Seas calm down

 After at least two days of very heavy seas they calmed down somewhat on 2 April.  Looking out from Captain Stevenson's Point the beach to the East of the Mouth was strewn with seaweed suggesting that the big swells had been breaking over it (or at least flinging the weed over it).  So I took myself and my camera to Bastion Point.

There was still a large amount of seaweed floating in the water.

As well as the amount washed up on the sandbar East of the Mouth.

The water level in Bottom Lake was still very high (80mm of rain in the catchment and Southerly gales pushing sea water in will cause that) so the bars usually occupied by waders etc were well under water.  So the birds shifted towards the Mouth.

An example of the seaweed flung over the beach.

This situation went as far as I could see along the beach.

Although much less disturbed than the previous two days the sea was still quite rough.

I then moved to look at the improved breakwater.  It was unclear whether the highest rocks had been thrown there by waves or were the ESGC view of needed sculpture.

Waves were still breaking over the wall.  It will be interesting to see if rocks have been knocked into the channel which the redesign and current dip into the public purse is supposed to have prevented.

A visit to the Mallacoota WWTP

 The weather was "interesting" for the day with the maximum 27.8C occurring at 0324 hrs while the minimum up to 1437 hrs of 23C occurred at 0755 hrs.  There has been no rain here yet, but lots of cloud, including these lennies (ie lenticular clouds) looking like flying saucers around dawn.  (You can tell they aren't from Elon's shop as they haven't exploded.)

The blossom in the forest and woodland isn't only attracting fruit bats.  Beekeepers are leaving their distinctive traces as well.

Heading in to the Plant the Jacky Winters were much more noticeable than in recent visits.  Their name suggests they are a Winter bird but we seem to see them year round.

In fact the fence around the hoss paddock seemed to be quite attractive as a hunting perch to a range of species (as is usually the case in the cooler months).

I ended up writing down 29 species with several goodies.  This image is not good - even CrapBirdPhotography.com would have some issues with this, but it is 3 Eastern Horse Egrets (there were 2 hosses in the paddock while the nearest bovines were 4km away at the Narrows).

I won't use them as BirdADay as they are easy to spot while driving to and from Melbourne.  Scarlet Robin was a contender, but once they have returned from their breeding range should be easy to spot in the future.  In the past Pink-eared Duck were present in large numbers - up to 150 birds.  But they have been sparse recently so get the gig as BAD.

Testing in the Swash zone.

 Birdlife Australia (BLA) have a programme of monitoring breeding activity by Hooded Plovers (Hoodies) along the beaches of Mallacoota.  They are currently testing some changes to the signage use to inform the public and particularly to see if it is possible to install some signs in the Swash zone (yes, I'd never heard of this word to cover the area between high and lower water lines before yesterday).  

So a group of locals and a leader, Mel, from BLA went to the Davis/Betka Beach areas yesterday to erect some test signs.  The numbers are recent Hoodie sightings: 1 and 2 are where myself and Frances saw families last Wednesday (vide https://mallacootaweatherwildlife.blogspot.com/2025/03/too-many-hoodies-are.html); 3 is where at least 2 Hoodies were loafing yesterday.

Here are the group shlepping the signs down the beach.  Note the trenching tool being carried on the left!

The trenching tool was quite efficient. but rather too short to give the depth needed so team members scooped out some further sand.

An erected sign.  It is roughly in the middle of the zone.

2 of the 3 signs, with the team heading off to erect sign 3.  

With the signs erected we went to Betka to check for the family of 5.  At least some of them were at position 3 in the image above.

We then progressed to Quarry Beach to check on the family there.  

Success (the 3rd bird was out of this initial snap).  It is apparently considered that this might be the family that have inhabited the Airport site (on the tip of the dirt runway visible in the image above).

The birds flew a little way, but far enough to prove that the young bird (on the right) has fledged!

Later on the evening of the 9th, Mel returned to the started of the Chip Track and installed an explanatory sign: a very good idea.  The QR code links very well to a Survey Monkey page with details about Hoodies and the signs.

Too Many Hoodies are ...

