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Friends of Mount Painter News October 2017 ISSN 2207-0869
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FRIENDS OF MOUNT PAINTER NEWS
OCTOBER 2017
For more information about anything in this newsletter: contact
Sarah Hnatiuk on 6251 2228 or 0424 263 565 or at
[email protected]
OCTOBER WORK PARTY
Date: Sunday, 15 October
When: 9am – 12 noon
Location: Southern slopes of the hill
To reach the location: Enter reserve between 20 and 22 Booth
Crescent, Cook, and take the dirt track half left from there,
through the gate and to the first gully
Tasks: Cutting out woody weeds (Sweet Briar, Hawthorn,
Ornamental Plums)
Wear: Sturdy footwear, long-sleeved shirt and trousers to
protect you from the sun, cold and prickly weeds
Bring: Some drinking water, a mug and some food to share for
morning tea
All tools provided. No experience needed.
November and December’s work parties are on Sunday, 19 November
and Sunday, 10 December.
BUTTERFLY WALK ON MOUNT PAINTER ON SUNDAY, 26 NOVEMBER
The walk will be led by Suzi Bond, author of the ‘Field Guide to
the Butterflies of the Australian Capital Territory’, published
last year. More details will be provided later.
Photos snapped on Mount Painter by Debbie Saunders
mailto:[email protected]
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Friends of Mount Painter News October 2017 ISSN 2207-0869
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RECENT HAPPENINGS ON MOUNT PAINTER
Protecting Drooping Sheoaks Four hundred Drooping Sheoaks were
planted in July 2016 in two locations on the hill. Over the winter
Friends of Mount Painter and the Green Army have been replacing the
small tree guards round them with taller ones that will provide
better protection for the small trees. With 87% of those 400 having
survived their first year of life, this is a big job. We hope they
will continue to grow well and escape being infected with the borer
which is doing much damage to the small forest of Sheoaks planted
at the Arboretum.
One of the Green Army groups that helped us was the Indigenous
Green Army. Many of the projects on which they worked were on
significant Indigenous sites, with Wally Bell, a Ngunawal elder,
leading some of this work and telling them about the local
Aboriginal culture. In the photo (left) we see some of the members
of the Indigenous Green Army with the Mount Painter’s scar tree,
from which bark was removed to make a canoe.
Planting Yellow Burr Daisy With help from Friends of Aranda
Bushland, we planted 100 Yellow Burr Daisy seedlings on the eastern
slope of the hill at our August work party. They were grown from
seed collected not far from where we planted them. You can see some
of the seven clumps of 14-15 seedlings in green guards near the
dirt path running from the summit towards the horse paddocks. We
were greatly helped by Ranger Phil’s auguring the holes for us. The
planting went so quickly that we were able to go on and remove a
lot of Verbascum rosettes as well. Many thanks to all who came!
Auguring holes for the daisies (above) and making up tree guards
(left)
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Friends of Mount Painter News October 2017 ISSN 2207-0869
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Planting and weeding
Recording and assessing the condition of the reserve
Duanne White, Associate Professor of at the University of
Canberra, has provided us with images of the reserve taken
by
a drone. This is a useful record of the vegetation and the
extent of erosion in 2017 which provides a baseline with
which
future images can be compared.
Checking gully erosion
Landscape ecologist, David Tongway, has recently visited
three of Mount Painter’s gullies and pronounced them in
good health with relatively little work needed to continue
helping to extend the grass cover of the gully walls. The
photos show him providing advice to Ranger Phil Selmes,
who will be working with a team of Radford College
students in Stromlo Gully.
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Friends of Mount Painter News October 2017 ISSN 2207-0869
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Parkcare display at Jamison Plaza Over three days, 8-10
September, Friends of Mount Painter joined the Parkcare groups from
neighbouring reserves in a display of photos of, and information
about, ourselves and our reserves. Many people stopped to look and
pick up brochures and some to chat. A special feature of our
display was photos of Macquarie Primary School students on Mount
Painter and the art they produced in response to their visits to
the reserve.
CIT students’ survey of old trees on Mount Painter CIT
environmental science students have provided Friends of Mount
Painter with a report on their survey of the old trees in the
section of the hill that became part of the reserve in 1996. The
survey focused on collecting information about all the trees that
were left in the area after 150 years of use by the European
settlers.
The students counted about 150 large trees.
Three-quarters were still alive; the majority being Yellow
Box.
Many of the living trees showed signs of ageing; more than half
had lost large limbs. The students estimated that there were 1.78km
of logs lying on the ground.
About half of the large dead trees were still standing and half
had fallen.
Thirty-nine trees (28 living and 11 dead) had at least one
hollow.
Mistletoe was growing on 14 trees.
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Friends of Mount Painter News October 2017 ISSN 2207-0869
www.ginninderralandcare.org.au (go to ‘Landcare’, then ‘Landcare
Groups’)
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ROCK TURNING ETIQUETTE
If you are turning over rocks to see what lives beneath, please
remember to restore them to their original position so that the
animals living there are disturbed as little as possible. Through
forgetfulness, ignorance or lack of concern, a recent visitor to
the hill left a trail of damage on some of the hill slopes.
MACQUARIE PRIMARY SCHOOL STUDENTS ON MOUNT PAINTER AGAIN
Several classes from Macquarie Primary School visited Mount
Painter last term, each group exploring further than the last one
as the teachers experience what the reserve has to offer and how
much the kids can cope with (which may be more than the adults
would like!). Among the excitements were wombat holes and
‘fossils’, later identified as kangaroo vertebrae.
Compiled by Sarah Hnatiuk
