Transect walks are a common method in conservation biology (Walpole and Sheldon 1999) and are used in participatory rural appraisal methods to uncover local information across landscapes (Chambers 1994). Transect walks involve walking in a straight line for a pre-defined distance, recording geographic coordinates every fifty meters or so, and writing down the kinds of environmental features around that point.(source)

The first few weeks of any project involve processes of listening, observing and thinking through – and even more with a site like this that can only be interrogated through experience. Obviously open experimentation is valuable as part of this.

Transect walking is something that I’d done with scientists before on other projects before – and was something that we’d done during the survey of plants during the winter before this project began (see list below this post) – walking over a few 100 metres – with posts set in the ground for surveying every  50 meters?

It struck me that I could so something similar with a cable mounted camera – in order to record vegetation along the entire line rather than at set markers : Sure there would be camera blur – but maybe a time-lapse process taking stills would work better – these were my first experiments..

This method used time-lapse: NB need to debug the start stop nature of the unit – but the capture of sunset – And sharper images per frame are handy – esp. for cataloguing/identification purposes

Side views – offer capacity to experiment with other focal planes along continuous transect

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Passive Plot, Species Map 1/7/23

The following species map was gathered by David Tucker and Gabrielle Lebbink on 17/7/23. NB this was a dry season assessment – and further species were evident after rains by Feb 2024.

Species No. Species Provenance Life Form (Perrenial/‌Annual-Graminoid/‌Forb/‌Shrub/‌Climber) 1 Cynodon dactylon Exotic PG 2 Digitaria spp. (awaiting seed head to confirm and id  species Exotic PG 3 Centella asiatica Native PF 4 Hypochaeris radiata Exotic PF 5 Imperata cylindrica Native PG 6 Fimbristylis spp. PG 7 Ageratum houstonianum Exotic PF 8 Sporobolus spp creber Native PG 9 Bidens pilosa Exotic AF 10 Polygala paniculata Exotic 11 Eragrostis brownii Native PG 12 Arundinella nepalensis Native PG 13 Alloteropsis semialata Native PG 14 Lobelia purpurascens Native PF 15 Sonchus oleraceus Exotic AF 16 Paspalum notatum Exotic PG 17 Eremochloa bimaculata Native PG 18 Wahlenbergia gracilis Native AF 19 Epaltes australis Native PF 20 Schenkia australis Native AF 21 Melinis repens Exotic PG 22 Velleia spathulata Native PF 23 Polygala spp Native 24 Phyllanthus virgatus Native AF 25 Cheilanthes sieberi Native AF 26 Big weed paspalum Exotic PG 27 Apiaceae spp Maybe Ranunculus inundatus Exotic PF 28 Cymbopogon refractus Native PG 29 Phyllanthus spp big 30 Lantana camara Exotic S 31 Dianella caerulea Native PG 32 Parsonsia straminea Native C 33 Passiflora suberosa Exotic C 34 Senna pendula Exotic S 35 Lomandra multiflora Native PG 36 Drosera spathulata Native AF 37 Aristida queenslandicum Native PG 38 Leucopogon juniperinus Native S 39 Gomphrena celesoides Exotic PH