Friends of Sturt River Landcare

Adding fuel to our theory that native birds actively seek the gardens of landcare volunteers - another Buff banded rail has set up shop in David's backyard in suburban Mitchell Park. David and Di are both thrilled to see these speedy little sprinters at their place. The pair of rails who moved into my front yard at Marion in August continue to graze on snails, frogs and beetles in amongst the native grasses surrounding the frog pond.

Good work by Kuringai council in Sydney.

Great ads from Ku-ring-Gai Council! 👏🏽🌳
We desperately need more community education on the benefits of trees here on the Peninsula. We will continue to work with CCC however we can to achieve this important goal.

Where is our Garden City going? Adelaide loves to tout its global ‘liveability’ accreditations, and lately we’ve embraced aspirations to be a ‘Well City’ and a ‘National Park City’ – but how are we actually delivering on this much-celebrated reputation?

Keen to know more about birds? We still have tickets available for Out and About with Birds at Oaklands Education Centre on Thursday, November 30 from 6pm.

(Image of Pardalote by Svetlana Cook.)

These guys love the papery flowers of Dodonea viscova (hop bush).

Reminder to volunteers who are coming to tomorrow's seed collection working bee: BYO container with a lid such as a hommous, yoghurt or icecream container (or similar). See you soon.

https://www.trybooking.com/events/landing/1141407

Proclamation Day commemorations on 28 December 2023 will, for the first time, include a series of signal fires lit on the beach along Holdfast Bay’s coastline.

Kaurna Elders and the Kaurna Fire team from Firesticks - an Indigenous alliance across Australia reviving cultural burning and landscape management - with support from the City of Holdfast Bay, will lead this event. Residents, volunteers and the wider community are invited to take part.

Two information sessions are planned at Brighton on Monday 27 November 2023. Kaurna Elders and members of the Firesticks team will explain the cultural and historical significance of the signal fires and answer questions from the community. The sessions are free to attend, but you do need to book.

Come along and be a part of reconnecting to the ancient traditions of this wonderful place.

Kaurna Signal Fires Community Information Session On the afternoon of Proclamation Day, 28 December 2023 and after the morning commemoration at the Old Gum Tree Reserve Glenelg North, four signal fires will be lit on the beach between Glenelg North and Kingston Park. Conducted by members of the Kaurna Nation and Firesticks, an Indigenous cultural b...

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-07/kaurna-practices-to-revive-450-year-old-tree/103068498

Wonderful news! Great to see some care of shelter trees.

Aboriginal land care practices revive centuries-old river red gum A culturally significant tree in Adelaide's foothills that is thought to be more than 450 years old has been brought back to life through community efforts with Kaurna elders.

https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/improve-your-bird-photography-tickets-719547996427?aff=oddtdtcreator

Improve your bird photography Tickets, Mon 06/11/2023 at 7:30 am | Eventbrite

City of Marion has a couple of spots left in its bird photography workshop. A great opportunity for local snappers to improve your focus with photographer, Craig Greer.

https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/improve-your-bird-photography-tickets-719547996427?aff=oddtdtcreator

Due to quick thinking neighbours, someone was actually caught and fined for damaging a river red gum.

PROSECUTION FOR ILLEGAL TREE REMOVAL: Earlier this month the City of Burnside was successful in achieving a prosecution for the illegal felling of a regulated tree.

The action, which occurred on 22 November 2022 and was reported by concerned neighbours, saw the illegal removal of a River Red Gum (Eucalyptus camadulensis) at a residence in Rosslyn Park by a member of All State Tree Works. Due to the prompt action of neighbours contacting the City of Burnside, Council was able to arrive on scene during the act and gather evidence in a timely manner, which enabled a successful prosecution.

Judge Michael Durrant recorded a conviction against All State Tree Works owner Mike Fatu, who was also fined $7,000 and ordered to pay over $2,000 in additional fees including the City of Burnside's court costs.

City of Burnside CEO Chris Cowley said the damage to the City’s urban forest could not be ignored.

