MT ROGERS in late NOVEMBER 2016

Our next Monday working-bee and last for 2016 will be on Monday 5 December. We’ll meet at the Wickens Place, Fraser carpark at 09.00am. Gaiters, tools and gloves will be provided but please bring water to rehydrate!

27.11.16 Working-bee

Thank you all for making today's such a special working-bee. Anne, Ivan, Kirsty and Ted all worked very hard at demanding tasks needing our bodies to bend and pull when not thrilled about doing so … as the temperature climbed towards the forecast 26 degrees.

We were reducing the St John’s Wort (SJW) plants’ chances of being pollinated, setting seed and returning thousands of seeds to Mt Rogers’ soil.

We know we made a difference, even though the lack of SJW in those areas may be almost un-noticeable to the passer-by. I would imagine we moved 100 plants onto the track, or onto rocks or onto barer patches to desiccate. Many more were de-bloomed and/or pulled up and left to dry out where they'd grown. That's 10xthousands of seeds that won't make it to the seed bank.

These are complex places to work. Steve can't really reach the plants' rosettes to spray Starane on them, even with a suitable nozzle. The many species of introduced grasses are already tall, allowing their pollen to catch breezes and winds. And, as we saw towards the end of the morning, these areas are habitat for many native species ... and are therefore ‘DO NOT DISTURB THE SOIL’ places, if we can manage that. We came across mosses, lichens, hundreds of Cheilanthes (native Rock Ferns) and some young eucalypts.

Team-work, musing and socialising

I like the way our land-carers so readily work in flexible teams regardless of the combination of people who are able to be present on any one occasion. The social benefits of landcaring and its volunteering are very important, together with sharing tales of our journeys towards being in the same place and with the same objectives for this particular working-bee.

At various stages Anne, Kirsty and I explored the value of gardening concluding that it's much the same as a walk on Mt Rogers in that our brains are able to unclutter, re-process and also respond to what the bush offers us in new sightings and new stimuli for our thoughts whilst we work at a physical task or exercise. 

Other species

We were rewarded today by the presence of several birds (even a brief Superb Parrot call) and by finding new research opportunities through the St John’s Wort biocontrol beetle Chrysolina hyperici. The photo below shows the beetle this year at Shepherds Lookout in Woodstock Reserve North. We hope to see these on Mt Rogers' SJW.

Ted's other multi-coloured beetle and the spider Kirsty found added to our shared ‘biology’ lesson. 

We met at Mildenhall Place, soon finding that 3 or 4 of the native grass species looked really healthy, if hugely out-numbered, as we walked through them to the weeding sites.

We often heard Noisy Friarbirds, which was interesting because their calls and Koels’ calls have been unusually inconsistent in mid-Flynn this ‘sprummer’ (spring and summer). On Saturday 26 November there were Oriole calls on Mt Rogers but I didn’t sight them. Thank you to those who have sent wonderful photos of the Frogmouths this spring and/or emailed through updates on the three nesting pairs’ progress. Do you have Rainbow Lorikeets near you? There must be blooming eucalypts near here as the Lorikeets are nearly as ubiquitous as ‘our’ magpie families at present.

Pulling weeds

I think it was Ivan who first spotted Paterson’s Curse (PC) plants scattered through the grassy-bush. Pulling these up and leaving them to dry became our first team-job for the morning. Anne mentioned that she’d pulled a few up on her dog-walks each day. We have a few more days when SJW and PC plants can be pulled up and left to desiccate in the sun. Soon some of the pollinated flowers will have seeds which could continue to ripen and disperse even after uprooting. If anyone else is prepared to take a pair of gloves with them on their walks and pull SJW and PC this would enhance our efforts and augment Steve’s spraying hopes. Gloves are essential as there can be reactions when handling these ‘pretty’ weeds. We each wore gaiters this morning in case the snakes were slow to move away from where we walked. Gaiters are great guards against seeds manipulating their way into socks and laces.

