When does Spring begin?

 For Mallacoota in 2023 the answer seems to be July 1!  It has (mainly) been a very warm month thus far with 2 maxima over 20C and 3 minima over 10C.  Perhaps that is why we found quite a bit of blossom in the Davis Creek heath on 27 July?

I'll begin with Hakea decurrens.  When fully blooming the flowers are white.

Earlier, the inflorescences appear more pink.

The first wattles are around.  Acacia buxifolia

Acacia suavolens

The family still known colloquially as 'peas' even though it is now called Fabaceae (after Faba = bean [although I think most 'beans' are now in the genus Vicia!]) has commenced flowering.  The usual suspect is Dillwynia sericea.

We saw our first flower for the season of another pea Hardenbergia violaceae

One of the dominant shrubs of the heath is Allocasuarina paludosa.  These are female flowers and a nut from previous years.

A butterfly paused its fluttering by.  I think it is a Varied Dusky-Blue (Erina hyacinthina), and an observer on iNaturalist has agreed with this.   (Note that in my copy of Butterflies of Australia by Michael Braby it is shown as a different genus: well done taxonomists!)

A Little Wattlebird tries hard to impersonate a Banksia integrifolia cone!

I am adding a few images from the 28th as the are more or less on topic!  The first image is a mass of blossoming Pandora pandorea (Wonga vine) at Bucklands carpark.

Looking down at the Lake showed each swan had a ring of ripples.  This is probably a comment more on the stillness of the Lake surface than the strength of the ripples.

Raising my eyes a little revealed a New Holland Honeyeater.

What I had actually gone out to see was the sunset.

Pambula Walks

 This is a bit of a step from Mallacoota, but have included it in this blog as we did it from Mallacoota, and will probably do it again from there.  Also I want some of my early commentary to be seen by people from, or visiting, Mallacoota.

We had gone to Merimbula to get a few things that I needed and to put some additional value into the trip Frances found a couple of walks in a brochure put out by a consortium of Councils (East Gippsland; Bega Valley and Eurobodalla).  Where we went is marked by the two orange pins.

For the first of these we actually meant to go to Wolumla Peak, but the stupid brochure didn't say "go 14km along Wolumla Peak Rd" so we started walking at the river crossing.  I have complained to Bega Valley Shire about thus

There were lots of butterflies around as we walked up the road.  The iNaturalist AI rates this, one of the common species on the day, as a Wonder Brown.

The underlying rock appeared to be sandstone.

The slope running down to the Pambula River was both steep and thickly vegetated.

Beside the track again, were many ferns.  the AI rated this as a Shiny Fan Fern but a local expert has said S. lobatus (Spreading Fan Fern).

We returned to the car and headed off towards the Goodenia Rainforest walk.  Learning all the time, I put that into the GPS before setting off, finding that it was 8 km up the "road".  The road was pretty rough, and after about 4km pretty narrow.  However when we arrived at the parking area we found a Mazda 3 parked there!  The walk was mainly out and back so we met the owners of this as we went down (and caught them up on the drive out: they were sensibly going very slowly to protect the car.)  To complete comments on visitation we met yet another group going down as we came back up.

This unusual looking insect was crawling around on the steps.  I suspect it has only recently emerged from a pupal case.  I think it is genus Amata (Tiger Moths).  Nope, it turns out to be Oenosandra boisduvalii, Boisduval's Autumn Moth.

A collection of epiphytes.

The track was pretty steep.  Frances discovered that the area at the side of the step had a much lower vertical step as soil had washed down.  This made the walk back up much easier.

An occasional spiky vine across the track kept one alert!

A long flight of steps: quite new, so the soil-wash effect was not yet evident.

More epiphytes!

Vines are a major element of the biomass of rainforests.

A babbling brook in the bottom of the gully we were descending.

Ferns and moss.

This fruit looked familiar and so it was: Pittosporum revolutum.

At the bottom of the walk the track does a small loop though the forest.

