Bastion Beach and Point

 We had a break in the damp weather on 25 February so took ourselves for a walk on Bastion Beach.  For reasons outlined below we extended the usual walk to cover the rocks at the Point as well.

The beach was not crowded!  Note also the amount of eel grass washed up as a result of it being swept out of the Mouth.

There have been other people on the beach recently as evidenced by these mini-inuksuks at the mouth.

The Mouth itself is still wide and quite deep.  It is also still cutting down as evidenced by the edges to the channel.

We watched this boat go out to see how navigable the bar was.  Not too spectacular but I suspect equally not for novices.  The bow came a bit more out of the water after I took the photo!

There is a lot of exposed rock at the Point, but the pools continue to be relatively free of life.  Some large crabs were seen so perhaps it is coming back?

I recorded 29 species on the walk which is not a bad total.  I might have got more with a telescope as there seemed to be a few shorebirds I couldn't ID on more distant sandbars.  A Raven posed on the dunes, with the prominent hackles confirming it was an Australian Raven.

We found a family of Red-capped Plovers with a very young chick.

I took this snap primarily for the size comparison between the three species.  When seen on its own I 'feel' that White-faced Herons are quite large birds so its surprising to see the body isn't that much bigger than an Australian Pied Oystercatcher.

A flock of ~5 White-fronted Chats was pleasant.

The reason for visiting the Point was to check the rocks for Tattlers (especially the Wandering Tattler seen recently at Clinton Rocks).  No joy, but there were 7 Willie Wagtails fluttering about.

As a bonus, a seal was happily thermoregulating off the point 

Sundry explorations

This post will cover all sorts of things done and seen in the period 23-24 February!

Having noticed a post to Mallacoota Birds with an excellent picture of a Powerful Owl in the rainforest Reserve at Cann River we decided to visit the village on 23 February and go for a walk.   This is the route we followed.  The sandy strip is the river: obviously the image was captured in a drier period.

Cutting to the chase you might notice a 'tick' in the track where it first approaches the river.  This was where we searched for the Powl.  The directions included the words rainforest, wooden steps, whitewash and Powerful Owl.  We found the rainforest and the wooden steps!

There were a lot of berries in the area.  

These have been identified on iNaturalist as Solanum pseudocapsicum Madeira Winter Cherry.  It is an escapee from gardens (aka "weed").

Solanum aviculare is definitely a native, "Kangaroo Apple".  The species has appeared dramatically since the fires, but last year much of the fruit dropped while still green.  This year it all seems t have ripened to the yellow/orange stage.

In the field this material looked most like Spanish Moss, but when seen close up it is definitely Old Man's Beard (Clematis sp.).

This fungus was pretty spectacular but I am not game to put a name to it yet.  The species suggested by my books all seem much smaller than this specimen.  After posting to iNaturalist it is clear it is Piptoporus australiensis (Curry punk)

This bridge needs a little work to become wheelchair accessible!  

There is a good flow in the River, and it is about to become stronger!

On the way home we called in at the Drummer Walk beside the Highway.  It has been fully repaired and well worth the hour(ish)we spent there.

Always good to look up through a tree fern.

A couple of snaps along the Thurra River.

Frances pointed out a Rufous Fantail along the way.  I was able to get a half-way adequate snap thereof!

On the 24th of February I went toMullet Creek to check the bats (Grey-headed Flying Foxes) .  They went retaking the area near the road, from which mowing appeared to have driven them out.  A 1.5m long Goanna was prowling the bush on the edge of the camp.

Later on that day a fairly spiffy thunderstorm came over home, dropping 4.2 mm of rain at a peak rate of 61mm/hr.  This clip from Blitzortung.org shows 21 lightning strikes in the preceding hour.

The storm dropped 5 mm on Gabo but totally missed the Airport BoM station.

The rain caused the Galahs to go even more crazy than usual.

A lot (my guess was at least 50) of Rainbow Lorikeets were also up in the Angophoras.  They tended to be within the foliage so their antics were not so obvious: but they were VERY noisy.

This one looks as though the rain had made the colours run!

