surrounding reserves also gives the area value as part of a broader wildlife corridor toward Garigal National Park.

Culture and Heritage

Dalrymple-Hay Nature Reserve lies within the area occupied by the Guringai, or Kuringai, people, and today falls within the area of the Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council. No cultural sites have been recorded within the reserve itself.

The reserve also has a more recent conservation history tied to the survival of remnant bushland in northern Sydney. Before becoming a nature reserve in 1972, the area was used as the Dalrymple-Hay Demonstration State Forest, and the adjoining Browns Forest was retained as part of local efforts to prevent further clearing and subdivision.