Flooding April 2025

 Over the two days 21-22 April 2025 my Weather Station recorded 131.8mm of rain.  This lead the SES to issue a flood warning for the Genoa and Cann Rivers.  For the Genoa this indicated moderate flooding. We noticed indications of this on our morning walk on 23 April beginning with the amount of water in the marsh between Lakeside Drive and Bottom Lake.

A puddle forming on the bend at Fisheries Jetty was a further indicator ...

.. as was the disappearance of some jetties.

The Boardwalk was just clear of the water (although an earlier walker posted to Facebook an image of a small mullet on the deck). 

Another traditional road cutting spot.

This shows the level of the Genoa River at the Gorge, 35+kms upstream.  Obviously there is a fair lag before the drop of level gets down to Lakeside Drive.

I decided that I didn't want to drive up to Wangarabell and slither down the track to the flood gauge but decided to check the situation at Genoa Falls (on Genoa Creek, a few kms West of the village).  It was rather photogenic. 

Charles Darwin was getting ready to make an award, but fortunately this guy is still in the gene pool rather than the more tangible pool below the Falls.

Heading back to the village and as expected the Creek was well over the cow paddocks.  (No sign of the Emu which sometimes comes out of this country.)

Moderate flooding seems a fair summary.

The view downstream from the footbridge.

I had a pleasant chat with a land owner about the current situation (and many other pastoral matters).  On hearing of the flood warning he had driven from Bombala the previous evening and noted that while raining South of Bombala it stopped halfway along Imlay Rd and didn't resume until the Wallagaraugh.  The paddocks along Black Creek had spread pretty widely.  

On returning to Mallacoota (about 1300hrs) the signs indicated that Lakeside Drive was closed due to 'water over the road".  At that time it wasn't fully over at Fisheries Jetty, but when I walked down at about 1600hrs it was well over.

To balance the adjectives, Fisheries Jetty was well under.

Mullet access to the boardwalk was now much easier.

The next low point was also rather damp.

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.