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August 2020 Sutherland Group Newsletter

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August 2020 Sutherland Group Newsletter 2020: Recognising 250 years of Joseph Banks and 50 years of Joseph Banks Reserve About Sutherland Group Coming up.. We meet at 8 pm every third Wed, 19 Aug Sutherland Group meeting: Art, Culture and Wednesday from February to Botanical Science with Roseanne Quinnell November at Gymea Community This is a Zoom meeting – see page 2 Centre, 39 Gymea Bay Rd, Gymea. Thurs, 3 Sep JB Reserve working bees are back on. Visitors welcome. Sun, 6 Sep Rules for Covid-19 are in place; more here We support awareness and Wed, 16 Sep Sutherland Group meeting: Spring flower conservation of Australian native spectacular and 50 years of Joseph Banks plants. Reserve See our website & Facebook http://austplants.com.au/Sutherland Look out for.. gompholobium glabratum www.facebook.com/APS.Sutherland President Leonie Hogue 75A Wattle St Jannali 2226 [email protected] Ph 0416 286 083 Secretary Rhonda Daniels [email protected] Ph: 9521 8381 Treasurer Anne Webb 9 Connels Rd Cronulla 2230 Ph 9523 6067 G. glabratum (Dainty wedge pea) from APS flickr account Publicity Officer & Speaker Convenor This is a prostrate to small shrub up to about 40 cm. Now is a good Ralph Cartwright time to spot this little shrub in flower along the Wises Track in the [email protected] Royal National Park. It is endemic to south eastern Australia, Ph 9548 1074 typically found in heath on sandstone soils, eucalyptus forest or 0416 030 872 open woodland. Newsletter Editor Peter Shelton Inside this issue [email protected] For your diary ................................................................... 2 Ph 0411 286 969 For the August Zoom Meeting ........................................ 2 At the July Meeting .......................................................... 3 Newsletter Deadline: News and more ................................................................ 7 First Wednesday of the month For your diary Contact John Arney ph 9525 0449, [email protected] Our diary is not very full at the moment as we wait on developments with Covid19 restrictions. Wed, 19 Aug Sutherland Group meeting Art, Culture and Botanical Science with Roseanne Quinnell Are you ready for video conferencing? Be prepared, follow this link Plus, read more in For the August Zoom Meeting below. Do send in your photos for our virtual plant table. But practise your video skills for the September meeting. See note below. From 7.15 pm for 7:30 pm start, on Zoom, register here for July, see below. Thurs, 3 Sep Joseph Banks Reserve working bees Sun, 6 Sep Covid 19 restrictions will be observed, but there Is plenty of space to work in. Wed, 16 Sep Sutherland Group meeting: Spring flower spectacular and 50 years of Joseph Banks Reserve. We’d like to see your garden on a video f you can. Details on page 8 From 7.15 pm for 7:30 pm start, Zoom meeting as described below. September Planting weekend with OFF Details were provided in our July newsletter September The Illawarra Grevillea Garden Open days. 5, 6, 12, 13 September are all open days, with very popular plant sales. Sat, 10 October Silky Oaks: We have been invited to join the Menai Wildflower Group for a day at Peter and Margaret Olde’s, Silky Oaks Garden at Oakdale. Members from the East Hills Group will also attend. Updates later. Jan 2021 Walking at Charlotte Pass: We are due for our biennial week-long excursion to the Snowy Mountains in Jan / Feb 2021. However, at the present time, no decision has been made on the opening dates for the Pygmy Possum Lodge. They hope to be in by July for the present winter season. The Lodge committee have prepared a Covid19 occupation plan for the lodge: kitchen 5 persons at any time, keep your cutlery, plates and mugs in your allocated cupboard. Lounges have been moved out of the drotedstining area and tables and chairs re-arranged for compliant social distancing. Extra disinfectants / equipment will be available for more rigorous cleaning. Although it is still a way off for us, we will have to move quickly to get the preferred dates. Please let me know your preferences for a 7 night stay starting Sunday 17, 24, or 31 Jan. (or other date if you have a suggestion) Contact John Arney on 0418 607 685. 