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Connecting with nature while you’re social distancing

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The recent social distancing rules necessarily imposed upon us don’t necessarily mean we can no longer connect with nature.

Our Chairman, Jim Pope, offers some great advice here about reducing the spread of weeds at home while we are nationally reducing the spread of Covid-19.

And our colleagues at the Cubberla-Witton Catchments Network (CWCN) have extended MCCG members an invitation to join them in assessing the diversity of our local species via their QuestaGame Challenge.

Assessing what you have on site is a wonderful way of staying connected, a wonderful way of finding out whether our rehabilitation work is yielding results and a wonderful way of figuring out what fauna, flora and fungi we have in Brisbane’s beautiful west.

  • Who can participate? Anyone who has a smart phone, ipad or tablet and knows how to take photos with those devices.
  • Do I need to be able to identify my photos? No, you don’t! You can just submit photos.

Everything uploaded to QuestaGame will end up with the Atlas of Living Australia, so why not become a Citizen Scientist?

Download the free app onto your smartphone, ipad or tablet via Google Play or iTunes. Details on how to play can be found on https://questagame.com/

Once you’re set up, join the Cubberla-Witton Catchments Network Clan. The password to join is ‘possum’.

If you have questions or need some help setting it all up, send Jutta Godwin an email: [email protected]

Now is an ideal time to GET INVOLVED in SOMETHING DIFFERENT about SOMETHING TO LOVE and HAVE SOME FUN!!!

Our thanks to Jutta (CWCN’s Education Officer) and to CWCN for their invitation …. love your work!

All working bees cancelled until further notice

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We, as a nation and community, are facing the greatest challenge of our times.

In the interests of the safety of our members and volunteers and halting the progress of Covid-19, we have taken the decision to temporarily halt all activities.

Habitat Brisbane has advised that working bees on public land must be cancelled until further notice. People may of course still work on their own properties, but only as a family/household group that does not involve neighbours.

Our colleagues at THECA and the Cubberla-Witton Catchment Network (CWCN) have cancelled all activities, and the Brookfield Show, scheduled for 15 May has also been cancelled.

The MCCG appreciates your support of this decision and we wish you the best of health until the situation is resolved and our activities can resume safely.

 

Need something to lift your spirits?

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If you love music and birdlife, check out this short You-Tube video!

It has some lovely footage which has been set to a cleverly crafted symphonic mix of Mozart and birdsong!

Quite delightful and guaranteed to lift your spirits!

Grey Butcher Bird – a bird with a magical song – © Ed Frazer

“See Ya Later” Single Use Plastics

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The Queensland Government has announced plans for legislation to phase out certain plastic products.

In the first stage of the phase-out, plastic straws, stirrers, cutlery and plates would not be allowed to be supplied to the public from July 2021.

Wildlife Queensland is calling for members of the public to back this legislation!

The government statement provides four choices to eliminate these plastic products:

  1. Maintain the status quo
  2. Ban these products from use
  3. Implement a statewide education campaign
  4. Provide more litter collection.

Wildlife Queensland’s position is simply this :  BAN THESE PRODUCTS FROM USE!

For more information and to make a submission to support the ban of single use plastics, please visit the Wildlife Queensland website.

Submissions must be lodged by 15 April 2020. You submission counts!

 

Timely advice from our chairman

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It is likely that we are facing an extended period of home isolation, which will be challenging for all of us.

I suggest we all try to get some exercise by taking frequent walks around the parklands, individually or in family groups, always being mindful of social distancing.

The conditions are currently excellent for outdoor exercise, but also for the growth of weeds!

I have been taking gloves and a pair of secateurs or a folding pruning saw with me on these excursions and cutting back some of the more vigorous weed vines. Balloon vine, glycine and Madeira vine are particularly rampant at the moment, with the latter now in flower. Madeira vine rarely – if ever – produces seed here. It propagates from tubers produced in leaf axils . We always make sure where Madeira vine occurs to collect any stem material or tubers in plastic bags for disposal. Underground tubers should be lifted with care and taken away in bags too.

Madeira vine tubers (courtesy Bryan Hacker)

So take a walk and check for weeds! This way we can all contribute to environmental protection while staying fit and healthy!

New platform for our website

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The MCCG website has recently moved to a new platform.

We are hoping the migration is seamless and that you do not notice any changes.

If you notice anything unexpected or any errors on the site, we’d be grateful if you could send an email to:  [email protected].

We thank you for visiting our website and hope you find the content interesting and useful!

It takes more than trees to sustain birdlife

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We all know that birds love trees.

