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.