Riverland BioBlitz: what we found

Survey highlights of the Riverland BioBlitz included sightings of zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata), peregrine falcon (Falco (Hierofalco) peregrinus), red-necked avocet (Recurvirostra novaehollandiae) and a yellow-faced whip snake (Demansia psammophis).

The diversity of life in the water was high and demonstrates the positive impact of watering events at Martin Bend.

View a short video of the highlights here.

Number of different species recorded

• Birds - 58
• Fish - 5
• Reptiles - 2
• Frogs - 1
• Macroinvertebrates - 29
• Plants - 4

Total - 129

Riverland BioQuest competition

Renmark Paringa Landcare ran the Riverland BioQuest competition as part of the Riverland Bioblitz.

"The Riverland BioQuest inspired people from all over the Riverland to pick up their phones and head out to their local environment from May 19 to June 10 to identify the different life around them using the QuestaGame application.

"A few of the competition prize winners came together this evening to celebrate their accomplishments. 492 sightings and 2,123 identifications were made through the Bioquest, resulting in 195 species being mapped in the Riverland!" said Myles Fauser, Environment Officer Renmark Paringa Landcare and Renmark Paringa Council.

Frogwatch SA

In May and June 2018, our incredible frog experts Steve and Reggie ran highly entertaining frog call identification workshops in Mount Barker and Goolwa.

We send a huge thank you to all citizen scientist participants who braved chilly evenings to attend the workshops and learn new skills. We would also like to thank all frogwatchers who continue to survey and report their frog-findings via the Frogspotter app. The data is always appreciated!

To watch videos of the workshops and learn how to record and ID frog calls for FrogwatchSA click here

Participate in the FrogwatchSA FrogSpotter competition to win great prizes, it is running until 20 December 2018. For more information click here 

Bird surveys by kayak

The Riverland kayaking survey at Gurra Gurra Creek, Bookpurnong Cliffs was enjoyed by all. We recorded a total of 34 bird species, including highlights such as a foraging swamp harrier, both species of spoonbill and high numbers of darters. Thanks to all participants, Kym and Karen at Canoe Adventures and our birding experts Peter and Helga.

Changes to citizen science birding in the South Australian Murray-Darling Basin

Bird survey training and workshops run by Natural Resources SAMDB will not be run this spring due to a reduction in available funding for the Citizen Science Program in 2018-19.

We thank everyone who has been involved in this program and contributed to the Natural Resources SAMDB bird database over the past 4 years. Many people have put in a fantastic effort to map bird distribution across the region and enter the data through the online bird portal. This information will not be lost as all data uploaded to the bird portal will be stored on the Biological Database of South Australia and made publicly available through NatureMaps.

We encourage people to continue with their bird watching efforts and join other community bird watching programs. Birds SA is the state’s foremost birding organisation and regularly runs fieldtrips within the Murray Valley (and across the state). Visit their website at www.birdssa.asn.au for information on membership, field trips and contacts. Birds SA is now affiliated with Birdlife Australia where you can share bird sighting at a national scale.

It is important to note that the SAMDB Community Monitoring Bird Portal is hosted through the Atlas of Living Australia using their old system, and will be decommissioned in the next 6 months.

We encourage all SAMDB birders to transition to the national Birdlife Bird Conservation portal. This is Australia’s leading resource for the collection and storage of bird distribution data. This information is incredibly valuable and is greatly appreciated by Birdlife and the SAMDB region.

We will continue to keep track of our local bird species by accessing this data. Birdata has Iphone and android apps or you can enter bird sightings on the website.

The very popular Birds in Backyards spring survey is now on. To get involved, sign up to Birdlife Australia’s data portal Birdata here.

If you would like information about any of the changes to the SAMDB citizen science program then please contact katie.irvine@sa.gov.au or sylvia.clarke@sa.gov.au.

