We visited Madowla Lagoon and Broken Creek  (274 Kennedy Rd, Picola) for turtles nests. Madowla Lagoon was visited in 2012 and a concentration of nests (probably Emydura) were found on a small area of unploughed land on the verge of the wetland. The intended future land use was for a lucerne crop, so we had hopes of an expanded nesting area for turtles in 2012-13.

On the date of our visit the Madowla Park sandhill was being ploughed, so any nests that may have been established there were obliterated (obviously the planned lucerne crop of 2012 was not successful, the paddock seemed to be predominately Skeleton Weed). The unploughed water frontage did not contain any recent nests.  Three (3) nests containing 2012 markers were relocated and an additional nest of the same vintage was identified.

Madowla Lagoon

Photo: Ian Levy          

No evidence of turtle nesting was found on the section of Broken Creek examined.  However we did see a legless lizard at E:324151 N:6010683, Picola Broken Ck/274 Kennedy Rd.  The specimen was not handled to verify species but was most probably Delmar inornata (Olive Legless Lizard).

One Eastern Long-necked Turtle was located on the roadside at Bunbartha (estimate E: 351150 N:5990350).  Morphometric data for this specimen was recorded and the turtle released 100 metres from the highway near a farm dam.