 ... Never Enough!  Thanks Roy and HG!

We went down the Stairway to Heaven this afternoon from the Davis Beach Car Park.  Headed down the beach and very close to where the cut through to the estuary hits the beach we were very pleased to see 3 Hooded Plovers.  All looked to be in adult plumage.

We proceeded along the beach towards Betka and to our surprise found a further 3... then 4 ... and finally 5.  Our eyes, and more importantly binoculars, showed the 3 we had seen a few hundred metres back were still there so that is 8!  To begin with the Betka crew were marginally uncooperative and I thought I might have to settle for a snap of 4.

However they finally got their act into gear and here are all 5 in one frame (after backing off a tad to fit them all in).  It gives a pretty good show of the difference between adult and (I think) Immature plumage.

I like this snap as showing the size difference between the Hoodies and the gull.

Bat flyout early March 2025

On 27 February I wandered to the small grassy area at Mullet Creek to check the fruit bats.  There seemed to be quite a few around, coming out nearly to Karbeethong Avenue, but looking up the Creek from Lakeside Drive showed few (whereas a full camp has 100s along Lakeside) so the camp is filling but has a long way to go.

Looking out at the Inlet about 1945 hrs on 3 March there was a lot of movement from the Mullet Creek camp of Grey-headed Flying Foxes.  The first two images show them heading out over Bottom Lake, but in many cases turning back and heading towards Genoa Rd (as apparent from the images).

We then went out the front of the house and there were good numbers coming direct over the house.  I suspect those that weren't aiming for a fig tree on Intervale Drive were heading for Shady Gully.

Looking further up Angophora Drive there was a large stream heading towards Genoa Rd and doubtless the forests on the far side thereof.  I noticed a fair amount of eucalypt blossom there when heading to the WWTP yesterday,

It was pretty dark by the time I got back to the lake view but it did seem that a fair stream had established heading at low level across the Inlet.

I do note that today was much cooler than other recent days so possibly the departure was earlier?

On 4 March I went down to Mullet Creek, arriving at 1945 hrs.  There was not a bat in the sky.  At 1952 hrs the first mammal poked its wing above the tree line and within a minute the sky was beginning to fill.

By 1955 the sky over the camp was full.  By counting the number of bats in portions of this image (totalling 40 sq cm) and expanding that total by the area covered by bats (220 sq cm) the image contains about 560 bats.

This image from 1957 hrs shows the extent of the swarm: they are basically swirling and  flying away from the camera.  In past years the flight path has been lower and towards the camera position.

The key point of this next image is the faint bats such as those shown in the ellipse: they are a secondary 'column' rising from further up the creek, suggesting that the extent of the camp on the ground is quite large.

The Wascally Wabbit would be saying "That's all, folks."  Within a few seconds at 2001hrs there was again not a bat in the sky.

Assuming that it takes a minute for the bats to fly out of view (very dodgy) and that my counted image only covers half the swarm (very dodgy) I end up with the camp currently comprising

 567 bats * 8 minutes * 2 proportion of swarm covered = 9072 bats (say 9,500 =/- 500).  The key element there is the short period to empty the camp: as the camp fills the flyout time will get a lot longer, and I would expect the proportion covered by any image will get lower.

In 2024 we noticed quite a few bats returning to the camp - probably coming back from the Howe - by routes over our house just before dawn.  So far I haven't seen any returns (most likely because the bats are not yet going across the Inlet).  On the morning of 6 March I did hear a few calls around 0615 but it was still too dark to see anything and the calls could have been coming up from the camp.

February 2025 Weather report

 Basically a fluctuating month, somewhat consistent with the descriptions of Melbourne weather "Four seasons in a single day" and "Don't like our weather?  Wait 5 minutes and it will change."  We ended with above median rain and a positive temperature anomaly.  The results for humidity and lightning strikes had me wondering if the word 'tropical' might be dropped in somewhere!

Rain

At my weather station (WS) we totalled 102.2mm of rain in the month.  This is 215% of median fall for the month and in conjunction with slightly above median fall for January means we have 154% of the median fall Year to date.

