A little out of area

This covers an outing of the Bairnsdale Field Naturalists Society which we attended on 20 November.  We stopped three times, with the second being added as it looked interesting when most of the group drove past on the way from Bairnsdale to Drummer.  It was nice to have the first stop relatively close to home!

A look into the Thurra River.

A fern - or possibly 2 ferns.  

Various epiphytes.

I was told this is a Tanglefoot orchid (Plectorrhiza tridentata).  I had thought this would be a large plant but was in fact tiny.  (As an aside it is possibly surprising how often that is the case: another one comes next.)

This is the Butterfly Orchid (Sarcochilus australis).  I had mentally confused this with the much larger S. falcatus - Orange Blossom Orchid - which is only known from one site in Victoria (not near where we were).  However I eventually picked out the small flowers hanging down in rainforest.

Zooming in helps a bit!

White Elderberry (Sambucus gaudichaudiana) was common at Drummer.

The scene at Reedy Creek, the add on stop.

This one is a worry.  It is very common here, growing in swathes along the roadside.  We thought it looked like Leucochrysum sp. and iNaturalist AI agrees, but Flora of Victoria only offers 3 species, none of them anywhere close to this site!  Let us see what the humans have to say.  A human has responded, suggesting Chrysocephalum baxteri, which agrees with a comment about 'Chrysocephalum' made in the field.  (In our experience ' chryso' usually means something yellow - Chryso is Greek for golden - so we had rejected that.  We were wrong!)

A very small Gompholobium and I strongly suspect it is G. glabratum.  The text in Flora of Voctoria describes the range as "only from the upper Genoa River and the upper Cann River Valley" but there is a dot on the map almost exactly where we found this.

Lots of a showy Hakea growing on the edge of a swamp.  It doesn't look like the usual species around here (H. decurrens) but does match quite well to H. teretifolia, although I didn't find any of the dagger-shaped fruit.  Let's see what the humans on iNaturalist have to say.

A pretty little white flower (with bonus raindrop) is identified on iNaturalist as Libertia pulchella  (Pretty Grass-flag).  As its vernacular name suggests it is a member of the Iris family.

This is definitely a Prostanthera (aka Mint-bush) and I think P. lasianthos (a member of the group gave the species name but I didn't write it down).

Cyathea australis.  One specimen looked a bit odd, but it was decided eventually not to be C. leichardtiana.

A collection of fungi!

An expert on iNaturalist has identified this as Schizophyllum commune a fine specimen too.

A blown down nest with eggs, and the eggs being invaded by fungi.

The consensus on iNaturalist appears to be Narrow-brand Grass Dart (Ocybadistes flavovittata).

These burrows were all over the Drummer area.  It appeared to be where the animal had been digging for truffles.  From referring to "Tracks Scats and other traces" it seems unlikely to be Bandicoot (the hole doesn't end in a point) so is thus most likely to be a Potoroo.

Some images of infrastructure.  The first is Drummer.

The others are Mackenzie Rainforest.  There was debris in the vegetation suggesting that in floods earlier in the year the water would have been several feet above the walkways.  A large (>1m diameter) tree had fallen across one of the walkways but that had been removed and the walkway rebuilt. 

The history of White-headed Pigeons in East Gippsland(ish)

 A recent post to Mallacoota Birds covering a photo of a White-headed Pigeon included the comment "... very interesting to see how far south they are venturing.". The author of that post has subsequently consulted her records and commented "I first sighted White-headed Pigeon behind my Betka Road home 30th September, 1998."

I have attempted to look at the broader recorded history of White-headed Pigeons in South Eastern Australia, using material available through Birdata up to 2014 and subsequently through eBird.  The easiest way to show this is through map images (I have yet to work out how to do this analysis on ebird in a quantitative manner using ACCESS.  When/if I do so I will append the results here.)

A few text comments may also assist.  