‘Our community in Burnside will not tolerate tree vandalism. We are serious about safeguarding our urban forest and this is another example where Council is committed to taking strong action to protect it,’ Mr Cowley said.

Read the full story now at https://engage.burnside.sa.gov.au/FOCUSOnBurnside/news_feed/council-achieves-successful-prosecution-for-illegal-felling

Green Adelaide | 20 Metre Trees | Conservation SA

We arrived early to find Pam had already swept through this section of the planting beds - and didn't she do a great job!

Ian has joined us recently as a member and volunteer. He visited Fordham a couple of years ago not long after the plants went in. His verdict? 'Wow! This has really come on, hasn't it?'

Thirteen large bags of w**d removed from Fordham Reserve this morning.

Windy, but worth it! Today's working bee at Fordham Reserve was a chance to check on our plants at the Fisher Terrace end of the reserve. We collected 13 bags of w**d, removed rubbish and spread some seed around to promote regeneration.

A big thank you to Anthony McIver from Adelaide Trailer Training for providing me with a lesson on how to reverse park a trailer down my narrow drive way. Towing and parking trailers is definitely not in my wheel house, so having someone who can put together a plan, then walk me through it step-by-step and watch me do it was so helpful. So many good tips and so much experience to share.

When he heard about our volunteers, Anthony generously donated this lesson to support us. Thank you!

For all things trailer-related, please get in touch. adelaidetrailertraining.com

Light blue flowers of the Australian Hound's Tongue.

Been walking along the Sturt River and wondered what this is? Looks a bit like plantain and a little bit like borage? It's Cynoglossum australe (Australian Hounds Tongue) a perennial understorey herb planted on World Environment Day 2023. This is the first spring we've been able to see what it looks like in flower. Pretty, yes?

Volunteers may recall that much of this year's w**d control effort focused on the National Tree Day 2022 plantings. This pic is a little taste of how lovely that end of the reserve is now having been w**ded early and often this winter. Well worth a look next time you're at the southern end of Oaklands Reserve.

Pic from Birds in Backyards, but this is what the Buff Banded Rails that have moved into my suburban front yard look like. The yard has an open frog pond and native understorey, which may have attracted them in. My neighbour Julie tells me that during the days that they are not foraging for worms and frogs they are clearing out the snails from her backyard. She is very happy for this, as neither of us garden with pesticides, herbicides or poisons (such as snail bait or rat bait which can kill non-target species). Julie sometimes hunts snails at night using a torch - but these days, it's being done by the rails.

Hey folks, did you hear? Sunday's Walk, talk and Squawk with Andrew Crouch from Friends of Sturt River Landcare Group has sold out! Get in touch at [email protected] if you're keen to know about future bird watching opportunities.

Absolutely fascinating look at the spiders of Oaklands Wetland this afternoon with Cindy Macardle. We welcomed around 30 Nature Festival attendees - including a few local landcarers - to the Oaklands Education Centre to learn more about the lives of spiders.

Interestingly, Cindy's journey began as many people do, with a fear of these creatures. That soon changed when she turned her trained scientific eye to these creatures; studying them, recording the species, the micro-enviroments they inhabit and capturing their behaviours using macrophotography.

We saw a series of beautiful shots capturing jumping, weaving, net building, floating, hunting and stalking. We saw spiders that impersonate ants (including the way ants smell to other ants), have parasitic relationships with other spiders, those that create a spider-hide by curling leaves, and those who defend their eggs from photographers!

If you missed out on today's session and would like to know more, email [email protected] as we are interested in offering a session on observing spiders in the future. Don't miss out!

Green Lynx Spider, a powerful huntress, now resident in Goodenia amplexans across the biodiversity plantings at Oaklands Wetland & Reserve. (Pic by Cindy Macardle).

Aannd that's it folks, we are at capacity for tomorrow's macrophotography view of the spider-verse at Oaklands Wetland, presented by Cindy Macardle. Contact us directly though to join our waiting list for forthcoming talks and activities.

