Errinundra gets visited

This covers an outing with our friends Peter and Deborah to Errinundra National Park which none of us had ever visited before  I had been told by a number of others that the big trees here were magnificent.  [Spoiler alert: They were.]

The first challenge was how to get there.  The touring maps we had of the area talked about rough, rocky and slippery roads which gave a little food for thought and consulting Google Maps suggested going to Bombala and coming down!  All bitumen and taking 2:46 and covering 218 km.  Trying again sent us through Orbost taking 3:22 and 237 km  Forcing it to go the most direct route via Club Terrace gave 3:07 and 168 km.  We didn't fancy the Bombala option as we have all driven the Imlay many times and decided the approach was to go through Club Terrace and return via Orbost.

Here is a mud map.  I adjusted the offering by Google Maps since Errinundra Rd cuts a corner  going by point 1 (the Bonang River Picnic Area).  We wanted to end up at 2 the Old Growth Walk.

Most of the area from Club Terrace had been burnt with, as usual, tree ferns very evident in the regrowth.

I'm not sure if the sign was damaged by the recent fires or anno domini.  When looked at I think it reads "Regrowth from 1939 Fire"

This is the view from the Ocean Lookout, on a side road about 5km from Mt Morris.  I couldn't locate this precisely on Google Earth but I think it's about 45 km to the ocean.

The rock on the inland side of the road at the lookout was badly burnt.  It was also pretty wet, suggesting there is a spring somewhere up there.

This was one of the few flowering trees/shrubs we saw during the day.  It was at the Bonang River Picnic Area (point 1 above).

Some more typical (very) large trees at that point.

We did a little birding here, starting a new eBird Hotspot.  The highlight was 2 Black-faced Monarchs.  Here is the checklist.

A rather informative sign at the start of the walk.  It would have been interesting to see a vertical profile: possibly a better word would be worrying!

A very helpful sign.  Rather than the usual BS "Area closed for Public Safety" and close off a 5km radius, they actually describe the problem and leave the 99% of the walk that is unaffected open.  I hope this means a change of policy by Parks Vic.

A nice wooden seat.  I presume they carted it in in pieces and assembled it on site.

Did someone mention falling branches?

More tall timber

A Gippsland Waratah (Telopea oreades).  In Victoria restricted to this area and mainly in the higher areas for which, at about 780 m AMSL, this area certainly qualifies.

A root ball of impressive diameter (but, of more relevance to maintaining a vertical position, limited ground penetration).

Berries of Dianella sp.

This is where the angle of dangle started to get interesting as one passed down through a (presumably natural) arch of tree ferns.

At first glance this sign appeared to be absolute kitsch.  But the words make the point that the larger trees in this area were growing before Leonardo painted the Moaning Lizzie.

More tree ferns!

The base of one the largest Shining Gums.  I suspect a fire has burnt out the cave in which Pete is standing.  See photo of root ball above and think about this.

Why do I hate taxonomists?  As we drove along Deb had consulted Dr Google to get the Latin for Shining Gum and seemed to get two offerings: Eucalyptus denticulata and E. nitens.  The entry for the former in Flora of Victoria includes:

Eucalyptus denticulata and E. nitens are closely related and morphological divergence between them is only partial in many populations in the eastern highlands. The peculiar tip to the buds in E. denticulata can be seen as well in the unrelated E. sturgissiana, a mallee of restricted distribution on sandstone in southern New South Wales.

In plain language there is no morphological difference between the two species!  The entry for E. nitens notes that the two species have only recently been splut (sic) presumably someone found a difference of unknown significance between the genomes.

We did another checklist of birds (the 7th for the site).  The highlight was the 3 Rufous Fantails.  A small (but good, really) issue was that some calls (eg White-winged Chough) coming from ground level were possibly mimicry by Superb Lyrebirds.  So they got omitted.

Getting back to the route choice, I think coming from Mallacoota the route via Club Terrace is the only game in town.  Apart from the boredom factor the extra 50km going through Bombala is ungood, and road through Orbost is little better than the simple route: there is much more bitumen coming via Orbost but the road is so twisty it's difficult to go much faster and it is 70 km longer.  We guessed it took at least 30 minutes longer coming back than going up.  A point to note is that on both roads we encountered an oncoming muppet cutting corners in a very unsafe way.  Although both cars were black, bogan-decor Hilux we suspect they were different Muppets: perhaps Bert one way and Ernie the other?

 

Low tide snaps

 The tides are very low in the months around the New Year which allows peering at places not normally exposed.  The period 10 to 12 February is the last batch of low daylight tides until November so we took ourselves to rocky places.

The first destination was Bastion Point.  

Going beyond the breakwater (area 1 above) continued experience since the fire of very little marine life: no Elephant Snails (Scutus antipodes); no abalone; no live Tritons (and few shells of this genus); no Sea Anemones, no Brittle Stars (and few 'normal' Sea Stars).  Even the large numbers of Sea Hares (Aplysia sp.) seem to have moved away from this area.   Moving back to the area between the breakwater and the stairs (area 2 above) many yellow clumps of Sea Hare eggs were visible in the green lettuce-like seaweed (possibly Ulva sp.).

I thought I'd zoom in to get a snap of a low cluster.  Initially I got a nice shot of foam ...

