Recent sightings

 This post covers my images of sightings on a plant walk along the power lines (sort of) organised through U3A Mallacoota and a few other interesting sightings on 11 and 12 October.  

The first image is Burchardia umbellata (Milkmaids).  Very common over the slashed area.  One of the participants asked about the pollinators of plants: note the ant on the lowest flower on the rhs.  Ants are very important in this role. 

The commonest Sun-Orchid seen was Thelymitra ixiodes (Spotted Sun-Orchid)

This is a really crappy image but a pollinating fly is visible in a fuzzy way.  (Some other genera of orchids are pollinated by wasps, using mimicry and pheromones to achieve this purpose.

Just about the time we turned a Thelymitra rubra (Salmon Sun-Orchid) was found.

Quite a few of the Xanthorrhoea resinosa (Grass trees) had flower spikes.  The area was slashed a few weeks ago, so the vegetative growth has come since then and we speculated whether the rain from a week ago stimulated the emergence of the spikes.

A Lily, without a common name (at least, one is not shown in Flora of Victoria), Thelionema umbellatum.

This is a Heath Rhytidosporum procumbens (White Marianth).  The first, fuzzy, image shows the structure of the flower ...

... while the second shows the leaves and a fruit.

Definitely a Pea and I believe it to be Dillwynnia glaberima (Smooth Parrot-pea).

A moth: iNaturalist has been consulted.

iNaturalist has also been consulted about this - to my mind, unusual - frogspawn.  The bubbles are 25-50mm in diameter and it looks to me as though the eggs have hatched into very small tadpoles.

Moving on to other sightings.  I went to Mullet Creek in search of Cuckoos but no luck for them.  I did better with Black-faced Monarch.  This image hints at the wing-fluttering display posture.

A male Common Bronzewing (note cream forehead).

A female Common Bronzewing (note grey forehead).

On the 12th we were surprised - and excited - to see 6 Sharp-tailed Sandpipers at the Broome St Lagoon on our morning walk.  I returned with my camera to get some snaps.

2 Little Egrets were mixed in with the Royal Spoonbills.

Both visible here: one carrying on like a pork chop, diagnostic of the species.

Just a nice shot of a landing Spoonbill.

This one is to show a discoloured Royal Spoonbill.  Usually they are always white, unlike Yellow-billed Spoonbills or Australian White Ibis (where the dirty colour is explained by the vernacular name "Bin Chook")

After all that good stuff I took myself to check on the Beach Stone Curlew.  It was still there, and very easy to see (and photograph) looking down from site 344 in the Caravan Park.