• The earliest record in eBird for the Mallacoota District is 23 April 1992, followed by one on 10 February 1995.  Note that this was well before eBird was launched in the US in 2002 and even more before the system was widely used in Australia (about 2014): thus these records probably indicate eBird users uploading their historic records.  For East Gippsland West of Mallacoota the first eBird record at Orbost is 19 November 2004, with Metung getting on the list on 6 March 2006.  Bairnsdale first gets mentioned on 15 November 2008.
•  I don't have ready access to individual records in Birdata so have relied on the maps available through that system zooming in to the fine detail to establish the date of some early sightings.  Going well beyond East Gippsland I find 2 records for Lorne, and one to the West of that town in 2007.  The following map covers Birdata records from 1/1/2000 to 31/12/2009.

The next map shows sites from which the pigeon of interest was reported in Birdata for 2010.  It is  obviously only reported sporadically past  Mallacoota, suggesting these are isolated birds "exploring the boundaries of possibility".

At the broad level of detail the maps for 2011 and 2012 are the same, showing reports from further West.

The trend continues for 2013 ...

.. and 2014.

At this point in history the data entry system used for Birdata reached its use-by date and most birders moved to eBird,  This next map shows eBird records (see note above) prior to 2015.

2020 and earlier, with a few pioneers making it across Bass Strait.

And finally, all eBird records.  Orange pins indicate pins in the 4 weeks ending 16 November 2022

In summary they have moved well South and far West.

I have finally worked out how to express the spread of the species using eBird data. I have calculated the earliest year of records classified to Latitude and Longitude to 0.1 degrees for both.  That is shown in the following graphic.

What it shows is the initial entry point at Mallacoota and then arrival in several locations to the West in the mid noughties.  As a generalisation, the spots from which it was reported earlier in the West are either towns (where birders might live, such as Bairnsdale or Orbost) or places popular for birding (Colquon Forest).

Bream Competition

 I justify putting this post here as it does include photos of weather and of a fish, as well as lots of images of boats!  The event is a round of the Bream Classics competition.  

Boats started to arrive off Karbeethong Jetty after 6am: not quite as evocative as the events in the past as they are earlier in the year and thus still dark as they gather.  This year it was just murky because of the weather!

I counted about 55 boats: there were 63 listed entrants.  Here are the first few heading off from 0645.  They go off 2 at a time at 30 second intervals: it used to be a Le Mans style start but that got too dangerous!

The arrangements for the finish have also changed with crews checking in at Karbeethong at 2 pm and then going to the weigh in at the wharf.  My guess was half had launched at the wharf  so boated back there and stoodged around waiting for a spot on the ramp.  

Those who had launched at Karbeethong towed the boats back and then had to queue up - the line stretching back to Allen Drive!

Here is the weigh in taking place.  The bloke on the left is the official who chats as he weighs the fish and checks they are all of legal size.  The guy on the right is a competitor who is invited to talk about their day and their tactics.  The official commented that there isn't much information provided - they used all baits and fished all over the Inlet covering all habitats - on day 1.  The anglers actually admit what they did on the second day!

Here is a bream going back into the water.  They were put back in between the Gipsy Princess and the wharf so that the Pelicans couldn't get them!  There are two species of bream: Black Bream which are denser so that a given length weighs more, and Yellow-finned Bream.

This is the Coastguard boat which patrolled the Inlet presumably as a safety measure.

There is a Facebook page with a summary of results and some photographs and the full results are here.  Many of the crews reported getting a lot of Flathead as well.

Some Photos of Nature in November

 The first couple of snaps are of a local identity who strolled across Angophora Drive as we came back from our morning walk

Later that day the very strong wind (the daily run of 494 km was the third longest I have recorded here) made interesting patterns on Bottom Lake.  I'm sure if we had been unwise - or desperate - enough to be out there in our kayaks we'd call them waves, but power boaters would call them ripples.

On the afternoon of 11 November we went for a stroll on what little beach is left at Bastion Point.  On getting round the corner an angler was hauling something in.  It turned out to be this attractively coloured stingray, identified on iNaturalist.org as a Southern Eagle Ray.  

The captor released the fish, pushing it back into the water with the butt of his rod announcing "I don't want to end up like Steve Irwin."

Later in the evening it looked as though we were going to get some serious rain ..

.. accompanied by a son et lumiere performance.

We only scored 1.6 mm of rain (and a later, larger, cell was completely diverted around us).  There were a few flashes and bangs however,