The storm ceased at home after a short while.  Another snip, an hour later, shows a much higher number of lightning strikes as it wandered off out to sea.

 

 

Do you want fries with that?

 On our walk this morning we spent some time on the Lagoon Boardwalk watching a young (1st Summer I think) Silver Gull battling with a filleted Flathead.  

The issue seemed to be the pectoral fins being too wide to fit in the beak when the bird tried swallowing the carcase tail first.  I suspect that if it had a go headfirst the fins would fold back and it would easily slip down.  It was also interesting that the bird didn't try to peck the meaty bits out of the frame but rather bolted the entire thing.

A second Gull tried to join in - or steal the meal - but was repelled.

Another visit to the Marsh

 On 22 February I went for another walk round the Marsh opposite Angophora Drive.  It might be easier, in terms of flagging access points, to refer to it as the Marsh between Fisheries Jetty and Stingray Point!

The aim of the walk was to check a dead Whistling Kite for traces of fishing line entanglement, which had been suggested as a possible cause of collision with a tree.  So there will be a couple of images of a dead bird below.  To save those who don't like seeing corpses here is a map: scroll on at your peril.

The dead kits is at point 1, about 3 m above the ground.  To me it looks as though it was flying low to the ground (a harrier impersonation?) and didn't spot the snags.

The feet are well exposed and show  no sign of entanglement,

It is possible there was line around the (hidden) head but I could pick up no trace of it.

On a happier note when I got to point 2, in fairly dense vegetation I played a call of a Southern Emuwren and got a response.  Then I saw one - a male with a spiffy blue throat - dodging around in the bushes.  It didn't appear for a photo so I ticked it and moved on.

In fact I moved on to point 3 where I found at least 4 White-fronted Chats.  One of them looked like quite a young bird which is not a surprise as the area is just the sort of habitat they would nest in.

Another was clearly an adult male.

Strolls of variable success

 I have developed interest in an area off East Wingan Rd which few people seem to have visited for birding purposes.  Possibly spoiling what is to follow, this may be because there are very few birds there?

Here is a rough map taken from Google Earth showing the tracks in the area.

It was somewhat of a surprise to find that Hard to Seek Track was closed off at the junction with Bralak Rd.  According to the various signs there it is closed by Forest Fire Management because of "dangerous trees": IMHO all trees are potentially dangerous.

Back to the beginning here is a view down Salvage Track.

The spiders on Salvage track seem to have been very successful in spinning webs across the track: possibly covering close to 10 m.  This one had some prey.

Another was less fortunate but higher up - probably 3m above the track.

At the low point where we turned there was one of the few significant flowers: some species of sedge.

On our way from the East Wingan Track towards Sandpatch Track we crossed this quick significant creek with a good flow in it.  Ideal Kingfisher habitat we thought but the birds were either not aware of it or concealing themselves.

A nice grass tree plain showing the residue  of the massive flowering event in the Summer of 2019-20.  No interesting birds (indeed, the word interesting is redundant) were using the spikes as lookouts.

The view down Sandpatch track, which seemed far more developed than the East Wingan Track.

One of the few birds we saw all day.  A Dusky Woodswallow.  About a dozen species were recorded but 8 of those were heard-only.

The next day we went to Bastion Point as the tide was low.  Possibly as a result of that the Surf Lifesavers had a board up at the steps mentioning a very strong rip: I suspect this was referring to the very strong flow out through the Mouth, which seemed to have driven a deep channel to the ocean, judging by the lack of beakers at one area.  Certainly a large diver's catamaran navigated the bar with little difficulty.

There weren't a lot of species around (I suspect most of the waders are up at the Goodwin Sands.  We did see a family of Red-necked Stints including this rather young, and very leggy, chick.

A male Eastern Curlew.  The bill length says male: I am not sure what the very large eye says!

I could only see Crested Terns and Silver Gulls in this bunch

... until some Bar-tailed Godwits joined them.

A beetle was crawling up the beach.  A member of iNaturalist has labelled as a member of the Genus Leptopius (which agrees with images in Beetles of Australia) but I haven't been able to get it to species yet.

Lots of small shells were visible past the breakwater but I haven't yet tried to ID them!