But in fact they need a lot more than trees in order to secure adequate food, shelter and safe havens for breeding.

Open Jim Butler’s March issue of Feather Fascination in which he shares a story that features the prolonged creation of inappropriate bird habitat.

Magpie Lark feed its young in a tree – photo courtesy Malcolm Frost

Do you have ring-shaped spots on your pawpaws?

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ALERT: Papaya ringspot virus poses a serious threat to  Queensland’s $25 million papaya (or pawpaw, or papaw) industry, which is located mostly in the north.

To protect our papaya production areas, two papaya ringspot biosecurity zones have been created to stop the disease from spreading.

Check the Business Queensland website to see which zone you are in before you move your pawpaw/papaya plants or seeds.

Tilapia

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MCCG Chairman Jim Pope took these photos of fish at the ‘swimming hole’ in the part of Moggill Creek that flows through parklands adjacent to Creekside Street, Kenmore Hills.

The fish are Tilapia, Oreochromis mossambica.

This is an introduced species, declared as noxious under the Fisheries Act. Unfortunately they are now known to be present in most streams in southeast Queensland. The local strain of tilapia is actually a hybrid mix of several tilapia species, but for fishery purposes they are regarded simply as O. mossambica.

Tilapia grow to 40cm in length, but are most common at about 25cm. There is considerable colour variation between males, females and juveniles. They will breed up to enormous concentrations, especially in dams and lagoons, often to the detriment of native fishes. The males develop bright red fin markings when in breeding condition and build nests for spawning in spring and summer.

As a noxious species, it is illegal to keep, exchange, sell, or return Tilapia to the wild. There are heavy penalties for non-compliance and it is recommended that if any are caught that they should be humanely killed and disposed of.

On a camping safari to East Africa, Jim ate Tilapia that had been caught in Lake Victoria and can vouch that they are very good eating!

Many thanks to Jeff Johnson from the Queensland Museum for confirming the identification and providing much of the above information. More information is available on this Department of Agriculture and Fisheries webpage.

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Ticks

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Ticks can be bad in warm humid periods.  Apart from the annoyance of itchy bites, some people are allergic to ticks, so it’s worth knowing more about them, and particularly about removing them!

Note that although the method below has been found to be effective, readers need to satisfy themselves as to the effectiveness and side effects of the method.  MCCG does not claim to have any particular expertise in this field.

The following advice was published in the MCCG Summer Newsletter 2011, and matches that provided here by the Australian Society of Clinical Immunology and Allergy:

There are various ways to manage ticks, once attached, but a few years ago we adopted a method suggested by a doctor at Royal Brisbane Hospital and found it very easy and successful. You simply give the tick a couple of squirts with Aerostart and the tick dies within a few seconds. Very convenient! The earlier you squirt, the better, preferably without touching or poking it first because it will inject less of the foreign protein which causes a reaction. If it’s a small one (an early stage;some people don’t realise they are baby ticks), you don’t need to remove it. Larger ones can be removed with fine forceps once dead (no leg waving after a gentle poke), grasping where the ‘beak’ enters the skin. There’s no urgency to do that.

Aerostart is sold for starting recalcitrant two-stroke motors and can be purchased at SupaCheap Auto and such places.  WARNING: Aerostart is petroleum ether. It is flammable and an anaesthetic. USE IN A VENTILATED PLACE & AWAY FROM FLAME. It works very quickly because the ether dissolves the tick’s waxy cuticle and permeates the tick.

It’s only the female tick that sucks your blood. The males have a smaller rostrum (‘beak’) and you may find them crawling over you looking for a female with which to mate, or to feed on it. The life cycle varies a bit between years but, in general, tiny larvae (pinhead size, with 6 legs) hatch from eggs in late summer/ autumn. After their first feed they moult to a nymph (8 legs) and moult again after a second feed to become an adult. Fully fed females fall off a host in summer as a sac full of hundreds of eggs. If you are unlucky enough to sit where these eggs have hatched, e.g. in long grass, you may collect many dozens of tiny dark tick larvae, all having their first feed.

Aerostart is then magic; spray the affected area and kill the lot.

To avoid getting a tick in the first place, ‘Rid’ seems to be the best repellent.

The Queensland Museum has a downloadable Fact Sheet which can be found on the resources page of their web site (but it advises killing ticks with an insecticide, which is very slow!).


The photo shows a collection of ticks. Most are on their backs. The males are on the right, and their smaller ‘beaks’ can be seen.

Other sources of official advice tend to stick to the use of tweezers or insecticides.  See for instance:

Queensland Health

Department of Entomology Sydney University

Department of Health NSW

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