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Welcome to NGT Newsletter #86
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September was such a big month for us at NGT that the calendar just clicked over into October before this edition of the newsletter was ready to go. However, with a bumper crop of stories now ready to share, we hope you will agree that it has been worth the wait!
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As part of our 10th Anniversary celebrations, Nature Glenelg Trust is inviting our friends and supporters to join us for a fascinating bus tour of the Fleurieu Peninsula. During this tour we will drop by a number of sites where we have been working with partners to restore wetland habitat, monitor key species or breed threatened species for translocation back into the wild.
This includes:
- the Washpool at Sellicks Beach (see photo above), one of the only intact coastal lagoons remaining in the Adelaide region and where we have been developing restoration plans in collaboration with the Kaurna traditional custodians and local community members;
- Yundi Nature Conservancy, an example of a critically endangered Fleurieu Peninsula Swamp where we have been assisting a private landholder with restoration planning and works;
- a Ngarrindjeri midden site on Sir Richard Peninsula, Goolwa, where traditional custodian Kyla McHughes will speak and we will explain our Goolwa Cockle monitoring program;
- our breeding facility for the nationally vulnerable Southern Bell Frog at Clayton.
Click Here To Read More, or to book your place please hit the booking button below.
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Join us, in collaboration with Mount Gambier based artist Julia Reader, for a watercolour painting workshop at Mount Burr Swamp, drawing inspiration from the flora and fauna found at the reserve. All painting materials, and plenty of food will be provided.
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If you love a good tree planting session, we've got you covered this October. On Saturday the 15th October we'll be planting in partnership with "Friends of the Forgotten Woodlands" along the Wannon River at NGT's Long Point Reserve, on the edge of Dunkeld.
Then the following weekend (22nd and 23rd Oct) we are shifting over to Walker Swamp for a full weekend of tree planting, a general working bee and – if you are keen on the Sunday morning – a guided hike around Walker Swamp with NGT’s founder Mark Bachmann to see the site with a bit more water around than in the autumn...
Read More
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In the Goulburn Valley (in northern Victoria near Benalla and Shepparton) it has been a very steady late winter and early spring for rainfall, which is giving the new Rowan Swamp restoration trial structure a real work-out! As we reported last month, we had literally only just completed the structure when the catchment flows arrived a short time later. With more rainfall events since, and more predicted over the coming weeks, it is going to be fascinating to see how the wetland responds this spring and summer.
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In a recent visit by Mark, a surge in inflows after recent rainfall a few days earlier had caused the wetland to temporarily surcharge about 30cm above the cease-to-flow (CTF) level set at the new restoration trial structure. Levels were dropping again at the time of his visit, noting that the peak flow at this location arrives quickly given the flashy nature of the local Boosey Creek catchment. Because this is an instream floodplain wetland, and the trial structure is located within the eroded creek bed at the former edge of the swamp, the capacity to pass flows increases greatly when water levels surge higher than the structure’s CTF level....
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It's shaping up to be another "half-decent" year for wetlands around the southern tip of the Grampians. Despite a very dry autumn and winter, spring rains arrived to get the catchment running.
The Wannon River has been flowing south of Lynchs Crossing Rd since mid-August but really only started to pick up in the Brady Swamp system in September. Last Friday it was flowing in at around 230 ML/day which is more than anytime last year.
Downstream from Brady Swamp it’s flowing under Wannon River Road at 86 ML/D, which tells us that Brady Swamp is overflowing, activating the natural Wannon River outlet which has been restored since we completely backfilled the artificial drainage outlet in 2015.
Read More to see what this means (and looks like) for these southern Grampians wetlands...
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For the last 12 months, NGT’s bushcare crew has been working steadily away near the end of the Glenelg River at Nelson, on a DELWP-funded project tasked with battling invasive woody weeds. The key objective of the project is to help protect and improve key native habitat for small native mammals.
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The Nelson area is fortunate to have some of the most diverse small mammal fauna in Victoria, with records nearby including Southern Brown Bandicoot, Long-nosed Potoroo, four species of Antechinus (Dusky, Yellow-footed, Swamp and Agile), Dunnart (Common and White-footed), Heath Mouse, Eastern Pygmy-possum, Sugar Glider, and don’t forget the native rats (Swamp Rat, Bush Rat and Rakali)!