Coming back up, one's attention was occasionally grabbed by the height of the trees.

A very nice walk and well worth the bumpy drive.

The picnic area at the car park was pretty well set out with tables etc and graced with loud calls by the Superb Lyrebirds which are starting to get in tune for breeding.  The recording was not great but the shaking tail feathers can be heard at the end.

A right Charlie's Creek track.

 I have read a few explanations of why, in English slang, the phrase "a right Charlie" means a fool.  This one is well off (my understanding of) the mark, and I suggest the author gets professional help.  I was always told that it is a reference to Mr Chaplin, reflecting the number of daft situations in which the Little Tramp finds himself.  Whatever: the meaning seems to have a fair application to the walk we did today, shown in the following extract from Google Earth.

I will come back to this a little later, but as a depiction of the two tracks I'd say the material Google accessed was an approximation drawn by someone in the Bairnsdale or Melbourne offices of Parks who has never been East of Orbost.  And their drafting tool was the famous "thumbnail dipped in tar".

Here is the track which eBird logged from where we actually went.

At an early point we came across this sad specimen.  I have asked iNaturalist for suggestions about identification (the first suggestion by their AI - emphasising 'Artificial' rather than 'Intelligence' - was European Dormouse).

The track - well cleared (presumably to let the Parks contractors get to rebuild the jetty at the end) is surrounded by densely regenerating Acacia scrub of which A. terminalis was well into bud.

The bloodwoods (Corymbia gummifera) were well into flower, explaining why a proportion of the fruit bat flyout has been pointing in this direction.

It never fails to astonish me how the autofocus function on my camera will find something other than my target to focus on.  In this case it has ignored the blossom (~80% of the image) and gone for Frances arm (~5% ) in the background.

A nice new jetty with some anglers well ensconced.  When we were last here (before the fire) the piles of the jetty were covered with sea squirts: they have yet to re-establish.

A Pelican passed over, giving me at least one bird snap.

Here is the eBird track.  Many diversions from that shown on Google Earth, amounting to an extra kilometre of distance.  It also suggests far better the amount of ups and downs along the way rather than the flat track I had been expecting from the straight line on Google Earth.

Flowers were generally hard to find.  A pretty little Dianella sp.

An orchid!  Eriocholus cucculatis , with the vernacular name Parson's Bands: the column etc always makes me think of a ranting evangelist, rather than a timid Parson.

I find it hard to capture steepness in photos.  This was one of the early gullies which the track took.  This was quite a surprise as on our previous foray (from the Double Creek car parking area) partway along the track the difficulty had been flooding rather than altitude sickness.

The contrast between the burnt black branches and the green foliage justified this image.

Two interesting holes: I think Bandicoot, but advice has been sought.

An attractive butterfly kept fluttering in front of us.  Every time it landed it shut its wings rendering itself both less attractive and harder to find against the fallen leaves.

Eventually I got a shot of the upper wings: a Variable Sword-grass Brown (Tisiphone abeona).

Colourful Gahnia sp. fruit

Finally we get to Charlie's Creek: by this stage I had realised that the track shown on Google Earth was garbage, as we had already done 2.9km and that shown was only 3km.  It was also interesting that the last1 kilometre we had walked had had NO maintenance from Parks for at least 2 years, and possibly not since the fire.

I had hoped that with the shiny new signs at each end of the track they would have fixed up the crossing here.  Hah: I am talking about Viv Parks here.

Frances crossed upright doing a sideways shuffle.  I sucked in my dignity, threw it away  and crossed on hands and knees.  But I didn't fall in!

Along the rest of the track the wattle showing signs of flowering was Acacia longifolia.

This is the low lying area which was flooded last time we walked this track.

Attractive bark on some sort of burnt tree.

Double Creek: a pleasant sight as it meant the end was close(r).

Nice new signs are always possible in Parks-land.  Slashing a track, or replacing a bridge not so often.