Our adventures continue to surprise us with the new group introduced to the secret G.S. Kingston Park! With only a few members of our group aware of our destination, so where is Kingston park, it's not the suburb but the part of the parklands surrounding Adelaide. Specifically, G.S. Kingston Park is bounded by West Terrace, Anzac Highway, the Keswick rail line, and Sir Donald Bradman Drive. The area includes West Terrace Cemetery in Park 23 is Adelaide's oldest and Australia's first military cemetery. To the north of the Cemetery is a small wetland and a larger area that has been revegetated.
G.S. Kingston Park has been given a Kaurna name Wirrarninthi meaning to become green and forested. The area has recently been revegetated, with trees reaching maturity and supporting an extensive understory in addition the park contains a constructed wetland the 'Wirrarninthi Wetland' which is fed by water from the western side of the city. We explored the edge of the Wirrarninthi Wetland and many of us were set upon by mosquitoes. Unfortunately, they were too quick to get any observations that would be valuable for our public health project Mozzie monitors.
With the pleasant temperatures, we found several invertebrates other than mosquitoes, such as the magnificent Australian Emperor Anax papuensis observed by margiem3 roasting in a bush beside the wetland. We noticed many small spiders and other small invertebrates in addition to many small flowers. Despite our efforts, we could not find the Nodding Greenhood Pterostylis nutans that had been previously reported in the park. I stayed behind to try and identify the location of this plant and Thabata was kind enough to indulge me.
Following some searching we finally found a small population of this species, it was not where I thought it was. I accessed the iNaturalist app on my phone and focused on the location. I managed to find an individual in flower and one that appeared to be in the early stage of budding. Overall at the time of writing, we had increased the number of observations within the park had been increased by 83 to 573. We also increased the number of species increased by 21 to 193 species within the park, this may continue to increase if individuals are added or species identified further. Check out the G.S. Kingston Park amazing project, we are so fortunate to have such a park so close to the city.
links
G.S. Kingston Park on iNaturalist
Mozzie monitors website
Activating Citizen Science - 2020 (our group project)
Activating for Citizen Science- (ongoing project)