We overheard a lovely teaching moment this morning when this junior landcarer found a praying mantis egg sack. For those who don't know as much as her Mum, the egg sacks are made over winter and attached to a twig or branch. Up to 100 eggs can be in an egg sack which turn into praying mantis.

There are about 160 species of praying mantis in Australia (that we know of) and each species has its own unique way of creating a case for the eggs.

https://www.westfield.com.au/marion/news/7Ly8zP27LYrfuQvNitkRV4/local-heroes-2023?utm_source=local-heroes-finalist-org&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=local-heroes

Voting closes tomorrow. If you have not already voted, and you'd like to support Friends of Sturt River Landcare Group volunteers, please click on this link and VOTE. Sam Kerr is our finalist and is in the running to win up to $20,000 for the group.

Voting for your Westfield Local Heroes is now open at Westfield Marion Vote now to help us award $30k in community grants.

Look for the little white egg in the middle of the Lotus australis flowers from Fordham Reserve. We have quite a lot of this plant, so no doubt we have a few butterflies to look forward to as the weather warms up.

Great presentation ahead of our working bee at Fordham Reserve, with Matt Endacott from Green Adelaide explaining the very specific relationships between butterflies and the host and nectar plants they need to survive. Around 20 volunteers enjoyed a wonderful Q + A session, a hunt for butterfly eggs (we found them, in Lotus australis in full sun - they're tiny!) The rest of the morning was spent working together to remove eight bag loads of w**d from two beds on the reserve.

In case you missed it, the link below covers some of the same information on butterflies from Green Adelaide

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-4cpRyrzc4&list=PLInk2nMrLuvnUB2uQbHJSAcGD8ieNod0Z&index=7

https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/w**ds-workshop-for-conservation-volunteers-tickets-703048506007?aff=oddtdtcreator

If you are having trouble telling the goodies from the baddies, this w**ds workshop is for you. Book your tickets to reserve a place.

Weeds workshop for conservation volunteers Learn more about w**ds from the State Herbarium's Chris Brodie in this practical workshop

https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/w**ds-workshop-for-conservation-volunteers-tickets-703048506007?aff=oddtdtcreator

Happy Wattle Day friends. Here are a couple of flowering golden lovelies from our sites at City of Holdfast Bay (Acacia culparis, Acacia acinaceae and Acacia pycnantha.)

𝗩𝗢𝗨𝗖𝗛𝗘𝗥𝗦 𝗙𝗢𝗥 𝗩𝗢𝗟𝗨𝗡𝗧𝗘𝗘𝗥𝗦 🌱👏🌸

If you’re a nature-lover, there’s never been a better time to get outside and join Friends of Sturt River Landcare (FoSRL).

This Spring new volunteers who join a community working bee are eligible to claim a plant voucher for 𝗙𝗥𝗘𝗘 native seedlings!

Group President Samantha Kerr says “𝘓𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘰 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘵𝘦𝘤𝘵 𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘵𝘴 𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘳𝘦𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘥 – 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘪𝘵’𝘴 𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘢 𝘷𝘰𝘶𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘢𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘬𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘰 𝘳𝘦𝘨𝘶𝘭𝘢𝘳 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘴𝘵-𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦 𝘷𝘰𝘭𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘦𝘳𝘴 – 𝘱𝘭𝘶𝘴 𝘸𝘦 𝘩𝘰𝘱𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘦𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘸𝘰𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘧𝘶𝘭 𝘭𝘰𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘱𝘰𝘱𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘶𝘱 𝘪𝘯 𝘨𝘢𝘳𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘴 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘊𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘔𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘰𝘯.”

The vouchers are funded by the City of Marion to support FoSRL volunteers who plant and care for native seedlings at Oaklands Wetland, Kenton Avenue and Sturt River Linear Reserves.

FoSRL formed 𝟭𝟭 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘀 ago to protect the old Redgums along the Sturt River and has since planted more than 𝟭𝟬𝟬,𝟬𝟬𝟬 𝘀𝗲𝗲𝗱𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀.

Interested? Email [email protected] or head on over to their page for details of fortnightly working bees.