Upcoming activities

This Sunday the 17th August 2008, there will be the first of a series of workshops at the Flinders University Community Permaculture Garden, From 12-4.
What: maintaining a low maintenance edible garden, making compost from the weeds, feeding worms, planting seedlings and seeds.
Bring: something to share for lunch, boots, wet weather gear
Who: anyone interested
Where: Corner of Sturt and Hub Drive, Sturt Campus, diagonal opposite Aus school of math and science.
ask people at the organic fresh food Co-op on Wednesdays also.
Run: By Chris Day, co-founder of the Permacuture Garden in 2001,
and owner of successful Pemaculture business

Contact Chris for more details
0402 222 480
sunshinegiving@peacmail.com

Last meeting: We joined a meeting with FEAG & the Garden club on 1st March, noon to 1pm, at the Enviro Space (Alex Bondar room, west end of the Undercoft.

Alexander Bondar Room
click to enlarge

Recent activities

Tree Planting Day - Friday 25/7/08, 10am to2pm
in conjunction with Steve Hoare and the Flinders Grounds Staff.

All this rain and cold is only good for a couple of things and one of them is tree planting
This Friday, 25/7/08, (National Schools Tree Planting Day) we will be planting local trees, shrubs and grasses into the open areas created by TAFE along the creek in the Forest (200metres East of the Footbridge between 10am and 2 pm.)
This is an ongoing project (started in 2004) and every year we have had volunteers from ASMS, ILKARI, FEAG and Environmental/Biology studies. This help is relied upon to get the plants in the ground (the real work) and is appreciated by all of Australia and the world (it should be anyway.)
Could you please relay this message to all the environmental warriors who might like to soak up some silence, breath some fresh air, listen to some frogs and running water and in between all that plant some trees or just come for a look
We have around 300 plants this year which will extend the riparian zone West by around 50 metres, we have re-vegetated around 250 metres of this zone since 2004 (pretty good I think).

Lake weeding session, Tues 24/4/07, 12:00 to 2:00pm. We targeted Ash & Elm using the "cut & swab" and also "stem inject" methods . The main area was at the SE end of the lake.

Tree-Popper session: Monday, 2/4/07 East of car park 3.

Tour of the ''high biodiversity area" Fri 9/3/07.

Olive bash: Wed 17/5/06 east of car park 3.

Olive harvesting: Thurs 18/5/06 SW corner of car park 3.

Friday 28th Oct we had a good time erradicating the last of the coolatie grass (South African) from the Western end of the lake.

We also planted some grasses in this area - scented (lemon) grass (Cymbopogon), blue grass (Dichanthium), kangaroo grass (Themeda) - a total of about 50 plants

On Friday 2/9/05 we planted Bursaria, Casaurina and the native hollyhock. It was a beautiful day at the high-biodiversity area on campus and great down at the creek where we planted the hollyhocks.

We even had some music to plant by!

Here is a congratulatory note from Steve Hoare (18th Aug 07):
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The Flinders tree planting day in Forest Creek on 29th July 07 was a great success. We had about 30 dedicated peole from FEAG, ILKARI, ECO TOURISM and the Grounds Maintenance Dept.

Appoximately 850 local shrubs and trees were planted over about 4 hours. This will go along way towards improving our local waterways and increasing biodiversity. The weather was fantastic and we even had music in the Forest (that would be a first).

I would just like to thank everybody involved, not only in the planting but also those involved in spreading the word. Every year we can only propagate as much as we can plant so additional help = more trees in the ground per season. I hope we can continue this in the future.

Could you please circulate this message to the mentioned people. keep up the good work everybody.

Stephen Hoare
Grounds Coordinator

Bird Sightings:

By Peter Pfeiffer

10th September, 2009.

Went out lunch time and had crippling views of a male Golden Whistler a mere 2m away from me sitting in the middle of an Olive bush.  It had just alighted a branch after devouring a juicy grub from a Eucalyptus microcarpa  tree.  The same tree had a Little Raven’s nest in it.   A pair of Grey fantails and Weebills were flying about at the same spot; north of the Bicycle Track.  A Magpie was sitting on a nest in the same general area.   In the Bio area Magpies are feeding two nestlings whilst Red Wattlebirds are busily hawking insects and feeding juveniles... Good views of Superb Fairy-wrens down by the creek in the Bio area with Striated Thornbills higher up the slopes.  A Kookaburra was also seen in this Woodland.  A young Koala was seen yesterday in the Native Flora Park.

A great time to be out and about at the moment.

23rd April, 2009.

There is currently a Yellow Spoonbill on the Lake.  This is rarely seen.  In fact it may be a first for the University.

22 species seen lunch-time today, 28th June '07.
Good sightings were :
Bronzewings
Tawny Frogmouths ( 2 )
Mistletoebird
and the highlight a *Tawny-crowned Honeyeater* ! This bird was a ' lifer ' for me ( i.e. I have never seen it before.)

4th June, 2007 - Saw a few good birds lunch-time today between showers.

• Kookaburra
• Grey Fantails
• Grey Currawongs
• Red Wattlebird
• Eastern Spinebill, juvenile
• White-naped Honeyeater - the first record for Flinders Uni.
• Superb Fairy-wren
• Striated Thornbill
• Tawny Frogmouth - 2 still in same tree as a week or so ago
• Adelaide Rosella
• Eastern Rosella
• Saw a Crested Shrike-tit at Happy Valley on the week-end. A good sighting for the Adelaide hills. These birds are thought to be declining throughout their range here.

24th May, 2007 - At lunch-time today a quick walk in the Flora Park produced a party of 4-5 White-browed Babblers and the Bio. area showed 2 Tawny Frogmouths.

18th May, 2006 - A Hoary-headed grebe was seen on the lake this morning and I heard a Little Grassbird calling from the reeds.

4th May, 2006 - I have seen an adult and two juvenile Tawny Frogmouths three times in the past week or so. They are giving really good views at the moment. I have also seen twice in the last week what appear to be juvenile Golden Whistler's in the Biodiversity area. I saw three today and one a week ago. Grey Fantails are also everywhere at the moment. Bronzewings are about as well.

Olive oil:

We can demonstrate how you can extract the oil from your collected olives, at home, with minimum hardware and some home-made bits. Imagine that - (almost) free oil for you! - next session Thu 25th May, 06.

Bridal Creeper Rust inspection

• Revegetation of  the Flinders University Lake

• Urban Forest Biodivesity Programme

• Local seed collection & propagation

• Seminars and social events

• Introduced car pooling to Flinders University

• Expanded paper recycling in the Uni and Medical Centre

• Introduced juice and milk carton recycling to the University

(more information under 'flora and fauna on campus')

• Great close up views ( within a metre of me ) of a Grey Fantail and a pair of Spotted Pardalotes.
• Goldfinch
• Grey Currawong
• A pair of Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike
• A pair of big, healthy Masked Lapwings by the lake.
• and an Australian Ibis at the lake a few weeks ago.

Keep on birding,
Peter.

And on Wed, 08 Jun 2005 :

• There were 45 Sulphur-crested Cockatoos on the SW corner of the Physical Sciences building roof this morning at 8:20 am.  I saw about a dozen feeding on bulbs ? or something just below the surface of the soil adjacent to the Earth Sciences Building last week. They have left shallow scrapings all about the place. Natures way of aerating the soil ?
• An Eastern Spinebill was spotted high up in one of the Bay Trees by the Chem Labs this morning as well.