Spring is not so silent

 On 3 September we did another foray from Pebbly Beach towards Shipwreck Creek.  

The last time we did the walk there was no birdlife in the woodland or heath: only 5 species recorded and those all at Pebbly Beach.  On this occasion we recorded 16 species and there was quite a lot of bird call through the whole outing.

The principal objective of the trip was not birds but orchids.  As we started out we recorded Caladenia alata, Caladenia latifolia and Pterostylis nutans in the woodland.  A friend had followed up our sighting of Glossodia minor and reported that there were "about 100".   The colony is increasing: after finding a few as soon as we got into the heath we came across a patch, of which this is about a third which Frances started counting.  She got to over 100 and found it impossible to keep track.  At a guess, 150 in this patch and at least another 150 plants through out this area of heath.

The other plant species present en masse was Burchardia umbellata.  No attempt to enumerate them: thousands of flowers.

We found some specimens of this pretty lily: I think it is Thelionema caespitosum.  After the app agreed with that, the good folk at iNaturalist have identified it as Chamaescilla corymbosa (Blue stars).

One of the many specimens of Solanum aviculare had progressed to the fruiting stage.  The vernacular name for the species is Kangaroo Apple, but these don't look like apples.  Not surprisingly they look more like tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum note the genus name!)

We went down a creek towards a rocky area visible from the track.  Part of the creek bed looked like smooth gravel: it was very loose and not at all pleasant to walk on.  Back to battling through the blackened trunks!

A few weeks back a post on Facebook commented on the white run off coming down a creek in this area and asking about its cause.  I don't remember any explanations but, assuming this was the creek, it has stained the rocks white.