Walks are getting interesting!

We went for a walk up the Narrows yesterday afternoon, with objectives of:

1. relaxing; and
2. checking on the state of florification, especially WRT Indigofera.

I am pretty confident that objective 1 was achieved.  Obective 2 was also satisfied since we did see an example of Indigofera with a flower.  I example and 1 flower but ....

Somewhat to our surprise as orchid flowering has not been good recently we found a few flowers from that family.  The first sample was Caladenia catenata.

We found a colony - perhaps 6 plants of Pterostylis melogramma.  A small greenhood, which is included as a "Tall Greenhood" which as the plant was about 10cm high seemed a bit of a misnomer!

Next up was P. curta, recognised by the twisty labellum.

An interesting shelf fungus which may be Phellinus wahlbergii.

On the Narrows walk we met another resident who commented that she had seen some Nodding Greenhoods on the Betka River loop. So on 31 July we took ourselves off there. First good sighting was a Split-gill fungus Schizophyllum commune.
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Then another strange specimen.  

The most distinctive element was the shape of the gills.  Unfortunately my phone managed to find a way to focus on the trees not the gills but hopefully this shows the odd shapes on the underside.  This makes it, in my view a very good match for Inocybe australiensis as shown in "A field guide to Australian Fungi" by Bruce Fuhrer.  (An identifier on iNaturalist disagrees with this, but I shall continue the debate.)

There seem to be a lot of Coral Fungus around this year.  This is Ramariopsis crocea.

I have been hoping to see one of these for years!  Ileodictyon gracile Smooth Cage Fungus.  Somewhat surprisingly it is grouped with Stinkhorns. (It looked very like a bit of discarded plastic packaging!)

We finally found the target: Pterostylis nutans!

Unlike many of the local greenhoods this one has a rosette of leaves,

Some Phungal Fotos

 Not as good as Caroline's but taken with my phone! Those identified to species have been agreed on iNaturalist, the more generic descriptors are mine!  The photos were mainly taken in Mortimer's Paddock.

Macrolepiota clelandii

Cruentomycena viscidocruenta topside

Cruentomycena viscidocruenta underside

Lactifluus flocktoniae: this is a newly defined genus split from Lactarius in 2008.  This was found on the Captains Creek Firetrail.  According to Wikipedia the genus Lactifluus was defined in 1806 before being merged with Lactarius. Don't you love taxonomists?   The 'Lacti' element of the name refers to the milky latex exuded when the body is damaged

Pluteus hubregtseorum

A paint fungus.

Leather/shelf fungus, topside.

Leather/shelf fungus, underside.

Possibly a "Rustgill" (Gymnopilus sp.)  These were at the picnic area near the start of the Chip Track.

Fotos of Phungus

 This starts with a set of images of fungi beginning with those seen on a walk up the Narrows on 19 May.  I have put the images on iNaturalist in the hope of getting some IDs: the AI on that site couldn't get past "Kingdom Fungi".

The first two images are of a large cluster on a stump beside the water.  They have been identified on iNaturalist as Omphalotus nidiformis - the phosphorescent Ghost Fungus.

The stipe for this one had failed.  Genus Oudemansiella

Genus Gymnopilus

This is to show the pattern of the gills in the lower broken-off part.

Family Mycenaceae

Genus Parasola

A bracket fungus, well endowed with algae appearing green.

The lump on the ground shows the original colour of the fungus to be orange.  iNaturalist has named this as Trametes coccinea Southern Cinnabar Polypore.

The next image is from the side of Lakeside Drive near Fisheries Jetty on 20 May.  This is Coprinus comatus (Shaggy Mane).

The next is from the start of the path down to Pebbly Beach.  Clearly a puffball but quite small.

A walk from Pebbly Beach to Two Heath Cove

 On 2 March the weather seemed fine and we were feeling frisky so headed off to walk from Pebbly Beach to a Rocky Cove, somewhat over half way to Shipwreck Creek.  The red colouring here is a fungal infection, although there is - according to an entomologist friend - a mine track made by a moth larva in the lower left 

Cassytha sp, confirmed on iNaturalist as C. glabella, Slender Devil's Twine.

The heath is beginning to get back to how it was before the Black Summer fire.  This is Allocasuarina paludosa: sufficiently mature to have got some cones.

The white patches are another major component of the heath: Hakea teretifolia.

One clump of hakea was close to the track so I got a close-up.  There are two tactical reasons for not going into the heath: 

• the burnt Hakea has left a lot of sharp spiky bits which are easy and painful to trip on; and 
• I reckon snakes need to work for their food, not given an easy meal. 

This fungus is supporting a colony of green algae.

On getting to Two Heath Cove a nice skink was catching some rays.  I think it is Lampropholis guichenoti the commonest skink in the area.  It looks a little plumper than usual so suspect it is a gravid female.  

The rocks in the Cove look like ideal Tattler habitat: unfortunately the tattlers disagreed (or at least kept their heads down).  Frances did spot 2 Gannets passing by.

I was struck by the patterns created by water spilling off a rock.

On the way back to Pebbly we saw a female Scarlet Robin (probably moved down from the high country) and heard a Crescent Honeyeater.  Unfortunately the latter had ceased its "Egypt" call by the time I got my recorder app working.  Back on the beach I had a number of bird species rated as "likely" but only an Eastern Reef Egret fronted.

Why is it called "Pebbly Beach?"

Various sightings

 This is a miscellany of sightings from 7 January.  It begins with a few snaps from our garden, as much about the flowers as the birds.

Little Wattlebird on Red-hot Poker.

New Holland Honeyeater (NHH) on Red Hot Poker.  This causes me to remember that at our last house, in Carwoola NSW the only time we used to see NHH was when the Pokers came in to flower, and then they would hang around until the flowering stopped.  The nearest place at which NHH were regular was about 3km away (straight line) and over a couple of small ridges, so how they new about this flowering beats me!

Little Wattlebird looking at Canna.

This sign, presumably erected by EGSC, has appeared at the start of the Casuarina Walk.  An excellent guide to many birding points,

The walk is a good spot to find Hyacinth Orchids.  This is Dipodium roseum.

An interesting collection of fungus. 

Underside of the fungus.

In the afternoon I went to add some biomass (bait) to the waters of the Inlet.  I removed a little biomass (weed) from the Lake but added nothing to our diet.  It was amusing to watch a flock of Little Black Cormorants feeding around a Pelican.  Frances has raised the question of whether Cormorants glide: I can't recall seeing this Pelicans are absolute glidemeisters, both in level flight inches above the water and spiralling upwards in a thermal or an orographic updraft.

THis mainly to show the wing action of a Silver Gull.

I tried to get images - OK, an image - of the Little Terns fishing in the vicinity but failed.  I suspect they were doing better than me.