NGT Out and About in October – Photos from the Field

Posted at 30 Oct 2023 at 11:19h in News, Photo of the Month by
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During our recent Walker Swamp Celebration event (also the last stop of NGT’s Nature Festival Grand Tour of Ecological Restoration) the group got to explore the newly acquired land addition at Walker Swamp. The area of Manna Gums is spectacular, and now under our permanent protection. The group enjoyed discovering the area, and look we found orchids, along with as a few other special finds in Walker Swamp – check out the pics below.

Guests exploring the newly acquired Manna Gum area at Walker Swamp. Photo by Ann McGregor
Guests photographing a native orchid. Photo by Ann McGregor
Spotted Marsh Frog. Photo supplied by Ann McGregor
Utricularia sp. Photo supplied by Ann McGregor

Another part of our Grand Tour of Ecological Restoration for the Nature Festival of SA was a tour of Oaklands Wetland in suburban Adelaide, to find out about native fish breeding and how the wetlands naturally clean polluted storm water.

City of Marion’s Glynn Ricketts with
one of the Southern Purple-spotted Gudgeons
Michael Hammer, Sylvia Zukowski and special assistant Charlie checking for Southern Purple-spotted Gudgeon and other native fish from our sampling nets
Another resident of Oaklands Wetland – a long-necked turtle

Exploring Stipiturus Conservation Park, near Mount Compass, south of Adelaide, was second on the list on Day 1 of NGT’s Grand Tour for the Nature Festival. We saw some thriving heathland restoration (below left), planted to support the critically endangered Mount Lofty Ranges subspecies of the Southern Emu-wren, a little sleepy lizard and some of NGT’s hydrological restoration works (below right), where agricultural drains have been filled in to restore groundwater in the swamp. In the photo below (right) you can see the regenerating swamp vegetation on top of an infilled drain.

Tessa Roberts