VICNEWS Number 117 December 2015 ANGFA Victoria Inc. is a regional group member of AUSTRALIA NEW GUINEA FISHES ASSOCIATION INC. Published by ANGFA Victoria Inc. PO Box 298, Chirnside Park Vic. 3116 Visit us at: www.angfavic.org and on Facebook The wonderful world of waterbugs. Priya Crawford-Wilson on Macroinvertebrates Above: Priya samples the upper Werribee River, a field trip run earlier this year as part of the Melbourne Water Waterwatch Waterbug Weekend. Below right: Priya identifies macroinvertebrates using a hand lens. Photo lower left: a Damselfly larvae. Photos: G. Martin Meet Priya Crawford-Wilson, Waterwatch Co-ordi - nator, Customer and Strategy Group from Melbourne Water and our December 2015 presenter. Priya has experience in environmental education and research across a range of areas and has been involved in promoting Raingardens as part of the Melbourne Water healthy waterways initiative for Darebin. Kwai, John Lenagan, Graham Sexton and I have been in the field with Priya and she knows her stuff! At our December meeting Priya will present a talk on water bugs, covering some common different groups that one is likely to find and the signifi - cance of why some species occur in places where others do not and how this can be used to indicate water quality. VICNEWS December 2015 PAGE 1 President’s Report Contents December 2015 Page 1 Priya Crawford-Wilson on macroin ANGFA VIC has had another good -vertebrates year in 2015! Page 2 Letter from the editor Some goals/aims for ANGFA Page 2 President’s report Victoria that were discussed by our Pages 3-9 The Field Trip Files - Upper Diamond committee during the year were: Creek, St Andrews. 1. to have a good lineup of speakers Pages 10-14 Reflections on the National organised well in advance; this includ - Convention. ed being able to afford to fly in a cou - Page 14 Cling Gobies ple of interstate speakers per year if Pages 15-17 The Field Trip Files - Pappinbarra required. River, NSW 2. to explore the possibility of networking with Melbourne Page 18 Club Meeting details and key contacts Water and other like-minded organisations, and Page 19 Join ANGFA now and Businesses that 3. to begin “giving back” to conservation in some way. support ANGFA VIC Looking back on the last 12 months, I think we have achieved a lot of the above. Letter from the editor 1. Our speakers have been of a high standard during the year and organised (on the whole) well in advance. November was a big month for 2. We have been a part of the Melbourne Water Citizen field trips! In fact, there were a lot of Science day at the Melbourne Museum. We ran a field trip field trips this year if you include the which was attended by ANGFA and Melbourne water folk national convention in October. There (two if you include the one Greg and I attended after our will be no field trip over the summer Melbourne Water Waterwatch Waterbug Weekend course) break, hence no advertisment in this and edition. 3. We have contributed some funds to a conservation cause- the plight of the Running River Rainbowfish. Read Between the 19th and the 22nd about it in your December edition of Fishes of Sahul. We November 2015 Phil Littlejohn and I went to Tasmania, rep - plan to contribute smallish amounts to various conservation resenting ANGFA VIC to volunteer with aquatic fishes and efforts, carefully chosen by the committee, in the future. other fauna sampling in the Bob Brown Foundation Tarkine Bioblitz. This was a fantastic trip and I look for - A big thanks to our sponsors this year for donating ward to writing an article to share with you what we saw a major prize to our bi-monthly club raffle. Funds from this and found. I didn’t have time to get anything finished for and our mini auction enables us to plow money back into this edition. our club by bringing you interstate speakers and contribut - ing to worthy conservation causes. In regards to networking with Melbourne Water as mentioned by Kwai, we have been making good progress The job of running our club requires a lot of time and there looks like being an opportunity for ANGFA VIC for the various individuals who are on the committee. As it to help them with some aquatic site monitoring over the is all voluntary work and nothing would be done if it next 12 or so months. We will tell you more when we weren’t for our passion for nature, for fish and for the great know more about it. group that is ANGFA Victoria, I remind everyone that if you have some spare energy or time and would like to be The upper Diamond Creek was a lovely site to