Counting down, just 1 hour to go to the Great Southern Bioblitz
Hi everybody, just thought I would throw out a reminder that ALL forms of life count towards the Bioblitz tally. Here are a few tips to help economize on your time and make the most of your observations.
Birds and frogs do not need photographs. A simple recording of the sound is enough to identify most species. Try to record sounds that are clear and obvious without too much background disturbance. It is certainly a lot quicker than trying to chase the wildlife down for a picture, especially if you are using your phone for photographs.
Try and economize!!!
If you are recording a morning chorus for birds or a cacophony of frogs at a wetland, you can submit the same recording multiple times to account for each species that can be heard within the recording. Often birds and frogs can be heard together too.
When photographing bryophytes such as mosses, lichens, liverworts etc. you will commonly encounter multiple species within each photograph. Again you can submit this photograph multiple times to account for each species in the frame rather than taking lots of pics in the field.
When photographing pollinators, you can often get enough of the plant in the frame to make an identification of that too, or multiple species of pollinator, again just submit the photograph as many times as you need to capture all the biodiversity.
When photographing reptiles, mid morning is best as they will be out sunning themselves, warming up for the day.
Many birds are most active and obvious at dawn, dusk (which are the best times to photograph them as the light is good) or just after rain. The best places for bird activity are around wetlands, dense thickets and open woodland habitats, but there are plenty to photograph in our backyards.
Move slowly!
Search for invertebrates slowly in foliage as they have a tendency to move to the opposite side of a branch or leaf out of view or fly away when they detect fast movements or your breath. Search among clusters of flowers or watch and wait around flowering plants from known insect attracting families such as Asteraceae, Liliaceae, Orchidaceae, Lamiaceae or Myrtaceae.
There are many species that can be found under bark or in ground debris and natural mulches. Please be very considerate of the inhabitants when searching these areas and be mindful of the dangers of rolling over logs and rocks. Do not remove all the loose bark from any one tree, simply peeling a few pieces back far enough to observe some of the inhabitants before they scamper for cover again usually gives enough of an idea of what lives there.
Dip netting with fine gauge nets will reveal a myriad of aquatic macro-invertebrates that can be photographed and uploaded.
Setting up a moth trap at night time will bring in neighborhood moths and other invertebrates to the light source. A bright light below a white sheet draped over some kind of frame will suffice. The moths (and other nocturnal invertebrates) will land and settle on the sheet to be photographed. Best to choose a dark position and set up just after nightfall for a few hours of thrilling mothy entertainment. Best on warm, humid nights, but provided there is little wind any night at this time of year will attract something.
Nocturnal mammals can be recorded using sound recordings or with camera traps (trail cams).
As far as plants go, there are no excuses for boosting your tallies with these as even a front lawn is loaded with species, mostly weedy, but still important for biodiversity. Everywhere you go, there are plants. The most significant plants for observations in terms of the Bioblitz are those growing in public spaces, parks, reserves and roadsides. If you have natural or remnant vegetation on your property this is also very important.
When photographing plants that are difficult to identify such as Eucalypts and grasses it is best to add a series of photographs to the observation.
For Eucalyptus and other plants from the Myrtaceae family a series of photographs of the form of the tree/plant, fruits or buds, close up of bark, juvenile and adult foliage. Flowers are of minimal use.
For grasses a photograph of the whole plant, the inflorescence, seeds removed from the spikelets, ligule and leaf blades are required especially for Spear grasses and Wallaby grasses.
Remember that the photographs do not need to be anything special just an accurate representation of the species in question. For grass seeds, best done in hand. For small flowers and grass inflorescence, if you are having trouble with your phone focusing on the foreground use your hand or a piece of paper directly behind the subject to bring it into focus.
There are very limited opportunities for fishing in our LGA's but if you are a fisher-person and you happen to be out fishing this weekend in one of our urban waterways, snap some pics of all the fish you catch or see.
There are still fungi out and fruiting and although they are quite thin on the ground at the moment, don't forget to snap a pic of what you see to get a representation of this uber diverse kingdom.
I am sure I have forgotten something but that should get you going.
Happy hunting
Michael.
