Woody Weeds Working Party – 3rd Take (21 July 2024 1:00pm to 4:00pm)

Friends of Mount Majura (FoMM) will host a working party to control woody weeds in the endangered grassy woodlands of Mt Majura’s and Mt Ainslie’s west slopes; this will be our third woody weed working party in a row. We almost finished work to remove woody weeds at the “Common” except a few remaining woody weeds closer to the power line easement. Now we will tackle those and then move north-east across Hancocks Road where we will find more invasive Cootamundra wattles and other evergreen woody weeds. Click on FoMM’s Woody Weed Gallery to view images of common woody weeds that occur on Mt Majura.

Where: Meet at the nature park entrance off Kellaway Street Car Park at the southern end of Hackett; view this map for the meeting point and the red outlined work area.
Novice weeders are encouraged to come at 1 o’clock for an introduction of the target weeds and the safe handling of equipment and herbicide. You will be working in pairs or small groups.

We will be taking out the weeds with secateurs, saws and loppers, then applying herbicide. If you don’t wish to apply herbicide you can be the ‘spotter’ or you can cut the weeds or map the treated areas. Wear clothes which cover your limbs and sturdy shoes. Bring garden gloves if you have them, sun protection and drinking water. We provide gloves, tools and a delicious homemade cake for an afternoon snack. All welcome; no experience necessary.

Information on garden plants that become environmental weeds is available at our working parties.

Winter Bird Walk: Sunday 23rd June at the Fair, North Watson

The bird walk went reasonably well without our knowledgeable walk leader, Peter Miller who was ill.

All 21 people began the walk with a botany / ecology tour led by Max who is a guide at the ANBG (Australian National Botanic Gardens) ably assisted by two keen birders from the Canberra Ornithologists Group. Apart from learning about Majura’s trees shrubs, grasses and weeds, we saw wood ducks on the dam, and heard sulphur-crested cockatoos, crimson rosellas, magpies, currawongs, and noisy miners.

We detoured under a fence into a soft green grassy valley where we watched a large flock of blue wrens flitting and hopping in and out of a tangled shrub. Behind us was a male scarlet robin moving between native cherry trees and sitting prominently in the sunshine on branches and sticks.  Further up on a Eucalypt hill were one or two red wattle birds, a few grey fantails and in the tree tops, mixed feeding flocks. At this point, we would have liked help from Peter with identifying birds by their calls, and silhouettes, but a couple of people knew enough to fairly confidently identify some of those birds which included striated pardalotes, weebills, and there was much debate about what all the other small silhouetted birds were. In the distance we heard a few yellow tailed black cockatoos, and through the trees heard a butcherbird calling.

Report and photo by Jenni Marsh, walk co-ordinator for FoMM.

For more information on events and maps of the meeting locations, see the FoMM website here.

Weed Management Project

As mentioned in June, FoMM has one of the 2024-25 ACT Environment Grants for a project titled Landscape Restoration Weed Management at The Fair Watson. A plan produced by an ecologist from the Office of Nature Conservation will guide our work with St John’s Wort and the three worst grass weeds, African Love Grass, Chilean Needle Grass and Serrated Tussock.  For more information and to see the core of FoMM’s submission click here.

Tackling Tussock in Teams

Each Monday from 9:30 a group of volunteers meet at the North Watson nature park entrance near Tay and Ian Nicol Streets to enjoy a morning around The Fair project site and surrounds, improving the environment for our native wildflowers and wildlife by reducing the numbers of invasive species.

Lately we’ve been working as a team to search for and kill Serrated Tussock (ST) Nassella trichotoma plants by treating them with herbicide. Where they are small or there is just one or two isolated plants they can be pulled or dug out, but large tussocks are cut and then sprayed. This is laborious but avoids damaging native plants growing with the tussocks.  Areas with many tussocks but few native plants are sprayed with glyphosate herbicide by one of the team who holds a chemical certificate.  Winter is a good time to tackle tussock, before it produces its fluffy seed heads.  The last part of the team work is mapping where we have been so we can check in the future for further tussock plants which we know will germinate from the seed bank. Team work is an enjoyable way to spend a sometimes chilly winter morning with the warmth of good company. Newcomers are always welcome to join us at 9:30am at the Tay St entrance for Monday@The Fair!

As part of the Weed Management Project we have budgeted to buy suitable seed to sow into areas where dense patches of ST have been removed.  For more information on ST see here.

Wallabies

There are two species of wallaby found on Mt Majura, both rather shy and not often seen or photographed.  You won’t be likely to see one while you are jogging with friends or walking the dog on the major tracks.  But if you are wandering along a minor track away from the houses along the boundary, quietly doing some bird watching or weed spotting, you may be lucky to almost bump into one, as one FoMMer did in July last year – see his photo below.

The two species are Red-Necked Wallaby Notamacropus rufogriseus and Swamp Wallaby Wallabia bicolor. Swamp Wallaby does not live in swamps – it has a swampy odour. Like Eastern Grey Kangaroos, these wallabies are more active at night and early and late in the day; they spend the days resting under trees. Roos graze on grasses and you will often see large numbers of them in a mob.  These wallabies browse on shrubs mainly and are solitary creatures. If you see native cherry trees with a beautifully trimmed skirt of branches at a certain height all round, that could be the work of wallabies.

For more information on these wallabies have a look in Wikipedia.

Waterhouse Natural Science Art Prize

For an inspiring, beautiful and diverse exhibition go see the Waterhouse Prize entries. It’s free and on daily until 27 October at the National Archives of Australia. Parking is also free on weekends. But check the café opening hours as it closes early in the afternoons.

One of the loveliest artworks is about the Mongarlowe Mallee, a local plant from the Braidwood area with only six ancient plants known in the wild.

An Unusual Find

Jenni features again as she discovered a strange object lurking in the everlastings while working with the ST team.

Obviously someone has done the wrong thing by flying the drone in Mt Majura Nature Reserve and this one is a hazard even when wrecked as it has damaged lithium batteries which could have caused a fire.