involved in helping to run our club, speak to myself, Gary, visit. The creek looks to be in good health at that location Greg or John Lenagan at a meeting and we’ll gladly bring and the day was very worthwhile. you on board. Glenn Briggs has put together a good wrap of the Lastly, thank you all ANGFA VIC members for national convention and there is (effectively) a list of all the attending our meetings, our field trips where possible and speakers with a little blurb about each one. for just being part of our club. Stay safe over the holiday period and have a happy Christmas! Lastly, there is a little article about the post con - vention field trip to the Pappinbarra River, a beautiful river See you at the next meeting Friday 4th December! in the dry hinterland to the west of Port Macquarie. Kwai Greg VICNEWS December 2015 PAGE 2 The Field Trip Files: Upper Diamond Creek St Andrews/Kinglake 14th November 2015 The upper Diamond Creek at Ninks Road is quite small and flows through a valley dominated by tall Manna Gums Eucalyptus vimi - nalis with an understory of wattles and tree ferns. Some parts of this valley, the wettest areas, provided a refuge for Lyrebirds during the Black Saturday firestorms. Photo: Greg Martin By Greg Martin When John Cousins, Kwai and I represented ANGFA VIC at the Melbourne Water Citizen Science Day at Melbourne Museum on 30th August 2015 we met a lovely lady called Carol who invited us to hold an ANGFA VIC field trip up her way in St Andrews, adjacent to the Kinglake National Park, at the headwaters of the Diamond Creek, a tributary of the Yarra River. Kinglake National Park protect the headwaters of the Diamond Creek. This area was so devastated by the Black Saturday fires that one finds it hard to imagine that anything survived, but I had heard from John Coates, who surveyed the same creek about 9 months ago, that there were Galaxias present in this creek but that they carried a heavy Trematode load; possibly indicating some sort of environmental stress. A follow-up visit to check on the con - dition of these Galaxias was reason enough to check out the area, so we keenly accepted Carol’s invitation. An enthusiastic group of fishos and Melbourne Water macroin - vert people, including Nick Bean, Greg Martin, Christy Bryar, Carol invited Melbourne Water Waterwatch folk to Graham Sexton, Priya Crawford-Wilson and Carol Jadraque. Also join us on the day to look for macroinvertebtrates while we present was John Lenagan. Photo: John Lenagan looking for fishes. This valley is very picturesque: tall VICNEWS December 2015 PAGE 3 Graham Sexton and Greg check their dip-nets for anything of interest. There were many Galaxias ornatus present. Photo: John Lenagan Manna Gums are the dominant species of Eucalypt and some bare the scars of recent fire. Many have holes in the trunk which provide excellent habitat for birds; we saw nesting Sulphur-crested Cockatoos and This Sulphur-crested Cockatoo was nesting in this hole in a Galahs in the trees right above mature Manna Gum adjacent to where we were sampling. There us. Other birds seen and heard were Galahs nesting in another tree not far from this one. on the day were Gang Gang Cockatoos, Crimson Rosellas, Photo: John Lenagan a pair of Spotted Pardalotes, Currawongs and a Whipbird on Saturday indicated that this type of bait works well from memory. enough. I also wanted to make sure access to the creek and parking were going to be okay. The evening prior to the field trip I had driven up to check out the location and to set some baited traps that The next morning the weather was perfect and a we would check on the day. I only tried dry cat food as good number of people turned up for our 10am start at the bait but the resulting number of Galaxias found in the traps Continued on page 8... A panorama shot of the creek showing blackened fallen tree trunks; a reminder of the Black Saturday fires. Photo: John Lenagan VICNEWS December 2015 PAGE 4 Juvenile Ornate Galaxias Galaxias ornatus . The large number of juvenile Galaxias caught on the day indicate that there is good recruit - ment in this creek. Photo: John Lenagan Some of the many Galaxias ornatus caught on the day. We didn’t observe any fish with signs of Trematodes this time. Photo: Greg Martin VICNEWS December 2015 PAGE 5 Clockwise from top left: Priya sorts macroinvertebrates into ice cube trays as Graham Sexton looks on. Nick Bean photographs macroinvertebrates with an impressive looking camera rig. Carol Jadraque and Graham listen to Priya’s explanation of what we found in the creek.