Mallacoota Weather and Wildlife: Jones Creek Rd and thereabouts

We went for an explore on 29 August. The objective was to visit a couple of sites on (or near) Jones Creek Rd and then use WB Line Rd to cross to Chandlers Creek and explore spots on the West Cann Rd to Norinbee.

The first stop was about 1.5km past the Drummer track at a site where Glossy Black-Cockatoos have been recorded in the past. On the side of the road were quite a few Caladenia catenata.

And many specimens of Hovea heterophylla.

This is definitely a Leucopogon! Possibly L. parviflorus. iNaturalist has gone for L. affinis.

Patersonia occidentalis: flowers above the foliage.

Coronidium scorpioides

Lots of Hakea decurrens.

This is even more attractive in close up.

Goodness me I got confused when looking at this image. What is it of: my eyes focused on the fuzzy blue bits rather than the masses of Allocasuarina cones! The latter is what should attract the Golossies if they are in the vicinty. Not only were the birds not in the area, none of the trees had chewings under them, suggesting Glossies haven't been around any time recently.

Our next stop was off Horse Hill Track (or Leptomeria Track). The target there was White-throated Nightjars seen several times last Summer. I have since read the species account in HANZAB regarding movements of these birds: it seems that they are migrants and the birds seen here are likely to still be in Queensland! Damn, but at least it explains why we didn't find them.

This is an Allocasuarina flower: about 6 times life size!

Nearby was a flowering Wonga Vine (Pandora pandorea).

After we paused to photograph the vine a loud squeak was emitted by Frances. She expanded on this as being due to "A bloody great snake." Apparently it was well fat (about as thick as an upper arm) but length not assessed. As I peered back there was no sign of the reptile, so presumably it was under cover, hissing to the effect that "Two bloody humans nearly stepped on me."

The road sign has 2 bob each way on the track name!

Having failed on Nightjar spotting we headed along Jones Creek Rd, finding out where Jones Creek crosses it. Another sign here pointed to WB Line road crossing the bridge and suggesting "4WD recommended". I have been told the road is not especially well maintained at this end.

Here is the mighty Jones: not exactly in flood.

Just over the bridge the road kicks up and a couple of road works cones marked a boggy patch. High Range 4WD dealt with that. On up the road noting that there seemed to be a bit of erosion here, and also there. WE got to the junction with the Ivor Track and were pleased to see it well signed. Unfortunately there was also an erosion crevasse in W B Line Rd: not that wide (could easily have been straddled) but about 60 cm deep. Having had 2 patches of grot in what Google Earth (GE) told me later was 2.3 km (the yellow section below) was a bit of a worry. The total length of the track to Beehive Falls seemed to be about 25 km so the prospects of getting through without a winch (which we don't have) seemed a little unlikely. So we did a 5 point turn and headed back.

Looking closely at this image from GE suggests that while the road more or less runs along a ridge there are plenty of places where it dips in to the head of a gully with much scope for mud and erosion. This confirms the high quality of my decision to turn back. (I have since been told that the road is closed at the far end, most likely because of a lot of fallen trees across the road. There also a lot of steep sections which could have been badly eroded by recent bad weather.)

As we got back to Jones Creek Rd Frances commented that she had seen a bank of Pomaderris as we drove in. We found an isolated plant fairly soon. It was, by the standards of that genus, very colourful. I have put all following photos of Pomaderris on to iNaturalist, expecting to be told that I have missed out all the key features. However my bet on this one is P. elliptica due to the bright colour and the wavy leaf margin visible in the second image.

I had no idea below genus for this one. iNatuaralist has said P. lanigera.

This is a third species of Pomaderris. I will have a punt at P. intermedia due to the venation and the yellow colour of the one open floret (see image below) we found! It is a fairly good match to images of this species in Flora of Victoria.

There were very few flowering beans around. This one is Platylobium parviflorum (although the taxonomists seem to be as confused as usual. with some mention of it being a subsepcies of P. formosum).

This species caused a little difficulty until iNaturalist suggested Bauera rubioides, at which point I remember being confused by this species in the past.

Genoa Peak stands out very nicely in this area!

Getting back to the highway we swung in to Genoa Creek track. As hoped for there were a few (~10) Caladenia caerulea near the start of the track under the powerlines.