12-17 September ANPSA Biennial Conference 2021: Australian flora - past present future 2021 In 2021, the conference is being hosted by the Australian Plants Society NSW at the Kiama Pavilion in the beautiful village of Kiama on the pristine south coast. To register an expression of interest, click the 'Register your interest' button and we will keep you informed of events as they are confirmed. For the August Zoom Meeting Zoom meetings will most likely be with us for the rest of the year. Please join us. It is free and easy for members to join our Zoom meeting. You can sit at home and enjoy our speaker and native plants. This is how it will work. • From 7.15 pm onwards on Wednesday 19 Aug, click on the Zoom link below. You can use a computer, iPad or mobile phone. Australian Plants Society Sutherland Group Zoom Meeting When Wednesday 19 August, 2020 7:15 pm – 8:30pm Eastern Australia Time – Sydney https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82788734027?pwd=T081MzlnVXVDRU9CTHRtUUpWekZ0dz09 • If you click on your link after 7.30 pm, you can still join the meeting. • If this is your first time for Zoom, when you click on the link, you will be asked to download and launch the Zoom software, so allow more time. We highly recommend you download Zoom at least a day before the meeting and practise with a friend or family member. It is free for you to use. For a more detailed guide see our previous newsletters articles on this. Our newsletter archive is here. APS Sutherland – August 2020 2 Our meeting format • At 7.30 pm, the Zoom host will mute everyone to block background noise. The meeting chair will welcome everyone and recap good Zoom practice. • Our emcee for the night will introduce our speaker. • Our feature speaker will speak for about 30 minutes, sharing their screen at the same time so you can see their presentation. • After questions, we will have a short plant table segment hosted by Dan Clarke, the APS NSW Conservation officer. If you would like to participate in this segment, please email your plant photo(s) (especially if they are with insects this month) to Dan before the meeting at: [email protected] • We will finish with 10 minutes of Q&A where you can ask questions by typing a question using Chat or raising your hand. During the meeting • John Aitken, as Zoom host, will mute everyone except the chair and the speaker, so we cannot hear any background noise from your place. • If you have any trouble during the meeting, phone or email our tech troubleshooters John Aitken ([email protected]) or Ralph Cartwright (0416 030 872). • If you need to, you can move away from your computer and return to the meeting at any time. Past Zoom meetings recorded These APS NSW Zoom meetings are available as youtube recordings: Dieter Hochuli’s presentation in July is here Dan Clarke at the virtual plant table, identifying plant photos from Sutherland Group members at meetings in July is here There is a growing archive available on our YouTube Channel Other groups are holding zoom meetings too, so look at the APS NSW calendar for other meeting options. Rhonda Daniels At the July Meeting Insects in remnant bushland and urban areas. We were privileged to receive a talk from Associate Professor Dieter Hochuli at the July Meeting. Dieter runs a lab in the School of Environment and Life and Environmental Sciences at University of Sydney. I studied with Dieter in 2008 and had a great time doing Entomology, a second-year course where we had to put an insect collection together! Dieter spends most of his time conducting a lot of urban-ecology work on insects, spiders and birds in the urban environment. Dieter began by outlining the importance of insects and other invertebrates worldwide, but showed that European scientists have showed a large decrease (75% decline in biomass) in insects in Germany. This has been linked to overuse of insecticides and other drivers. There have also been similar studies in the US where insecticides have caused a decrease in honey bees. A suite of scientific papers have been published where entomologists have analysed data and expressed concern that species in many insect groups around the world have declined drastically due to various anthropogenic drivers. However, this has resulted in a backlash of unfavourable responses from other entomologists, who are sceptical of the analyses and the conclusions drawn. Dieter highlighted that Australia is still basically leading the charge worldwide on vertebrate extinctions, especially mammals but emphasised that rigorous science needs to be undertaken to galvanise support towards accepted trends in insects decline. Protests have occurred in Sydney to highlight the plight of the European honey bee, but Dieter pointed out that no protests have occurred for any native Australian bees, despite the fact that NSW has at least 20 species! Dieter pointed out that threatened species legislation is not fit to deal with insect extinctions and that current data and modelling underestimates the numbers of insects that are likely threatened with extinctions. The main reason we do not have many insects listed as threatened, is that we know so little about so much. Dieter took a question on whether promoting insects as a food source might help provide APS Sutherland – August 2020 3 exposure and concern for insects.
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