This was our first walk of the 4th group of participants in our current trial for the new Plan for Ageing Well in South Australia 2020-2025, which was recently featured on Channel 7 news. The location of this walk was the Oaklands Park wetland, located in Oaklands Wetland and Reserve at 237-265 Oaklands Road in Oaklands Park; adjacent to the Warradale Army Barracks and across the road from the Marion Outdoor Pool. This park is one of many that have an existing project on iNaturalist set up by the enthusiastic local naturalist Geoffrey Cox (AKA cobaltducks) the project "Oaklands Wetland and Reserve, South Australia".
Oaklands Wetland and Reserve is a popular, constructed wetland located in the City of Marion, predictably the most common two species observed on the iNaturalist platform are the Australasian Swamphen Porphyrio melanotus (below left) and the Pacific Black Duck Anas superciliosa (below right). There was however 144 species recorded in the park prior to our adventure including an amazing 47 species of bird and 37 species of insect (see the links to species lists below).
Current Species list for Oaklands Wetland and Reserve, South Australia
Before setting out we decided on a goal, a challenge!
Doubling the number of observations (previously 915) seemed a bit of a challenge and beyond our capacity so we set ourselves a goal of each observing 10 birds?
Or increasing the number of species observed within the wetland?
The bonus koala stamp going to an observation of the Grey –Headed Flying fox, a species mentioned as being resident but still remains absent from iNaturalst records.
Australasian Swamphen Porphyrio melanotus (left) and the Pacific Black Duck Anas superciliosa (right) ptoto by Stephen Fricker
We seemed to have achieved at least part of the goal of our day by adding at least 12 species to the park species list, while this included several species of plant and the Stubble Rosegill Volvopluteus gloiocephalus the first one spotted by Thábata, who demonstrated how to do an expert observation (see details below). Using a mirror to get both the gills and the top of the cap in the same shot Peter was quite impressed with her technique.
There are several projects on iNaturalist that are related specifically to fungus. The first is Fungi of South Australia a simple collection project that provides a summary of all fungi observations on iNaturalist within South Australia. This can be useful as a search of the 477 species observed in South Australia may help you to propose an identification. However, many species may appear similar and may be difficult to separated.
A national project Fungimap Australia is slightly different, being a 'traditional' project, users need to join and submit their observations. While this is additional work, it allows for the collection of additional information such as the habitat type and the substrate the fungus is growing on (ie soil, dead wood, live tree mulch etc)
For more information on the origins and purposes of Fungimap and the citizen science data, watch this webinar featuring founder Tom May:
An excited Thábata on our previous trip making an observation of some Gilled Mushrooms, being careful to get some images that include the "Cap', 'Stem' and 'Gills' as these features will assist identification (photos left center Stephen Fricker right Thábata Muta
while the Stubble Rosegill was fantastic I think the observation day was my observation of a Golden Tachinid Fly Microtropesa sinuata (below) which I came across, while it could be claimed that I am biased I will let you be the judge.
I was excited by the addition of the Southern Saltmarsh Mosquito Aedes camptorhynchus (below) a species that as the name suggests comes from the coastal saltmarsh, but can disperse large distances. However, I spotted one sitting in a Bluebush and one was also seen trying to feed on Peter (pictured below). Some great observations for our Mozzie Monitors project Which has both a traditional citizen science project along with Mozzie Monitors Project on iNaturalist. Mozzie Monitors is a citizen science mosquito surveillance program. It aims to increase scientific knowledge about mosquitoes and mosquito-borne diseases amongst the public, and generate information that can be used to improve public health.
