By Steven Fleischman
Did you know that Blue Mountains City Council is a part of the Greater Sydney Landcare Network? Ranging from Campbelltown to The Northern Beaches, including National Parks and Wildlife Services, there are Bushcare groups in Sutherland, Campbelltown, Camden, Liverpool, Fairfield, The Hills district, Blacktown, Warringah, Lane Cove and the Northern Beaches.
On Thursday 9 March, members of the Blue Mountains Bushcare team hosted a Volunteer Coordinators Network (VCN) meeting of 25 Bushcare officers, Landcare coordinators, National Parks Officers and Local Land Services Officers from across Sydney.
Presentations by Program Leader Eric Mahony and Bushcare Officers Jane Anderson and Steve Fleischmann gave visitors deeper insight into Blue Mountains City Councils commitment to storm water management, our relationship with the local Aboriginal community and the remote Bushcare program.
After lunch attendees drove to Whitton Park, Glenbrook to hear Eric Mahony and Shane Grundy, from the Bush Doctor, talk about a bio filter they are building. With an aim of reducing nutrients and faecal coliforms going into local waterways, the biofilter is an important step to improving the health of local waterways.
Personally, I found it incredibly inspiring to meet other officers dedicated to working with their communities at improving the resilience and biodiversity of their local remnant bushland. I feel grateful to be a part of such a large and dedicated Bushcare community in the Blue Mountains.
Trees Near Me NSW offers a fun way to explore the native vegetation around you.
For those who like to look at mapping and want an interactive program at your fingertips to explore all of Plant Community Types (PCTs) across New South Wales, Australia. You can even go back in time to find out the plants that were in your neighbourhood before they were cleared. Trees Near Me NSW is based on Plant Community Types, or PCTs. PCTs are the finest level of classification in the NSW vegetation classification hierarchy.
You can download the app for your smart phone and find more information here:
The longest fence in the world is the Dingo fence. Learn about the effect of the Dingo fence and the ecological role of the Dingo as an apex predator.
Make a difference on your local community! Register your own or join a Clean Up Australia Day site. Check out the list of sites to join here: www.cleanupaustraliaday.org.au
#StepUpToCleanUp
#CleanUpAustralia
With the Blue Mountains Community we’ve taken part in the Great Southern Bioblitz which managed to record 711 observations of 402 species over 4 days from 28-31 October. You can view them all here:
The bio-control Leaf Smut Fungus (Kordyana brasillensisis) being trailed to help contain the growth of the weed Wandering Trad (Tradescantia fluminensis) which impacts plenty of sites across the Mountains. If private landholders would like to access stems of this bio-control fungus, you can contact CSIRO to provide the stems for planting in your Wandering Trad patch.
It was released at these 7 sites:
Glenbrook Lagoon
Else Mitchell Park
Tunnel Gully
Knapsack Creek
Fairy Dell
Mount Irvine
Gloria Park
The Great Southern Bioblitz event for 2022 will be held from Friday the 28th October until the end of Monday on the 31st, incorporating different communities, areas and regions across the Southern Hemisphere. The platform iNaturalist is a useful identification tool and it benefits communities and professionals to track and store information about species across the world.
At the picnic this year we are using iNaturalist to upload as many observations as we can on this weekend. There will be a crew at the Bushcare Picnic to start you off if you are keen to start but need some help. Or you want to explore the platform.
This is where you will find information on the Blue Mountains project. The dashboard is currently empty as the bioblitz has not started yet. https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?project_id=141363
To download iNaturalist to your device https://www.inaturalist.org/ or use the app from wherever you get your apps.
Find out more about the Great Southern Bioblitz on their website
https://greatsouthernbiobl.wixsite.com/website
Damien Cook
Introduction. Third Reedy Lake is a freshwater wetland in the Kerang region in north central Victoria. It is part of the Kerang Wetlands Ramsar Site, which means that it is recognised as being of international significance for wetland conservation as it supports threatened plant and animal species and ecological communities and rookeries of colonial nesting wetland birds.
Prior to European occupation this wetland, along with Middle Lake and Reedy Lake, would have been inundated only when floodwaters came down the Loddon River and caused the intermittent Wandella and Sheep Wash Creeks to flow. At that time the wetland experienced a natural wetting and drying cycle, filling up from floodwaters and drying out completely between floods, which occurred on average once every 3 to 4 years.
In the 1920s, however, this natural wetting and drying cycle was discontinued. Third Reedy Lake became part of the Torrumbarry Irrigation Scheme. Water was diverted out of the Murray River at Torrumbarry Weir and made to flow through a series of natural wetlands including Kow Swamp, the Reedy Lakes, Little Lake Charm and Kangaroo Lake to deliver water to irrigate farms. The lakes and swamps became permanently inundated. While this meant farmers had a reliable supply of water it also profoundly altered the ecology of the wetlands.
To read the full article follow the link below:
Community groups which support the Blue Mountains Bushcare Program would love your help.
Even if you can’t make it to Bushcare, there is so much you can do just by photographing the important weeds you see around you.
Priority Weeds are plants that have the potential to pose a biosecurity risk to human health, the economy, the livability of our city and the environment.
This will help us:
Once you return home, simply download the iNaturalist App, then upload your smartphone photos to iNaturalist.
A combination of artificial intelligence and citizen science will identify the species in your photos.
Your observations will be mapped by our project, and you will have made an important contribution to your catchment.