 

Possibly the most interesting aspect of the rainfall was the differing falls recorded at 3 local stations as shown in the chart.  (Neither of the 2 local Wunderground sites of which I am aware have complete data for February.)

The pattern is slightly clouded by the 0900 reset for BoM data but clearly storm cells dumped a lot more rain (184.8 mm) at the Airport than my WS, which in turn collected a lot more than Gabo Island (totalled 60.2).

One summary of the situation at my WS is to note that it recorded (see above) well over median and very much above February 2024.

Looking at my pro-rata estimate of total estimated annual fall for the whole year shows this year's estimate to be above the last two years and showing a more stable pattern thus far.

Temperatures

The overall temperature anomaly for the month was +1.15C: at no point in the month was the anomaly negative, reflecting the very warm start to February.

A monthly series of values of the anomaly shows the moving average with a slight uptick but the trendline still suggesting a downwards push.

The daily extremes show the very high values for both measures early in the month with the minima staying high until mid month.  The third week was cool or below for both measures.

There was one period - 2nd to 4th - in which both values were at least significantly above average for 3 consecutive days.  The 4th had both measures very significantly above average.  Indeed all values except 1 (the maximum on the 5th) for 2nd to 7th were above average so a prolonged hot spell.

There were no periods of 3 consecutive days with both significantly below average, although in the period 15th to 20th all values were below average with 3 days in which both were significantly below average.  I'd rate that as a cool spell.

Minimum temperatures

The average minimum for the month was 17.07C approximately 0.7C higher than the average for the 6 Februarys we have been here.  It is the highest of the 6 values.

Overall there were 11 days significantly above average minimum and 7 days significantly below average minimum.

Maximum temperatures

The average maximum for the month was 25.88C approximately 1.4C higher than the average for the 6 Februarys we have been here.  It is almost the highest of the 6 values, being 0.04C below the value for last year.

Overall there were 8 days significantly above average minimum and 4 days significantly below average minimum.

Humidity

Overall the month was at least 'muggy' with the average relative humidity for both standard times well above last February and the 7 year average.  This was due to:

• some very high readings in the first 1/3rd of the month; and 
• the humidity only dipping below 50% on one day.

Looking at the 7 years for which I have WS data (BoM does not oblige with historic humidity data at no cost 😪) we would normally have 2 or 3 days with a minimum rH below 50%.  This year there was only 1.

Wind

A very windy month at Angophora Drive.  

The daily wind runs were quite impressive at times.  

The 2 day total for 2nd and 4rd were the 5th highest 2 day total I have recorded (the wind down at lunchtime on the 4th meaning the 3 day total run was merely 'long' not record setting). The run of 461km on the 13th was the 6 longest (of 2205) I have recorded, and the longest February run.  The runs on the 2nd and 3rd came in as 3rd and 4th longest February runs and the 10th and 13th for all months.

Son et Lumiere ...

.. or Donner und Blitzen, for fans of reindeer!

Thanks to a friend on the Tempest Network we have information about lightning strikes and solar radiation.  The observations start in September 2022. 

The lightning strike information covers a 40km radius from the station site close to the wharf.  The number of strikes recorded for February 2025 was an astonishing 6941 compared to the highest number prior to 2025 of 1212 strikes in December 2023.  I am attempting to verify the February result: an initial foray on the Tempest system shows that:

• a site at Burragate (between Eden and Bombala) recorded 16,556 strikes in the month and 
• a site in Bairnsdale recorded 6,941

 giving some confidence in the report for Mallacoota.  Looking at the Help pages for the Tempest system gives the following further boost to my confidence:

"Fortunately, the data reported by the individual sensor in your Tempest is supported by additional data and a sophisticated back-end process that significantly improves the reporting of lightning. This is accomplished by comparing data from your Tempest with other nearby Tempests along with several trusted, third-party lightning data sources. The result is the best lightning strike data available."

As long as Elon Musk isn't involved in the system I think I am happy with, but still surprised by the data as provided.

Solar radiation shows a distinct seasonal pattern (surely not a surprise!) and the latest results conform with the normal situation.