Our walk last week was very interesting with only a few members of our group aware of G.S. Kingston Park! so where is Kingston park, it's not the suburb but the part of the parklands surrounding Adelaide. Specifically, G.S. Kingston Park is bounded by West Terrace, Anzac Highway, the Keswick rail line, and Sir Donald Bradman Drive. The area includes West Terrace Cemetery in Park 23 is Adelaide's oldest and Australia's first military cemetery. To the north of the Cemetery is a small wetland and a larger area that has been revegetated.
G.S. Kingston Park has been given a Kaurna name Wirrarninthi meaning to become green and forested. The area has recently been revegetated, with trees reaching maturity and supporting an extensive understory in addition the park contains a constructed wetland the 'Wirrarninthi Wetland' which is fed by water from the western side of the city. We explored the edge of the Wirrarninthi Wetland and heard many frogs calling, I discussed the local citizen science app Frog spotter with the participants, which is run by FrogWatch SA, their site has many resources I encourage you to investigate these.
Many invertebrates such as bee flies and butterflies, can be expected in the warmer weather although with the cool weather of July we found many Fungi.
Above left Jaenette and Thábata investigating an interesting stump with Gymnopilus sp. (centre observed by © Thabata) and a beautiful gilled mushroom (left observed by ©hillsy1954)
Interestingly one of the most observed organisms in the park is the Tau Emerald Hemicordulia tau this is unusual as it is commonly a bird as they tend to be more charismatic. However, being winter no dragonflies were observed. Despite the cool weather and the soup like fog, It was a great day. We managed to knock increase the species observed in the park from 150 to an impressive 165 species, with only 82 further observations within the park. This demonstrates what can be achieved with a little enthusiasm and a camera or smartphone.