The Mouth and nearby

Later on 29 January we went for a walk to Bastion Point with the intention of going along the beach to try to relocate a cephalopod which Frances fond a few days earlier. 

A first finding was that although dredging was happening this had been organised so that it was possible to access the beach.  Very good to see the Shire showing some flexibility.  A second observation was that the fire had burnt a fair way out on the sand bank.  The red line gives a better idea of the edge.

 A large cephalopod was found lurking in the edge of the water inside the Inlet.  It was not well.  It was quite large - my guess is 50 cm across the tentacles.  I am fairly sure it was an octopus but have sought an ID through inaturalist.org.

 A second 'pus was even less well!

 We then encountered a lot of whelk-type shells all of which were occupied by hyperactive hermit crabs.

 The first shorebird seen was a Red-capped Plover, which gave a fairly good distraction display.  (I looked in the direction it had come from but couldn't see any eggs or chicks, so perhaps it had just got into the habit of behaving this way.)

 As we got across the former opening there were a lot of waders doing that thing,  It was slightly unusual to find a flock of about 40 red-necked Stints in some pebbly sand well away from the water.  Other Stints were still feeding in the water: they were very confiding and didn't seem too fussed by us at all.

 A Stint and 2 Red-caps

 A Curlew Sandpiper

 The Terns and Godwits and Knots were across a channel but still possible to photograph.  Tis image has (1) Little Tern; (2) Bar-tailed Godwit and (3) Red Knots.

 A better image of some of the Knots

My full checklist is at https://ebird.org/checklist/S63895660

Although it is now 4 weeks since the main fire soot is still being washed up

A trip to the airport and nearby

I am attempting to get where I can to see what birdlife is left (and what plants and other life are left as well.   It is still difficult to get at most of the places I used to go birding as the tracks are closed off but the Gun Club track was still open. 

Most of the heath has been incinerated but patches of seedy grass have survived and the bracken is growing nicely (boo, hiss).  Doing my usual drive along the airport fence and then out to the Shotgun Range delivered precisely 0 birds.  Going along the track into the forest, but not far into the forest as the wind was quite brisk, and some of the trees are quite large I recorded the only bird of the trip: a White-throated Treecreeper heard calling somewhere in the devastation.

The Allocasuarinas appeared to have been totally burnt.  I'd be surprised if any of them regenerate.  There was some evidence of growth from lignotubers but nothing I could see on the blacked trunks.

 In the middle of a harshly cleared area a few Xerochrysum were providing a splash of colour.

 The greater excitement began with seeing a helicopter arrive with a suspended bucket.

 I had wondered how it would "cast off" the bucket: the idea of a 50m long cable flailing around seemed a little risk-prone.  Indeed: the pilot did a very precise job of laying the cable down on the ground.

Then a military aircraft appeared  - in reverse!  Presumably that was easier than doing a U-turn on a narrow runway.

 A brief pause then a fair bit of noise and up it went.  Using IMHO about 1/4 of the runway!

On the way back I stopped to look at the Cormorant tree at the Betka bridge.  No surprises in that tree but two Great Egrets perched nearby were good to see.

 Aigrettes are definitely better on the bird than on a hat!

Getting back home I spotted the helicopter heading off again dragging its bucket.  Presumably replenished with whatever goodies it was carrying.

Some matte black photos and some Glossy Black ones

As part of of our re-exploring Mallacoota we went for a walk along Quarry Beach on Monday.  This is usually a fairly quiet area for birding and this outing was no exception.  All that I noted wasan immature Silver Gull ...

.. and a bunch of Cormorants on the rocks at the Western end.

In places the black of the burnt Melaleuca armillaris was relieved by some of the bushes on the beach having retained some green.

In the next bay along it was unrelenting black.

Kelp was piled up at the Western end of Quarry, but no sign of the usual shorebirds pecking at the flies that often occur in such situations.

On Tuesday we went for a walk with the Footmobiles group and traversed the caravan park.  Here I first heard and then saw a group of 3 Glossy Black-Cockatoos that have taken up residence.  I returned later and got a few photos.

In both the next two images a flash of red is evident in the tail feathers.  This does lead to some mistaken identification as Red-tailed Black-Cockatoos but the nearest population of them is near Mount Gambier - perhaps 800 km away!

I then went to Captain Stevensons Point where a very good range of sea and shore birds were evident.  They included this Eastern Curlew: from the length of thebill I think a female.

