Beaumont Common is a small urban park in Burnside Council, the park has a remanent Grey Box and SA Blue Gum with one original Native Pine. The Common has recently had native vegetation re-established creating a refuge for native birds and insects, a place worth exploring for the nature enthusiast. Interestingly I conducted one of my first Citizen Science engagement events at Beaumont Common and although I had often driven past the park, I was a little sceptical. How wrong I was, and continue to be. I made one of my favourite observations in this park of all time was one of my first, the Rutilia spp. . what an awesome species I am still unclear what species it is, so anyone who knows please help out! Unfortunately, I did not see another fly like this, this trip, but there was still plenty to see including not one elusive koala but two. I had long promised that we would see a koala in the park but none have been around over the past few visits. This time I spotted one from the meeting point, and then a second one later in the walk, amazing to see two. My offsider Thabata was very excited, I think she was starting to think this was a rude Australian trick I was playing!
Country Crab Spider Tharpyna campestrata observed by Stephen (AKA @stephen169 )
One of the highlights besides the Koala was a spider I observed at the end of the walk, this was quite a spectacular spider, with distinctive spots on the abdomen, climbing up the side of a tree.
At the time of writing, we managed to increase the number of observations taken within the Beaumont Common iNaturalist project over that day increased from 477 to 567, with an increase in the number of species observed in the park from 146 to 166 species with many of the new species recorded. This is to be expected as this was the first time we conducted early spring bioblitz in the park, leading to many species observed that were not observed in summer or autumn.
Genus Poecilometis observed by Stephen Fricker hiding under a log.
With one of the few areas free of lockdown , we were fortunate to be able to explore the park freely. participants were amazed to see such amazing diversity resulting from the efforts of revegetation. Check out this diversity on the Beaumont Common iNaturalist project
