Today was the Annual Koala Count in Narrandera. I have been every year for the last several years, except when it’s been called off because of rain or flooding, and as I did last year, I decided the Count could be April’s official field visit.
This month I visited another precinct of the Murrumbidgee Valley National Park: Berry Jerry.
Berry Jerry is located along the Sturt Highway between Wagga Wagga and Narrandera, and like many of the reserves in the area is predominantly River Red Gum (Eucalyptus camaldulensis) woodland, with a creek passing through it that feeds into the Murrumbidgee River. There’s a highway rest stop with toilet facilities located just outside the entrance, so it’s a good spot for a day trip. You can park in the rest area or drive into the reserve itself.
Last week I needed to visit Cowra for a day, so I took the opportunity to stop into Conimbla National Park for a while before heading home. Cowra is outside of the area identified as ‘Riverina’ on the map on my About page, but it’s within the federal electoral division of Riverina, so I decided that was good enough to count as a Riverina site.
Conimbla National Park is very pretty, prepare yourself for lots of general scenery shots. Also pictures of bark; I’m intrigued by the variety of colours and textures of bark, and there was a lot of very artistic bark on display in the portion of the Park I visited.
This weekend my parents invited me to visit Canberra with them. After a look around the National Museum of Australia, we headed out to a night tour at Mulligans Flat.
Mulligans Flat Woodland Sanctuary is an area of remnant Box Gum Grassy Woodland that is being managed to conserve and restore the entire ecological community at all levels. Non-native predators are actively excluded, rabbits are gradually being eradicated from within the reserve, and several locally-extinct native species have been reintroduced over the past few years, including Eastern Bettongs, Eastern Quolls, New Holland Mice, Bush Stone Curlews, and others. There are a large number of other native species living within the reserve as well.
I believe I have previously mentioned that this has been an unusually wet year – well it’s gotten wetter. All the creeks across the region are over-top, as is the river in several places, and there is so much standing water in paddocks just from rainfall that it’s impossible to tell if you’re looking at flooding from a waterway or not.
I was tempted to just drive around and take photos of all the water everywhere for this month’s field trip, but in the end I decided to head to Narrandera Common, so you can compare this month’s photos with ones I’ve taken there on previous visits.
With both Bundidgerry Creek and the Murrumbidgee River to contend with, Narrandera Common currently looks like this:
August has seen the return of the sun (well, on and off), so I decided to take advantage of a mostly-sunny afternoon to make another attempt at visiting Galore Hill.
You may recall that I attempted to visit Galore Hill in March this year, and failed to actually get there – it turns out it’s much easier to find if you drive down the right road.
Every April the Narrandera Koala Regeneration Committee and the National Parks and Wildlife Service organise Narrandera’s Annual Koala Count. I was told recently that this is one of the longest-running citizen science wildlife monitoring programs in Australia (or maybe just the longest-running koala-specific one – possibly both, I’m not sure). I don’t remember how long it’s been going, but I think somewhere around 20 or 25 years.
I spent February rushing around all over the place, meaning I visited multiple locations but none for very long, so here is a collection of photos from several of the places I visited this month.
I already posted this earlier in the month as an incidental sighting, but for anyone who missed it, here’s a Bearded Dragon (Pogona barbata) I found in Kindra Forest at Coolamon.
I briefly visited Kindra Forest at Coolamon yesterday. I didn’t get much of a chance to walk around, but I did spy this Eastern Bearded Dragon (Pogona barbata) catching some sun.
