A few birds, a few orchids

 Spring is definitely heading this way - perhaps the first power-failure of the season is the Mallacoota equivalent of the first cuckoo?

On 26 August I went for a bike ride to Bucklands Jetty noticing the large flock of Cormorants (75 Little Black; 4 Great; and 6 Little Pied) on the jetties at the bottom of Karbeething Ave.

On the way back home I swung in to the forest at Mullet Creek and found this nest.  I went back on 27th and saw a Striated Thornbill zipping in and out.  (The nest also fits the details for the species in Beruldsen's "Nessts and Eggs of Australian Birds.)    On the later visit I also saw a Lewins Honeyeater visit the nest and poke the bottom of the nest with its beak.  I think it was catching insects rather than attacking whatever was in the nest.

The 27th saw me ride into town.  A Royal Spoonbill posed nicely.  You can even pick out the eye below the bright yellow skin.

A couple of bin-chooks (aka Australian White Ibis) took time out from harassing the frogs in a nearby soggy paddock.

In the afternoon we went to check the orchids at the top of the powerlines track.  The Prasophyllums are developing very well although the flowers are not yet out.  The red arrow indicates the near-top of the longest spike.  From the height and dark colour this must be P. elatum.

This one is a little less certain until the flowers come out and reveal the labellum.  There are at least two prime suspects.

There were some huge patches of Caladenia catenata: well over 100 flowers in some areas.

Not a flower but I liked the firiness of the foliage on this Epacris impressa.

The 28th saw us stroll along the Casuarina Track, starting opposite the Miva building.  The first orchid seen was Pterostylis pedunculata.

Then our first sighting this season of Caladenia alata, of which there were many specimens along the track.  Some of them were a lot pinker than this one.  (Also a solitary C. catenata,)

Pterostylis nutans.

A very nice Brachyscome spathulata. 

Platylobium formosum.

This is definitely a Pimelia and I am taking a punt on P. linifolia.

I have concluded this is Stackhousia monogyna with the pink tip as the "flame" of the "candle".

Schizophyllum communale.  I had never recorded this fungus before this year but it is everywhere, usually growing on the trunk of a dead tree,  This specimen is on an exposed - and presumably dead - root.

I include this fern frond purely because they kept catching my eye as looking like greenhoods when tightly coiled like this!

Finally a battler.  Burnt, knocked over, and most roots exposed but is is still alive and sprouting!

Its all happening at Mallacoota.

I went to the Waste Water Treatment Plant this morning to set up some birding sites.  The first excitement was seeing approximately 8 baby Australian Shelduck.

The count is only approximate as they kept diving.  In conversation with one of the staff he said that behaviour had been very evident earlier in the day when 2 Wedgetailed Eagles swooped them a few times.  He said the ducklings first appeared late last week.

Moving around to the machinery sheds I noticed this entity.  I have no idea what a Red-bellied Black Snake is doing out and about at a temperature of 12 C!

A couple of people have used an F-word (three letter one) but the scales tell me I cannot sling off at other life-forms for being Fat.

Then in the afternoon we went to try for the Emuwrens reported by Jess Waaleboer at  Bastion Point.  Here is our route.  

After about 50 minutes of searching every burnt shrub, and walking about 1.2 km, Frances the Eagle-eyed spotted the birds at the red arrow.  How excellent.

In this final image showing both birds I can't see any blue on the lower bird.  That makes it a female.

More bogs and more orchids

 It has been rather wet recently (August is at 180% of median monthly rainfall - and counting) so it is not hard to find a bog or two.  The first covered in this post is a bit inland and is a site where we have found some very nice orchids in the past.

I stress in the past.  On this visit we found a couple of possible Thelymitra leaves and that was it.  I have never noticed Schizophyllum commune in the past but this year it is everywhere.  It is found on dead wood, but this image shows that while the trunk of this Allocasuarina is dead there is still life in the root.

A couple of snaps of the creek showing good flow.

A rather disappointing outing but them is the breaks.

On Saturday 22nd we decided to carpe the diem before the misery forecast for Sunday and walk from Pebbly Beach towards Shipwreck Creek.  Here is the track logged by eBird.

The catalyst for the outing was friend reporting a Ground Parrot on the heathland track.  As a spoiler we didn't see a Ground Parrot (nor indeed any sort of parrot).  I got excited when we started off with an Eastern Reef Egret at Pebbly Beach ....

..  but the next bird we saw was a Caspian Tern when we got back to almost exactly the same spot. The intervening 5 km of forest and heath was devoid of birds.

The heath was not devoid of bog.  This bit was relatively easy to get round. 

If one got lost on this track one wouldn't starve to death.  As long as one ate mosquitoes one would probably out on weight while waiting for rescue.

An early sighting was a small specimen of Bossiaea ensata.  The yellow bean flower stood out and the flattened stems are easy to pick.  In Victoria it seems (from the map in Flora of Victoria) to be restricted to East Gippsland and rated as Rare-in-Victoria, 

Then came the excitement.  Frances spotted this small orchid flower which looked initially a bit like a Thelymitra.   But it is too early and what the heck was a Thelymitra doing opening flowers at 14C?

The answer was revealed at the next specimen we saw where a Glossodia-type leaf was visible under a covering of washed sand.  It is Glossodia minor in proper money.  (Accept no substitutes and especially not the DNA-based insanity of Caladenia minorata - and I have heard that another DNA-sect adherent has yet another suggestion!)

It was only a year ago that I first saw this species at Shipwreck Creek.  Today we saw at least 40 flowers in about 500 m of track.  

They probably outnumbered the Patersonia sp!

There was also a very good representation of Burchardia umbellata.  First an image of a group of them  

.. and then a close up.

A nice bunch of Tetratheca.  As the leaves look hairy I am going for T. pilosa.

Hybanthus vernonii.

There was quite a lot of fungus around but unfortunately it was nearly all of a form that no-one has yet been able to identify.  This was a tad different (jelly rather than cupped) so I will take a bold stab at Tremella sp. 

The ants had heard the weather forecast and erected dams around their holes.

Another bog!  This one the haunt of Cyathea australis.  I tend to think of ferns as delicate little things but these tree ferns have gone for world domination in gullies (and bracken likewise in the flat areas).

A Craspedia (possibly C, variabilis) with bonus hoverfly.

We were starting to feel a bit weary on it and came upon another bog.  Rather than an MFG (Mission From God) we decided this was a PFG (Puddle From God) and emulated Dick Whittington.

I took a small diversion on the way back to go down a small gully (sans bog) to look at the ocean and the rocks. 

I am intrigued at how close the ships come to  shore here.  It probably indicates how close the Continental Shelf is.  Memo to self: download the ship logging app.

On the way out we had gone quickly to get to the allegedly Parrot-infested heath before any rain arrived.  So we had noted, but not stopped for some Pterostylis nutans.  No urgency on the way back so a snap was availed.

Just after the bridge at Pebbly Beach I again noticed a huge Glossodia-type leaf.  I have included my lens cap for scale: that is 55 mm in diameter so measuring the leaf from the image and scaling up it is about 125 mm long.  Surely too big for Glossodia?  It has a bud coming so if nothing eats it all will be revealed in a few days.

That is the end of the bog trips.  I thought I would chuck in a couple of snaps from earlier on the 22nd.  An eBirder had commented on seeing a Figbird in a well known tree in town so I rode my bike over there to what could be seen.  I did see 2 Figbirds but within the dense canopy of the tree.  One of the many Satin Bowerbirds was more obliging.

Here are the figs.