Winter Seacliff excursion, Kingston Park Coastal Reserve
- Stephen Fricker
- Jun 23, 2021
- 2 min read
Just one day before the winter solstice, you would think it would be a terrible day for the beach. But in fact, it was such a nice day it was very hard for us to get a park as the foreshore was again packed with people. with a clear sky it was a fantastic day for the first outing of our third trial, for our project Citizen Science impacts on health and wellbeing outcomes in older South Australians. Our group had a fantastic introduction to discovering the iNaturalist app and learning how to make observations and upload to iNaturalist.
The first stop was the group of willy wagtails that have taken up residence at Tjilbruke spring, a permanent waterbody and important resource prior to European settlement. This spring was a hive of activity with several other bird species present including Red Wattlebird Anthochaera carunculata although no observations could be made as they were high in the trees and difficult to get an image of. This time I also spied some silver eyes, and again it was tricky to get a clear shot of these, unlike the curious Willie Wagtail who was quite
A curious Willie Wagtail Rhipidura leucophrys at Tjilbruke spring © mary-a-crawf
After a short while, we managed to get down to the beach and discovered several mollusc species and other intertidal species. This included several gastropod species, and limpets and even some Seapills.
We also managed to observe several shorline birds as well including a juvenile Pacific Gull Larus pacificus and the ever-present Silver Gulls Chroicocephalus novaehollandiae in addition to a large group of Pied Cormorants Phalacrocorax varius. Overall as a group, we made 34 observations with 23 species being observed, this was an impressive effort as only four observers were included and this was the first outing for most.
Otherwise, the group project on iNaturalist had 157 observations of 103 species made already over the month. a great contribution towards the monthly challenge we have organised for the wider group.
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