Dry Creek Trail, at Walkley Heights was selected as the third in our series of urban walks, this park was chosen as few Adelaidians seem to know it exists and are often surprised when they arrive. You may be surprised to know that this park is one of the most reliable parks I have come across to reliably see the Laughing Kookaburra Dacelo novaeguineae I have seen several individuals on each visit to the park. The group were keen to try and see some individuals while on our walk, will we see them? In fact, prior to our visit, the three most common species present in the park were the Rainbow Lorikeet Trichoglossus moluccanus, the Laughing Kookaburra Dacelo novaeguineae and the Common Sow-Thistle Sonchus oleraceus.
The section of the Dry Creek Trail at Walkley Heights is situated between Bridge Road and Walkleys Road historical buildings and structures have survived within the park from the days when the quarries were worked by inmates of Yatala Labour Prison, and date back to the early years of the Adelaide colony. These include the Yatala Powder Magazine, Blacksmith’s Shop, several guard lookout posts and a cottage, which remains on the former R M Williams property.
The three most observed species post excursion Rainbow Lorikeet Trichoglossus moluccanus, the Laughing Kookaburra Dacelo novaeguineae and the Noisy Miner Manorina melanocephala.
The challenge for the walk was to increase the number of species observed within the park, with only 83 species was recorded within the Dry Creek park before our adventure. Our group managed to achieve this with 96 species now recorded within the park. This increase was managed with only 46 additional observations, this was an impressive increase. One of the highlights of the walk was an Aedes alboannulatus trying to have a feed on me (below ©Thabata), unfortunately, the grey top made taking a photo quite difficult.
On our excursion, what excited everybody else, and increased the species count was the abundance of fungi in the park, check out the observations here, maybe you can help with the identification?. With several species that I could not recognise observed on the day, this highlights the variation in biodiversity over the course of a year. As discussed on the day there are two projects on iNaturalist that are concerned with fungi, these projects are ;
Fungimap Australia is a traditional project lead by a group of professional and amateur mycologists who would like to contribute location and species data of fungi to Fungimap Australia and the Atlas of Living Australia. This project requires some additional information like habitat and growing media. worthwhile contributing to if you are keen on fungi. For more information on Fungimap, please visit the main web page: https://fungimap.org.au/
Fungi of South Australia is a simple collection project for all South Australian fungi observations, created by cobaltducks like so many other fantastic projects. this is a useful project for checking the verified species observed within the state. at the time of writing the have been 452 species recorded.
Interesting only a single Lepidoptera was observed and a caterpillar at although what a wonderful sight! The group were unlucky to observe any of the promised Laughing Kookaburra's which I had observed on every previous visit to this park.
Michael Smith (above ©Stephen Fricker) taking an observation of a caterpillar (below © Thabata, all rights reserved) on a red gum, along Dry Creek.
