My ‘walking times’ have varied recently. It’s been special to see many “new faces” and to know that several young families have moved into our area. Welcome!
Several walking groups come to Mt Rogers some, like Walking-for-Pleasure, have been in existence for decades. Others are informal groups of friends. On 23rd June a large group from Orienteering ACT was based in Wickens Place, spreading out over the hill on routes that challenged their different navigational abilities, ages and fitness levels.
Even though Mt Rogers isn’t technically a ‘nature reserve’ there is rarely a visit or a walk that doesn’t turn up something new, something unusual or questions that need answering. Many people will have seen Scarlet Robins during these wintry weeks. Today I couldn’t wait to reach for the bird books to confirm that I’d seen a pair of Flame Robins as well as a pair of ‘Scarlets’. These birds normally stay closer to the ranges, I would say, and leave the lower ACT for higher country from about now. It’s certainly a new species for the Mt Rogers bird-list.
Welcome rain had eased the stress shown by trees, shrubs and ground cover plants. I suspect the rain hasn’t penetrated as deeply as we’d like to think. Recent winds have negated this gain but an atmosphere of growth and greenness has re-appeared. You’ve noticed quite large numbers of Eucalypts which have succumbed to stress though. Some of these trees would have been planted in the early seventies never reaching the age when they could provide hollows for birds and possums. When they do eventually fall there will be numerous invertebrates helping to break down their timber. These insects, beetles, millipedes will then become food for birds, lizards and some mammals. It takes a while for the natural messiness of the bush to mean that it’s supporting a live, vibrant food chain.
On one calm, warm day one 15 cm lizard made the mistake of emerging from hibernation and ended-up as a Kookaburra’s meal. Two other Kookaburras were nearby being admired and ‘recorded’ by a keen photographer from Spence. He’d been lured up to the second-summit after photographing a Wedgetail from his garden.
Mixed-feeding flocks are loose associations of small birds where each species takes a range of different foods from each level of vegetation they pass through. There’s safety in numbers especially when there are raptors and predatory Currawongs around. Wrens, Thornbills, Whistlers, Grey Fantails, the Scarlet robins and sometimes over-wintering Honeyeaters comprise winter mixed feeding flocks.
Two Frogmouths have been noticed roosting not far from the Flynn playground for several weeks. Spotting these well camouflaged, nocturnal birds is usually a question of luck. Even more special is the sighting of a Satin Bowerbird which has found suitable dense shrubs also on the Flynn edge of Mt Rogers. They are also well camouflaged but can reveal their presence by a range of loud calls, chirring noises and mimicry. Perhaps the Bowerbirds known in Fraser and Melba about 10 years ago have always been around and we’ve not noticed. They are quite common in the Weston Creek suburbs.
Many birds are likely to be hungry after the meagre seeding and fruiting of plants in the drought summers. The relative greenness of gardens close to Mt Rogers has helped many species to survive. Some plants such as Grevilleas are already providing nectar and as Wattles flower there should also be a hatching of caterpillars for small birds.
Have you noticed black Apina callisto caterpillars grazing amongst Cape weed and bare-earth weedy patches of short grass? They have anti-freeze in their bodies so they’re not affected by frosts. When 3cm long the caterpillars dig holes in bare earth, bringing up grains of soil. Once the hole’s big enough they’ll finally enter and then pupate before hatching into a blackish day-flying moth with an orange and black striped body in about April. How can something as squishy as a caterpillar have jaws strong enough to dig into compacted clay?
There are quite large patches of low orangey-green tussocky grass visible at the moment. This is Weeping Grass, Microlaena stipoides. It’s an Australian perennial and it would be good to think it would reclaim the hill eventually as it matures late in the summer making it less of a fire-hazard than the introduced grasses and Wild oats. At the moment the oats are just rapidly-growing seedlings, smaller and a bluer-green than the Weeping grass.
An area that will be swamped by oats again is the January 20th burn site. Once some rain had fallen those native plants that respond rapidly to fire showed a few weeks of supremacy. Bindweed grew from the scorched soil and flowered. Others such as the Rock fern put on growth or colonised bare areas. Wattles respond to fire by germinating from scorched seed. There are many growing after the burn showing that there is often plenty of seed in the ground in spite of weedy grasses hiding them for years.
Serrated Tussock and African Love grass are highly invasive grass species. They have been comprehensively sprayed by the ‘authorities’ on Mt Rogers. There will be years of seeds remaining in the ground as is also the case with Paterson
Indian Mynas will begin their nesting before too long and will be bullying native birds and small mammals out of their tree-hollows. If anyone who lives adjacent to Mt Rogers would like to try trapping these pests in their gardens the Canberra Indian Myna Action Group would be very glad of your support!
The garden needs to have an open, grassy area and to be cat-free. I can give you more details if you prefer. The damage to fencing around the car-park was reported and seems to have been fixed.
If you need to report damage, large dumped items or inappropriate behaviour the best number is probably that of Canberra Connect…13 22 81.
Other contacts:
- ACTEW for Water problems…13 11 93.
- Crime-stoppers….1800 333 000.
- C.I.M.A.G. 6231 7461 or www.indianmynaaction.org.au.
- Ginninderra Catchment Group, the umbrella group for Landcare….6278 3309.
Rosemary
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