The next dates for working bees are Sunday 26th
February and Monday 6th March. Probably the starting times will need
to be 08.30 again. We shall meet at Mildenhall Place, Fraser, on Sunday 26th
February and at Wickens Place, Fraser, on Monday 6th March See some of you
then, & thank you!
Furry Victim
On Friday 3rd February four of us went for a
drive around Mt Rogers in a Government ute. As we passed along the Tween Tanks
Track Dave noticed a furry body on strands of barbed wire above the reservoirs’
fence. It was a Sugar Glider. By Monday 6 February, all that remained was the
tail. We formed the view that the little possum had glided from a nearby
eucalypt without seeing the wire.
Dave took photographs and I photographed the tail on the
Monday (photo below). We each sent them in to Canberra Nature Map. It’s now official, as perhaps
some of you knew before this: Mt Rogers has Sugar Gliders! (Petaurus breviceps at Mount Rogers - 03
Feb 2017)
Remains (its tail) of a Sugar Glider first seen on 03.02.17 on the fence surrounding the twin
tanks.
Canberra Nature Map (http://canberra.naturemapr.org) is
fairly recent. It began as a way for botanists and biologists to send in
photographs of the species they’d found with particular reference to a list of
rarer plants. CNM has grown to include birds, insects, fungi, reptiles and
frogs. The Parks and Conservation Service rangers are using CNM to access data
as well as photos of weed infestations. Provided your camera or phone has GPS
capability, photos can be sent to CNM where they’ll be checked for species
identity by a team of volunteer moderators. CNM gives everyone the opportunity
to create data, an ongoing record of the other species we share the region
with. We can be citizen scientists. I have sent in several photos, and have
many more to send.
.
Working Teams
Why were we driving round? You’ll have heard of the Green
Army. Ginninderra Catchment Group is applying to have Green Army teams working
in our reserve areas on tasks that are time-consuming for Landcare Group
volunteers. We felt that they could make a difference if they treated
Blackberry, and pulled out Honeysuckle and Ivy. Then staff of TCCS (Transport
& City Services, formerly TAMS) could remove the debris. Nick Bakker, the
TCCS Volunteer co-ordinator, with Dave Wong from Ginninderra Catchment Group
and me, showed Liz, a Green Army team leader, where some of the weed clusters
were located around Mt Rogers.
I had an email from James Gray of Icon Water to say they had
tackled the Tree of Heaven infestation but had now run out of the money
allocated for destroying this suckering woody weed as part of the compensation
for clearing native trees around the reservoirs. On our Monday 6 February
working bee, glances from where Angharad, Phil, Ted and I were working didn’t
show what Icon Water’s contractors had achieved. If the heat ever ends and my
feet feel like being in sneakers & gaiters I’ll go up to see what has been
cleared and what still needs doing.
Our working bee was from 08.30 to 10.45. We concentrated on
cutting off the heads of Prickly Lettuce and St Johns Wort. We ended up with 3
compacted bagsful of the yellow daisy-flower heads and SJW heads with
browning-off capsules full of seeds. Thank you all, and apologies to others for
whom I failed to give meeting place details.
Fallen tree (it fell in two stages) partly across access track.
Signage Rock
Nick Bakker is a liaison person between Landcare volunteers
and the TCCS land managers for Mt Rogers and other nature reserve areas
excluding Canberra Nature Park reserves. We are working with Nick to bring to
fruition the idea of replacing the long-dead MT ROGERS sign that was alongside
the Wickens Place car-park.
On Wednesday 1 February I went to a rock repository at
Mitchell, a new site for me! Phil Nizette from Wellspring Environmental Art
& Design was there to select a suitable boulder and other rocks that would
support it, as an installation at Wickens Place.
The idea is that TCCS will organise the moving of the
boulder and rocks to Mt Rogers, supervised by Phil. Phil will carve MT ROGERS
into the boulder using his own equipment and power-supply. This is likely to
cost approximately $3,300 and take 5 days.
Mt Rogers has some $1,000 in an account managed by
Ginninderra Catchment Group (we had money donated by Telstra for a previous
corporate working-bee day). We may be able to apply for a grant for the work. I
am proposing to write to the Arts Minister Gordon Ramsay to see if there are
funds that could pay for it as an art installation. Some Mt Rogers community
members have kindly offered to donate towards the boulder-sign. We may be able
to receive money from the ‘signage’ unit to help defray costs, as we’re working
on the principle that all reserves and public places deserve an identifying
sign … the difference here is that we’ve gone ahead and organised a replacement
sign ourselves.
The boulder idea is to have as vandal-proof a sign as
possible as Wickens Place also attracts people with counter-productive ways of
entertaining themselves.
Wickens place car-park. Phil likes the idea of the sign going right of the bare patch (the entry worn by many feet!)
The last galvanised post is on mid-left.
The last galvanised post is on mid-left.
Previous sign was in centre of pic. Galvanised post remains.
I am still working on another principle, dating from 2014,
that we need a sign about the off-leash status and visitors understanding
canine behaviour.
Perhaps you’d approve a planting of hardy native species
around the sign’s site? But it would be up to us to maintain the ‘garden’
probably outside working-bee times or times that would suit the team. This
would mostly mean keeping water up to the young plants and keeping the rank
grasses and wild oats in-check as there’ll be many seeds still in the soil.
Spotted Birds
Lyndon’s beautiful photograph of a juvenile Koel at Mt
Rogers is below this post, and uploaded some very fine bird photos from his
travels to birding sites around the ACT. These will complement the
treasure-trove of Mt Rogers wildlife photographs that he brought over in mid
December. Such a brilliant way of recording what’s around. Equally important
are the records such as Angharad’s, of birds seen in and around our gardens. At
the working bee Angharad reported seeing a Peaceful Dove in their Fraser
garden. Sometimes these delightful birds are seen as aviary escapees but there
are also irruptions of Peaceful Doves with individuals visiting the outskirts
of Canberra’s suburbs.
Look out for Oxeye
Daisy
An irruption that’s definitely unwanted is that of the Oxeye
Daisy. The ACT Government recently put out a media release and fact sheet about
this very invasive species. You may
remember a few years ago we were warned about Fireweed and people were worried
about their yellow daisies. The Oxeye Daisy is white with a yellow centre.
It has quite large flowers (2–6 cm across). The also-white African Daisy has a blue
centre (it’s a ‘sleeper weed’ and not one to idolise in the garden, but not as
invasive in bush areas as the Oxeye Daisy will be if it takes hold). The wind
blows daisies’ seeds. The fact sheet about the Oxeye Daisy is at the top of the
Pages at the right of the screen at this Mt Rogers Landcare Blog.
Beetles and bark
Has the Christmas Beetle invasion come to an end? You’ll
notice that some of the victimised eucalypts have quite a different ‘look’ as
half of each leaf has been chewed away. Some of them look yellowy-green rather
than eucalyptus-green, presumably something to do with the effects of light. Now
the trees are having to cope with this extreme heat. A big gum tree opposite us
is going through its bark-shedding phase. I collect the fallen bark & use
it as mulch. It deflects any rain drops & allows the drops through into the
shaded soil below.
Rosemary, Mt Rogers Landcare Group
Sunday 12 February
6258 4724
