The danger
from bears there is real, whereas hunters on Mt Rogers are mostly raptors.
Black shouldered kites, Brown Goshawks, Australian Hobbies and Kestrels are the
raptors seen recently. It’s worthwhile looking up when there’s a
magpie-commotion as they could be protesting at these occasional visitors being
in their territory. There are mice around again in some numbers and I found one
under a sheet of galvanised left from a disused cubby.
About 50 m
in from the Wickens carpark there are currently two wonderful cubbies. One’s a
cone and the other a domed construction using gathered fallen branches. One is
decorated with moss which may die if not touching soil and nearby is a circle
of the decorated pebbles the Guides used to identify their now-flourishing
plantings from August 2010. Purists might deplore the alterations caused by the
builders but let’s applaud the creativity and artistry of the cubbies’ industrious
makers.
Professionals
from EnviroAg have altered the expectations of large clusters of Blackberry and
Honeysuckle by spraying them with relevant herbicides. Being paid through a
grant organised by Ginninderra Catchment Group they next spot-sprayed areas of
African Lovegrass (ALG) and isolated tussocks of this monoculture-forming
grass. The sprayers’ attention to detail is impressive as a quicker method
would have been to boom spray the larger expanses using flupropanate, but that
herbicide is lethal to other plants and is residual. Steve has complemented the
spraying by many hours of volunteer spot-spraying and ALG seed-gathering
alongside narrower tracks. He and Ann have each completed 8 hours of Chemcert
training. Their time was, again, voluntary but the course was paid for out of
the Parks and City Service’s budget — your rates and taxes at work in subtle
ways.
Lorraine
and I did some more ALG beheading & seed-bagging at the last working-bee. Margaret
and Chris have worked on mattocking-out Mullein or Verbascum thapsus rosettes in an area they’d noticed. A week
before, Flemming, Heather, Ivan, Sue and I worked on ALG and berried shrubs
near the tanks’ main gate. Several volunteers apologised, but our volunteer
landcarers’ enthusiasm always shows through as people help out when they can and they don’t feel guilty
when their other lives intervene!
Ann, Steve
and I have begun a process of naming the various places, tracks and paths on Mt
Rogers so that we can better record activities and plan future projects. It
would be interesting to gather-together all the names we each use for various
parts of the reserve and probably quite amusing to hear the origins of those
names. Perhaps that’s an activity for a white-board or newer technology next
time we have an explorer day or a similar gathering? We volunteers will also be
mapping where the native vegetation is of high and medium quality and
conversely where it’s largely lacking. This data will inform the land’s
managers and the Mowing and Fire Management units and lead to better management
for conservation, rather than just managing Mt Rogers as an infrastructure and
asset-protection area.
My
after-frost walk today was really encouraging as I came across a Mixed Feeding
Flock (MFF) of ten different small bird species. There were Scarlet robins,
many Wrens and, even better, at least two Speckled Warblers. None seemed upset
by my presence as they each sought their specific insectivorous or invertebrate
food in a different layer of the bush. The warblers specialise as
ground-feeders but prefer to forage through shortish grass. They are
ground-nesters also making them vulnerable to predation by foxes and suburban
cats. The species is in decline as a result and from habitat alteration.
The area
the MFF was foraging in is part of the burnt section. At this time of the year
the results of the Hazard Reduction Burn look promising in that relatively few
introduced grass and weed species are present. Maybe the landcarers can annex
this woody grassland area to their “attention-to-detail” program and continue
to keep even trivial weeds under control.
Not far
away is a recently fallen-tree which is still hanging on to life. It was a significant eucalypt in that birds used it as a
vantage point and a stop-over between the houses’ gardens and the reserve. The
perhaps 150 year-old tree had become isolated by clearing-for-mowers policies
and the loss of its shrub layer. It was probably caught by a gust of strong wind.
Almost immediately “vultures“ swooped on it and took away branches presumably
for firewood. Let’s hope the rest of the
tree escapes their chainsaws and we can watch as the specialised epicormic buds
produce vertical branches from the horizontal trunk; the indomitable spirit of
Australian survival.
Ann
continues to add material to the blogsite she’s set up for us. If you check out newsletters written at about the same time
last year there’s comparisons to be made!
THE NEXT FOURTH-SUNDAY WORKING-BEE WILL CONCENTRATE ON THE BUSH AREA WEST OF SCHEY AND McNOLTY PLACES. THIS WILL BE ON 24THJUNE FROM 09.00am.
We will be on a seek-and-destroy-mission for Cotoneaster bushes which remain under trees and in the dense vegetation of the gully that drains into the New North Drain. There’s also plenty of Microlaena seed we can harvest and scatter the thatch lower down the gully, hoping it will out-grow the introduced grasses.
Keep up the walking and watching!
Rosemary
Mt Rogers Landcare Group
08.06.12.6258 4724
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