Rainy days

Back in the day a meteorologist commented that it took 5 mm of rain to do more than lay the dust.  This was in the context of trying to maintain a vegetable garden in Canberra under level 3 water restrictions.  I thought it might be interesting to look at BoM records for Mallacoota to assess the number of days per year with falls of 5mm or more.  That is summarised in the following chart.

There is no trend in the data but the downward tendency of the last 4 years is quite obvious.  I have included the data for Gabo Island as a crude form of quality assurance and as the series have a correlation coefficient of 0.76 the pattern can be rated as quite similar.  This also "plugs the gap" in the mainland data from 1979-83 where several months are either totally missing or - in the case of 1979 and 1983 - monthly totals are given but many daily totals are missing.  Interestingly, where daily totals are given in 1980 and 1983 a high proportion are well over 20 mm: given the appearance of an arrow symbol in the table above many of these I believe them to be the situation described by BoM as

"For observations of daily rainfall which span more than one day it indicates that there is some uncertainty associated with the exact date on which the daily rainfall occurred."

This illustrates the need to look at the detail of the data and not just the numbers.

I also compared the number of days with falls >5 mm with the number >0.2 mm (the latter being to exclude days with a heavy fog rather than rain).

This illustrates the problem as being lack of sustained rainfall >5mm: the number of days with falls between 0.4 and 4.8 mm is about normal.

On the beach

With apologies to Neville Shute: the Bastion Point area does look a bit as though it has been nuked.

On 25 January I thought that I was feeling sufficiently over shingles (in a physical sense - I have been psychologically over the disease for several weeks) to go to Bastion Point Beach with Frances.  She had been a couple of times and had reported it to be quite interesting although the sand was very high.

All true.

Walking next to the breakwater my first observation was that there were lots of crabs there.  Some of them were on rocks 2 m above the sand.

 A particularly colourful crab.

 Lots of large shellfish including abalone, shield limpet and tritons.

 I have never seen a double-decker abalone before.  Somehow it made me think of McDonalds!

 Going round the corner on to Tip Beach I was quite excited by these Cormorants.  The overall whiteness of the one on the left made me think "Pied Cormorant".

That was confirmed on looking at the photograph.  Sorry these two photos are so blurry but the show the crucial features.

 The middle specimen turns out to be a Black-faced Cormorant!

Overall I had all 5 likely Cormorant species within about 500 m.  It would have been nice for a Darter to also be present.

Behind the Cormorants there was a lot of Shearwater action.  The balance of probabilities was Short-tailed Shearwaters, feeding on a school of bait fish.

Annual Weather Report for 2019

In summary DRY and warm!

Rainfall

For Angophora Drive I recorded 536 mm for the year.  This is a bit less than the 595.2 recorded at the BoM station near the airport reflecting the tendency for the rain to come in squalls where the falls are rather hit and miss.  Possibly the proximity to the ocean catalyses heavier falls?

Temperatures

The best representation of the overall temperature is the anomaly, defined as the difference between the mean temperature for a period (in this case 2019) and the longer term average.  The anomaly for 2019 comes to +0.5^oC, being the balance between warmer maxima (in nearly all months) and close to average minima (6 months were above average and 6 - especially Spring - below).

The mean temperature is trending significantly upwards.

Maximum Temperatures

Above average overall.  Only August and September were below average, with January (+1.6^oC) and December (+1.5^oC) being particularly warm.  Looking over the period since BoM began recording at the current site in 1994 shows a significant upwards trend.

 Minimum temperatures

Slightly (+0.3^oC) above average overall, mainly due to a very warm January (+2.2^oC).  As noted above 6 months were above average and 6 below.  In terms of the time series the last two years have been slightly below the trend (which in this case is not significant).

Other Weather data

The BoM has ceased publishing - through Climate Data Online - average humidity and wind data since 2010.  Looking at the monthly data I have gathered it appears that:

• most months were less humid; and
• the month to month pattern for wind was broadly consistent with history although the data avaiable is barely comparable!

Updates from Mallacoota

Well, we're back in Mallacoota and my shingles are (slowly) improving.  So I got out a little on the 23rd to see what is occurring  as well as a few shots from home.

This first photo is from home!  It is basically the view from my desk,looking across Mullet Creek towards Karbeethong, showing where the fire burnt down to the Inlet, missing a lot of the homes: including the one we used to stay in.

 Later in the day (after mowing the lawn for the first time in about 6 weeks) I went to Captain Stevensons Point to check the birds there.  It was very overcast but I could see across to the Howe Range where very strong winds were stirring up the fire.

 The sandbars in the Inlet were very obvious. 

 My visit was shortened as it started to rain but I got a reasonable list.

Finally a couple of views of the setting sun from the front of the house.