.. and the second was a little better,

We then found a pool with a few egg donors grazing on the lettuce.  If they are tasked to remove the lettuce, they have a job in front of them

On the 12th we took ourselves off to the Three Beaches walk.  This was more like business as usual with the rocks a particular interest.

I had noticed a lot of spray visible as we came down the hill into Betka.  There was quite a good surf running ...

At times this caused scampering when the water rushed into spots where we went around headlands.  While the tide was, as forecast, a low low the waves were high, high!

In terms of wildlife the most interest were crabs.  This is probably Leptograpsus variegatus (Swift-footed Shore Crab).  That species looked a good match in the Museum Victoria guide to crabs.  Theer are also a few records for the species in this area in the Atlas of Living Australia.

On the beach we found this specimen in an inverted position.  

Flicked it upright  ....

 ... and dunked it in a pool and it seemed to be in reasonable working order.  From the same sources as above it appears to be Plagusia chabrus with common names Red Rock Crab (MV) or Sally Lightfoot (ALA).

A Betka stroll

 On 10 February we did a loop starting at the top of the Heathland walk.  There were a few interesting sightings along the way, many of which have bee referred to iNaturalist for an opinion.

A medium sized black spider.

This large beetle was not looking well, on the beach.  The iNaturalist AI reckons it is a chafer which seems reasonable.  There are 1400 known species in this subfamily in Australia 

I counted 180 Silver Gulls and 3 Crested Terns near the mouth of the Betka.  The tern on the left was clearly still a juvenile and kept trying to bum a meal off its older colleague - with no success that we saw.

We found 4 Hooded Plovers sheltering from the wind on the water's edge in the lee of the dunes.  Moving along, as we got close to the point where the Chip Track enters the dunes 2 herons flushed.  They turned out to be Eastern Reef Egrets rather than White-faced Herons.  It was very unusual to see a Reef Egret high in a tree.

I took a photo of a grasshopper (I suspect a juvenile instar of something) and then noticed it had a small friend!

I suspect it is some form of wasp.  From looking at Brisbane Insects I suspect it is an Icheumenon Wasp  Gotra sp.

Getting back towards the Davis Beach car park the vegetation under the burnt Melaleuca was rampant.  In this image Kennedia is battling it out with Solanum aviculare.  It is notable that none of the Solanum in this area have developed yellow or orange fruit.
Elsewhere in the general area it appears that a further battle is developing between Acacia longfolia (seed germinated by the heat of the fire) and the Melaleuca armillaris regrowing from lignotubers.   The Acacia is marked with blue arrows and the much less prolific Melaleuca with red.

A leaf-rolling spider hadn't quite got the idea of hiding in the leaf!

A small Jacky Lizard posed well.

This leaf beetle has been identified on iNaturalist as Paropsis maculata.  I am advised that there are few records of this species in Victoria.

Snaps from a morning walk

On our morning walk today we went upstream along Lakeside Drive.  Quite close to Angophora Drive we noticed some interesting fruit on the uphill side of the road.  The first noticed (as more flamboyant) were some Kangaroo Apples (Solanum aviculare) which have hung on to the plants long enough to change colour.

Nearby were some Wombat Berries (Eustrephus latifolius) with a few ripe yellow berries and a lot of unripe green fruit.

On getting close to home we found yet another lot of Aseroe rubra - I think the Anemone Stinkhorn - growing in a well mulched garden bed..

Some weather musings

It has seemed a bit damp and draughty here for the last few days.  

To deal with the dampness first.  The average rH (Humidity) on 4 February was 76% (minimum 62%) and on 5 February 78% (min 68%).  There was no rain until midnight 5 February since when we have had 8.2 mm.

The wind run on 4 February was 233 km with a peak gust of 46.7 kph.  That run was the 51st longest out of  721 observations since my records stated in February 2019.  It really started to howl on the 5th.  We got a run of 433 km with a peak gust of 59.7 kph.  That is the 3rd longest run I have recorded.  By 10 am on 6 Feb. the wind had calmed down to a run of 8km in the last hour (although the cumulative run from midnight to 10am was quite impressive at 195 km (which would be in 86th position for an entire day).

One small number from this period is the temperature range over 5 February.  This was 4.3C from a low of 22.4C to a high of 26.7C.  That should probably be "smallish" number as there are 837 days with a small temperature range! 

January 2021 Weather Report

 This will be a pretty brief report - at least initially - as I have a few things happening.  In summary the month was quite damp and cool.

Rain

My weather station recorded 77.8 mm for the month and my usual pro-rata estimate for the year (😄😄) is 1124 mm.  The amount was well above both long term median and 2019 (and indeed the long term mean for January).

Temperatures

The temperature anomaly for the month came in at -0.66C so quite cool.  This was primarily due to low daily maxima: 22 of 31 days were below the long term average for that day.  In contrast 16 days had an above average minimum.

The daily extremes from BoM are below. The one very hot day stands out easily.

Humidity

As would be expected with above median rainfall quite a humid month with relatively few 1500 hr readings below 60%.

A significant exception is 25 January where the minimum humidity of my weather station was 22%, due to the blast of Northerly winds.  As the graph shows the aridity didn't last long.

Wind

The average daily run was 113 km, which appears quite moderate for the month.  As usual the pattern is all over the place with several days well over 100 km and a few less than 50 km.