Oaklands Park in March

Warriparinga is located on a 3.5-hectare reserve on the corner of Sturt and Marion Roads, Sturt (commonly known as Laffer's Triangle), and our second location in our series of 8 walks in the current trial for the new Plan for Ageing Well in South Australia 2020-2025. The wetland is 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".

This 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 119 species recorded in the park prior to our adventure including a total of 45 species of bird and 31 species of insect (see the links to species lists below).

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Australasian Swamphen Porphyrio melanotus (left) and the Pacific Black Duck Anas superciliosa (right) ptoto by Stephen Fricker

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Before setting out we decided on a goal, a challenge!

Doubling the number of observations (previously 694) seemed a bit of a challenge and beyond our capacity so we set ourselves a goal of each observing 10 birds?

Or a new species?

The bonus koala stamp going to an observation of the Grey –Headed Flying fox, a species mentioned as being resident but not on iNaturalst.

So how did we do?

We seemed to have achieved at least part of our goal by adding 9 species to the park species list, while this included several species of insects mostly observed by Pete, this list also included a Rufous Night-Heron Nycticorax caledonicus a great find by Pete! This was very exciting and in addition to the turtle, a great conclusion to the walk

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Rufous Night-Heron Nycticorax caledonicus observed by © bigpete

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Current Species list for Oaklands Wetland and Reserve, South Australia

Birds Mammals Reptiles Plantae Insecta Fungi