Bilbo is in my pond!!
All photographs by Erica Essig.
30 October 2012 – Erica reports;
- We officially have our first weaver nest in the gum trees at the SBA entrance, this has been an on-going project and it seems the work finally paid off!
- We found an illegal pathway leading to the kelp gull colony and we barricaded it immediately, motor bike tracks were found here and this is very worrying considering the nests in the sand.
- Water Hyacinth has been removed from P3 small triangle and we have some very welcome visitors using the pan! I have recorded South African Shellducks, Flamingo juveniles, Stints and Avocets so far! Its very exciting to see the progression of the pan and the new guests.
- We have been working hard removing invasive species, namely vicium, echium, lavaterea, rooikranz and port jackson. A lot of our time is spent on doing hyacinth follow up checks every week. This is an essential part to the water hyacinth removal and we dedicate 2 days a week checking the pans that have had the initial hyacinth removal.
- We launched the WHB (water hyacinth boom) after repairing it. Unfortunately the boom broke after a week. Due to the hippo hiding out in S1 we are unable to retrieve all the pipes and the majority of them are floating around in the hyacinth infested pan! Very sad, as its now summer and the hyacinth is multiplying rapidly. We are abandoning the WHB until winter. It is not feasible to try and save the pan now as we lack the work force. The hyacinth reproduces too quickly in summer and without a dedicated excavator and manual labour the efforts are wasted.
See what we have been doing this month.