This photo shows the team at our 27 November Working-bee: Kirsty (hat and backpack visible!) gathering SJW plants to put on the track to dry out. Anne and Ted with Ivan (who is kneeling). Ivan is a specialist at retrieving and working on weeds from under other plants. In this case the fallen but live branch of the eucalypt had allowed the weeds to grow with maximum protection and moisture. The hills seen distantly beyond Hall form a background to this, Mt Rogers' Cryptandra patch. 

Daisies

The incredible rains have really shown us what plants can achieve if they’re well watered. Many nature strips are now hosting Flatweed blooms so large and sun-happy they rival Dandelions in size. They belong to the Daisy family; its name used to be Compositae and has changed to Asteraceae. Other members are Asters, Gazanias, the daisies, Marigolds, thistles and paper daisies. Sunflowers show the flower-heads contain hundreds of individual but small flowers surrounded by showy ‘petals’ that advertise the presence of rewards to pollinating insects. Sunflowers have seeds that appeal to birds but, of course, many daisies disperse their seeds on parachute-like structures that allow seed dispersal by the slip-streams of passing vehicles. Alternatively, I’ve noticed Crimson Rosellas feasting on the furry and unappetising-looking brown seed-clusters of Capeweed.

Other pollinators

Have you noticed the huge numbers of Hoverflies around, once flowering began in 2016? They are much slighter than Honey-Bees but seem to have taken over pollinating duties this ‘sprummer’. There are also many species of native bees around and they’re often about the same size as Hoverflies. There’s been plenty of publicity about bees in recent months including Bee Houses at the Botanic Gardens and at Floriade’s Bush Friendly Garden.

Other insects act as pollinators as they crawl over composite flowers moving pollen from plant to plant as they feed. This sprummer we’ve been able to watch the successive arrivals and/or hatching of butterfly species. In the last few days several of the ‘Brown’ butterflies have come on the scene. Many birds and some possums are pollinators, being rewarded with nectar from the flowers they visit. There is protein in pollen, but around nesting time birds are also seeking insect larvae in order to give their chicks the best chance to grow quickly once hatched. Some birds, such as cuckoos, specialise by eating caterpillars that are hairy or spiky.

Other Working-bees

On Sunday 23 October we tried an experiment to see whether cutting and daubing Wild Sage, Salvia verbenaca, would kill those plants closest to a cluster of boulders where Vanilla lilies had been found a week earlier. We were working on the principle of weeding out from the cleanest, most weed-free areas, an adaptation of The Bradley Method. A check this week showed very few Wild Sage left where we had worked. Those more distant from the lilies are now seeding with seeds that readily stick to socks and other fabrics probably by small hooks. (Was it high school or college where we learnt about the origins of Velcro? Burrs on Burdock plants’ seeds allow them to hook onto animals’ fur. George de Mestral patented his fastener idea in 1955.)

Anne Mc teamed up with Ted, and Ivan and Anne C worked together, whilst I tried to persuade the Vanilla lilies to open up for more photos in the sometimes-reluctant sunshine.

Ann M joined us later by which time we’d turned our attention to a patch of Mustard plants just beginning to flower yellow amongst a wattle thicket and near an inspiring Kurrajong sapling. 

On Monday 7 November, Phil, Angharad, John and Diana walked through the reserve from ‘behind’ the notice box. Our main target species was Serrated Tussock. We found a few plants to dig up but were amazed and delighted at the thoroughness of Steve’s spraying sorties in recent weeks.

Snakes Alive, January. Spread the word!

In January, the annual Snakes Alive display is on at the Botanic Gardens. Even if you’re unlikely to go yourself please would you help with publicity? Any money raised by the volunteers through the event is used to protect frogs, reptiles and snakes in their natural environments. There’s no need to book tickets:

As Snakes Alive 2017 gets closer, the ACT Herpetological Association are looking for ways to get word out to the general public to promote the display. To achieve this we have created a Facebook event for Snakes Alive! 2017 that can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/events/713339572164158. 

Rosemary. 62584724