Read More
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Oblique view of the artificial channel between Yards Hole and Little Bay, before (top, March 2022) and several months after (bottom, August 2022) remediation works. Photos: Mark Bachmann
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Bec and Justine recently undertook a trip to Long Point, adjacent to Moulting Lagoon on the east coast of Tasmania. The aim of this trip was to download data from a network of water level and salinity loggers now installed across the site. It was a good opportunity to check in on the recently restored areas of wetland and saltmarsh, and see how everything is starting to consolidate and adjust to the restored water regime...
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Deeper analysis and insights
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The other day Mark was forwarded a fascinating story about a large-scale river restoration project in the Netherlands, which got him thinking about a number of things that relate to not just NGT’s work here in Australia, but also the way that the environmental sector in this country generally conceives of and implements waterway and wetland restoration projects...
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Data collected as part of the 2021 Census has highlighted that the number of people undertaking unpaid or volunteer work fell by 19% compared to 2016. COVID has played a big part in this decline but it’s not the only factor, the decline has been occurring for the past 10 years.
The assumed reason for the decline is because people are just too “busy” to find the time. But the demographic representation, according to the latest census data doesn’t necessarily reflect this. The highest volunteer representation occurs across age groups between 35 and 54 and this age group also contains the largest representation of people who are working full time and have young families...
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Representation of volunteers by age.
Source ABS Census of Population and Housing, 2021
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It is great to be able to introduce and welcome Carmen Bliss, our new Business Operations Manager and the final member of NGT’s new management team.
Carmen is based in Mount Gambier, but her administrative role covers the entire NGT workforce across its geographic breadth, ensuring that everyone who works for NGT has the resources and support they need to be able to efficiently get on with our important work...
Read More
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As the weather warms up and the north westerly winds move in, members of the Orange-bellied Parrot population will ‘hitch a ride’ and catch the breeze back to Tasmania for their breeding season. This means the mainland season for the Orange-bellied Parrot is coming to an end.
On the weekend of September 10 and 11, the last survey weekend was held throughout the Orange-bellied Parrot range. From the Murray River mouth to West Gippsland, volunteers searched coastal wetlands with no wild Orange-bellied Parrots recorded. In our focal region of South West Victoria, no Blue Wing parrots were recorded either, as these birds move to more wooded areas for breeding...
Read More
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© Chris Tzaros Orange-bellied Parrot
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Swamp Antechinus (left) and Swamp Rat (right). Photos: Mark Bachmann
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NGT have been contracted (in South East SA and western Vic) to undertake many terrestrial fauna and flora surveys over the autumn-winter-spring-summer period of 2022. In fact, that has been our busiest run for this type of work in the past 10 years!
Needless to say, we are like a ‘duck on a pond’ installing trap lines and sound recorders, making up bait, searching for birdlife, digging in pitfall lines, arranging field workers, volunteers, permits, licences and more. Coordinating all the different projects is not a simple task, but it’s work we really enjoy so well worth the effort. “It’s the best part of the job” says Sheryl Holliday (orchid and spider expert) and field crew leader.
Small mammal surveys began back in autumn with a pre and post-burn investigation for Timberlands near Wilkin (western Victoria). Areas of heathland were re-surveyed for rare mammals like Swamp Antechinus and Heath Mouse to see if they were still present and where they were distributed after a prescribed burn in 2017. The results were very encouraging with Heath Mice caught in all three compartments surveyed. Swamp Antechinus were caught in a long unburnt (refuge) area as well...
Read More to get the full story (and see the short video of a Heath Mouse).
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Much of what goes on in a wetland after we’ve undertaken remedial works to restore hydrology or manage other threats, goes on quietly without fuss. For fish, frogs, crayfish and many of the smaller water birds, you actually have to go looking closely to find them.
However, one species that we hear about pretty quickly after they return is the Brolga – because this majestic bird is of a size that is very hard to miss!...
Read More
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Brolga nest at NGT’s Hutt Bay Wetland in September 2022. Photo: Mark Bachmann
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