Sundry snaps for Mallacoota, mid June

 What is in the title!

A neighbour was able to show me a Bassian Thrush i his yard, ending some months of searching for a sighting of this species.

A crescent moon.

Female Scarlet Robin seen on a drive around the are which spotted 41 species in an hour!

Two Cattle Egrets (ibid) 

The Nauta Tce Emu, sighted for the first time in several months.

A comfortable Pelican.

A pleasant sunset, taken on my iPad through a double-glazed window.

An Azure Kingfisher takes flight.

Later on 24th we walked the Betka Loop.  At Point Difficult we saw, but could not photograph, at least 6 Whales swimming past, about halfway to the horizon.   I did get a snap of a Sooty Oystercatcher on the rocks below.

On the 25th I went to Geology Point to see if there were more whales around.  There were not - or if they were they were staying out of view.  However a search for Southern Emuwren delivered the goods.

On the afternoon of 25 June we walked the Heathland track.  We saw another 3 Emuwrens as we did so: adjacent to the seat in the heath.  Earlier we had seen an Echidna near the bridge on the Chip Track  ...

... and several specimens of Dillwynnia sericea.  As we also saw blossom on Hakea and Allocasuarina there are signs that Winter will end (if a day with a maximum of 19.4C can be called Winter!)

Yet more sky images

 The sun and clouds are doing a pretty good job of spectacular recently.  Following a pleasant pastel sunrise on 13 June, there was an intriguing sunset on that day (the cloud led to 6.4mm of rain) o followed by an colourful sunrise, on 14 June including a moon!

The pastel sunrise, at 0706 hrs.

The sky got very cloudy late in the afternoon but a gap appeared over Karbeethong which was well illuminated by 1636 hrs.

At 1640 I switched to my smaller lens to get a wider view.  Mt Imlay is just out of the frame to the right.

This tales a view continuing to the left (West) of the previous image.

The sunrise on the 14th wasn't so unusual, but still attractive at 0644.

The moon enhances this image.

On the 15th there was a good collection of lenticular clouds (referred to by the Cloud Appreciation Society as 'lennies')  in the general direction of Mount Drummer.  The first one in particular has a good impersonation of a UFO!

A little later they were just nice to look at.

As I expected/hoped sunset was pretty lurid on the 15th.  For those interested, when I zoomed in on the bird it had a clearly forked tail, so it is a fairly close Welcome Swallow rather than a distant raptor (or Pelican)

Sunset 8 June

 After a rather dreary day, with steady rain in the afternoon, a band of clear sky on the horizon gave a spectacular sunset.

Still moderately fit?

When I first went up Genoa Peak there was a sign at the start of the walking saying "Moderate fitness required".  That disappeared at some time on 31 December 2019 and has still not been replaced.  However, I reckon the concept is still relevant as Frances and I were well stuffed by the time got back to the car.  Here is the route (courtesy of eBird).  The distance is perhaps 100m long as I didn't stop right at the furthest point.

Google Earth tells me the car park is 239mAMSL and the highest point is 436m. So the average slope is 1 in 8.8 (or 11.3%).  Of course several of those metres are done on ladders at the top, but it is still a steady ascent.  In fact the slope isn't the hardest work: it is the uneven rock one is walking on!

Here is a view from the track about 300m along.

Parks have done a lot of tidying in the car park and picnic tables.  Clearing the track - rather less: there were about 6 obstacles like this, which were merely annoying.

The first look out gives a good idea of how many ranges are visible: we had expected a sunny day but were disappointed by cloud.  This is looking about WNW.

Looking North the dominant peak is, as expected, Mt Imlay, which is 75% higher than Genoa Peak.  

Looking back from the lookout, there is still work to do!

Once up on top, even with the cloudy skies there is still a nice view to the coast.  Gabo Island is sort of visible beyond Bottom Lake.

This roundel points to a few landmarks.  Interestingly all the details 

A view to the NW from the very top.

Looking at the way down.  Granite boulders and metal stairs.

A close up of the top of the second (of three) stairs.

Some large exposures of granite on the way round the side of the peak.

The colour of the granite: the pink stuff isn't all on Gabo!

Looking out to the West past a granite wall.  The blue line is a panorama on the first lookout naming all the visible mountains.

There were few flowers.  Correa reflexa was well evident, but I thought this solitary Epacris impressa did a good job of brightening the lower slopes.