Snaps from a few spots!

 We haven't really focused on any spot recently so here are images taken over a few days.

I begin at home, with two White-headed Pigeons perched in the feeding tray in the lawn.

They seem to be disliked by our local Magpie.  

While not totally psychotic as is the one down the road which, for a month, swooped me every time I rode up the road, this one and its partner don't like other birds.  They fly 300 m to some nearby trees to attack a Grey Goshawk or go up 100 m to harass passing Kites and Eagles.  Possibly fair enough as those species are raptors, but pigeons are surely harmless.  (In turn the Magpie is assaulted by a Willie Wagtail.)

The other species that uses the feed is a family of House Sparrows.  Here is the female

.. and the male.

Aa there seemed to be a little sun around I went up to the powerlines to check some Sun Orchids.  Before getting to them I saw a nice clump of Gompholobium huegelii.

Then to the orchids.  As it was only 17C I wondered if they would be out, but some at least obliged.  These are Thelymitra altronitida.

Not forgetting the leaf!

Here is the habitat.  Note the pool of brown water in the foreground.

We have had an amount of rain recently but I am surprised at the puddles on the Eastern track.

NBN have done a good job of not trashing most of the orchid habitat on the Premier Track.  The same cannot be said of the area towards the Pony Club, now called the FUBAR track.  (... Beyond All Recall - the third term in the series beginning with SNAFU.)

In the afternoon we went for a stroll to Bastion Beach.  There is a large (100 -150 birds) flock of Bar-tailed Godwits on the sandbars.

A few the smaller Red Knots are mixed in, some still showing traces of breeding plumage.

New (to me) Sun Orchids

On the 23rd  of October we went for a walk on the powerlines track looking for Sun Orchids.  Although it was over 20C it was a little early in the day (0930 hrs) as we had an appointment for me to get shorn in Eden at 1100.  As a result, we found quite a few plants of interest but they weren't open.

Thus I went back about 1030 on 24 October.  It was just over 20C and I soon found an open example of Thelymitra aristata.  Note the arrowed large leaf .. 

... and the white brushes on the column.

Somewhat further up the track I found other plants, also with a large leaf  ...

... but with purple brushes, diagnostic of T. malvina.

As rain arrived a little later and the temperature dropped a lot I reckon I was very fortunate to score these new species.

I also took the opportunity to take some extra photographs of a yellow flower as the guru on iNaturalist who saw the first one requested an image of the flower from side on ...

.. and a whole-plant image.

It has now been identified as Xyris operculata

Battles actual and potential (warning: gruesome start)

 The first battle is really the aftermath as one of the combatants had clearly lost.

The next two show a likely winner (unless it picks on a Kookaburra). A rather small specimen - perhaps 30cm long.

A potential loser - especially if it is injudicious in choosing the gap in the wall to enter.

Birds, Beaches, and Rocks

 This covers a couple of outings on 18 October.  The first was a bike ride to check Stingray Point.  I began by looking for the Channel-billed Cuckoo which wasn't available but did see the Black Swan faily hauling out for a rest.  They started with 7 cygnets and hopefully these 4 will survive.

The Eastern Yellow Robin chicks are beginning to fill the nest.

The adult birds come to look at humans who stop to look - probably to see if we have any mealworms - but are very relaxed about posing nicely.  I'm very aware of the need not to upset nesting birds, and this family are not at all agitated.

Linking the themes of the two outings here is an Australian Pied Oystercatcher striding along one of the beaches West of Betka.

Our route is known as the Three Beaches Walk and is only easily doable when the tide is very (which it was at 0.09 m).  Even lower tides appear in the middle of the next two months.

This was the pebble section at point 1 where a cut between the land and an outcrop was water free.

An attractive outcrop close to point 1.

This rockfall - halfway between 1 and 2  - would have given a nasty headache.

Another fall, almost at point 3, would have given an "everything" ache.  But probably only briefly.

If you'd like to shelter in this convenient cave, look again at the last two photos and ask yourself "Am I feeling lucky?"

The walk ends at point 3 unless you are feeling very Dougal Haston.  The strata are very complex and attractive.  Not quite as colourful as at Quarry Beach but more intricately folded.

The beach artist has been here and done that!

At one of the outcrops the sea was lumping water inwards through a gap in low rocks ...

.. after which the water followed the receding waves out.

There were some interesting marine life forms around.  These are I think sponges.

I shall try to ID this barnacle later.

Barnacles, mussles and a Chiton

A live Spenglers Triton

Wanderings on ACT election day

 As we had voted by post (and couldn't get back to Canberra if we wanted to vote in person) I was free to do other things on the 17th of October.

I began by going to Stingray Point to get a few birds for the eBird October Big Day.  A good start was a pair of Musk Lorikeets (part of a group of 6) making nice.

Then loud cursing by a Little Wattlebird (green arrow) let me find the Channel-billed Cuckoo (red arrow).

A close-up of the Cuckoo!

Later in the day I went to Captain Stevenson's Point where the Little Corella flock were finding things to dig up.  I counted 74 visible in the area.

I couldn't quite work out what they are eating.  Possibly Kikuyu Grass rhyzomes?    Their beaks were well splattered with mud giving a strange piebald effect.

Late in the afternoon we went to Bastion Point to see what was in the rock pools.  Not a great deal of diversity but Sea Hares (Aplysia juliana) were present in good numbers and range of sizes.

In this image I can count 9 Sea Hares- a fairly typical density across all the rock pools.

There are at least 3 in this pile, which was likened to an Echidna train!

A strange organism living under a rock. iNaturalist has been consulted.  They have come good!  It is an egg-mass of Aplysia sp and as there are heaps of them around I suggest it is A. juliana.

A patch of empty barnacle shells made an interesting pattern. I'm not sure if this emptiness means the inhabitants had moved out due to getting too big or is something else had acquired skills in barnacle emptying.  Apparently once barnacles become adult and enter their shell they don't move, so something has come along and removed the crustacean from within.  Snails are a common suspect.

A pair of Eastern Grey Kangaroos were having a good tussle in a paddock visible from my window.

I think they were just practising.  The others in the background didn't seem at all interested in, nor alarmed by, the stoush