MEGA Murray-Darling Microbat Project

The 2017-18 bat season came to an end in May and we were astounded at the response to the MEGA Murray-Darling Microbat Project.  Thank you so much to everyone who attended a bat night and undertook a bat survey.  We had over 250 surveys submitted across our region; in people’s back yards, on their properties and in local parks and reserves.  Look at the wonderful spread of recorded locations!

This first season required some experimentation to perfect the logistics of such a large scale citizen science project.  Thank you for your patience while waiting to get your results back. Work is still progressing on the identification process for the bat species from the call files and matching them with the site data on BioCollect, but people should start to receive results very soon.

We will be running another bat season starting in late November and we’d love people to survey the same places again, as well as add new sites to our database.  The identification process will be finalised by then and you should get your results much quicker.

A very busy spring of waterbug bioblitzing!

The Waterbug Bioblitz Summary for the Angas and Finniss Rivers is now available to download! Click here

This easy-to-read report explains everything you need to know about our Waterbug Bioblitzes in these rivers. Take a look at the waterbug (macroinvertebrate) and water chemistry results, and read about how collected information from volunteers and aquatic ecologists is used.

In the Marne River Catchment, the community have revitalised Waterwatch monitoring in collaboration with the SAMDB citizen science and the Flows for the Future team. 

An enthusiastic group of locals turned up to the training session in May 2018 and continued the Marne Saunders WaterWatch legacy. These dedicated volunteers will collect water quality and water flow information at the sites throughout the year, giving us a great picture of what is happening throughout the catchment and measuring the impact of the low flow devices over time.

We will run an intensive day of Waterbug Bioblitz for the Marne Catchment on 23 October 2018. 

Thank you to the Finniss River Catchment Group who continue to monitor and report on water quality through the Waterwatch program. The spring Angas-Finniss Waterbug Bioblitz will be conducted with aquatic ecologists and community on 9 November 2018. 

We were thrilled with the community enthusiasm for the National Waterbug Blitz ID training workshops at Laratinga Wetland and Martin Bend Wetland in September. 

Thank you to waterbug expert John Gooderam who came all the way from Tasmania to run the workshops, also thanks to Mount Barker District Council and Murray Mallee Regional Science Hub for partnering with us to host the events.

If you would like to get involved in the National Waterbug Blitz then consider borrowing a waterbug collection kit, available from the:
Mount Barker Natural Resources office katie.irvine@sa.gov.au
and
Berri Natural Resources Centre cindy.kakoschke@sa.gov.au

National Science Week events wrap up

In August 2018, Natural Resources SAMDB hosted two popular events to celebrate National Science Week.

The Fungi Film Festival at Ukaria, Mount Barker Summit and Scinema Short Film Festival at Chaffey Theatre, Renmark.

We watched high quality short films from the International Science Film Awards, and were spellbound by the winning feature film The Kingdom: How Fungi Shaped Our World.

Presentations by citizen science practitioners about FungiMap and EchidnaCSI provided food for thought and opportunities to get involved with citizen science.

The 2018 Citizen Science Awards for Outstanding Achievement were presented at these events. Award winners were:

• Ute Wegener and Steve Scown (Paiwalla Wetland) from the Lower Murray region
• Declan May and Nicholas DeMartino from the Riverland.

Well done to the winners.

Junior recipient Declan May is 8 years old and is passionate about contributing in every way he can to conservation and learning more about nature. He even organises guest speakers for his school! Awesome work Declan.

Tolderol Wetlands open day and other events

Come and join us (and the birds) at the Tolderol Game Reserve Wetlands on Sunday 18 November.

The delivery of environmental water to Tolerol is a community-driven project providing significant habitat for shorebirds  that have travelled the globe.

For more information click here

To stay up to date with other events in the region that may be on interest check our website events page from time to time. 

https://www.naturalresources.sa.gov.au/samurraydarlingbasin/get-involved/events

Share your experience

The Natural Resources SA Murray-Darling Basin team is always interested in your stories and experiences. If you are willing to share your story in an upcoming edition of the Citizen Science eNewsletter, please contact us.