Wildlife of Bastion Point

 We went to explore the area around the breakwater yesterday. There was a large (11) flock of Black-faced Cormorants on the breakwater.

Some evidence suggests they have been there for a while.

This shows the black face and the key ID feature: the long black bill.

On the boat ramp we spotted a few crabs.  They will be submitted to iNaturalist to confirm ID but I think this is a Swift-footed Shore- Crab Leptograptus variegatus.

Not sure about this one.  Looked longer and thinner on the rock but iNaturalist AI suggested it was the same species as before.

A Wingan Adventure

 As the weather was pleasant and we felt like exploring a nearby area which we hadn't previously visited we decided to go to Wingan Inlet on 17 September.  Here is the route we took.  According to Google maps this is 85.6 km and should take 1:39, depending on traffic.  We felt it unlikely there would be any traffic issues once we turned off the Princes Highway

The road from the Highway to the campground was 35 km, with occasional distances painted on the trunks of trees.  The road was in quite good condition so I trundled along at about 80kph.  I noticed a marker for the Wingan Link Track and thought that if it was open it would cut off quite a bit of distance.

This water trough was a nice touch at the campground.  Presumably it is gravity fed from a creek somewhere.  A sign did say not potable.

We decided to take a walk to the beach (and once we got there, along the beach).  The walk was rather good, with omly a few bits of timber across it to be inconvenient.

As we walked along close to the water we were surprised to see a bloke fishing in the Inlet.  He seemed surprised to see us as well!  At the end of the track we had a good view out to the Skerries.

They were well endowed with seals!

Also a few Black-faced Cormorants - arrowed.  (Later I noticed a lot of Silver Gulls and Cormorants roosting on the rocks, but didn't take a photo.)

While looking out the fisherman came past us.  He chatted for a while - probably hadn't had anyone to talk to for a few days!  He had been working in the ski fields. but that job had run out so he was off to his next work, in Melbourne.  He was headed to the mouth of the Inlet where he had caught some Salmon on the Saturday.

This is Rame Head.  The walking track goes over the ridge on the inland side.  It was named by Cook as it resembled a feature on Plymouth Harbour.  From Google Earth it appears to be 71m high - but looks a fair bit more than that.

Some of the rocks at the end of the beach.

There were a lot of empty shells washed up at the end of the beach and some live shells on the rocks.  The arrow points to a large, live, Triton just in the water.  The iNaturalist system has identified the shell as Charonia lampas (Knobbed Triton Snail).

There were a lot of Oysters and Sea Anemones on the rocks visible as low(ish) tide.

A cache of washed up, and largely broken, shells.

A selection of shells laid out below a notice.  This would probably piss-off Parks as the shells had been moved from where the ocean had dumped them.

I have submitted this to iNaturalist which as frequently happens proposed an African species.  It is some form of everlasting but I can't sort out which!  The iNaturalist system has confirmed Coronidium elatum White paper daisy.

This puzzled us as the flowers were the colour of Indigophora but appeared to be growing on a vine rather than a shrub.  There I unravelled the vine a little and there were Indigphora leaves.

Back at the picnic area I spoke to some people about the Wingan Link Track.  They assured me it was open and the crossing of the river was on a big concrete bridge!  Here is the view from the middle of the Bridge, looking upstream.

The blue line in this shows the route back along the Link Track.  The red dashes show roughly the way we came.  The green dashes are the Link Track itself.  It took 22 minutes for that section.  According t Google Maps the way back was 81.6km (so saved 4km) but would take 1:36 (adding 7 minutes).  It was certainly slower driving on the track: 40-50kph as it was rather narrow with lots of blind corners: also a lot of fallen branches which made loud bangs on the underside of the car.  West Wingan Rd is the go when we return!

Quarry and Secret beaches

 The tide being low on 6 December indicated it would be possible to get through the gap from Quarry Beach on to Secret Beach.  So we took ourselves off.  The tide was indeed low.

The shapes of the rocks were very interesting

The green seaweed was very lurid, but there was very little other life around on the rocks.  I noticed a few mussels and Frances saw some limpets but that was about it.

As we got close to the Western end of Quarry Beach Frances spotted a smaller wader on some rocks.  It was bobbing, somewhat like a large Common Sandpiper.  When I got my binoculars on it, it was clearly a Tattler and to my inexpert eye seemed more like a Grey-tailed than a Wandering.  I phoned Janine and when she got there a little later, she agreed with the ID, as did another expert after I reported it to ABID.

I doubt if this helps with the identification but I was very impressed with the length of the wings!

It was a tad slippery getting into the gap but the water was elsewhere.

This is another gap in the rocks off Secret Beach.

Lots of Cunjevoi and a couple of clusters of the Jewel Anemone (Corynactis australis).

The invertebrates were more interesting on the rocks of Secret Beach.  Here we have chitons, limpets and barnacles.

Lurking under a sheltering rock were quite a few 'normal' sea-anemones.

Home and (a little way) away.

 On the last morning of 2020 (the worst year I can remember - so far, 2021 looks to be offering some competition) some of the local New Holland Honeyeaters visited flowers in our garden.  Each one was peered at closely to make sure it wasn't a White-cheeked Honeyeater.

The first image features a garlic flower!  Taken through 3 sheets of glass.

Visiting a Canna and trying to imitate a Hummingbird.

In the afternoon we visited Quarry Beach, close to low tide.  Despite the tide not being really low (0.2m rather than 0.02m) the beach was very wide and lots of rock exposed.  A colourful crab - or as we saw on an exhibit card in the Dar es Salaam Museum 'crap' - was hiding in a crevice.

In the Eastern part of the beach the exposed rocks were hosting many mussel shells.  Doing a very rough calculation from counting a sample of the shells in this image I think it shows about 1200 mussels.  Taking a couple of rough guesses that this was 1 of 10 colonies on this rock, and there were about 20 similarly sized rocks in this part of the beach gives about 2,400,000 mussels!

Not so plentiful but in crevices at the Western end of the beach were lots of Turban shells.

And a few Seastars, of various colours.

The tide was out so far that some of the bull kelp was visible.

At the West end a lot of Chitons were sucked on to rocks.  This was one of the biggest.

Also a Triton.

The west end of Quarry beach.

Looking East from Secret Beach.

Secret Beach wasn't so secret!

A good map of the area at the Quarry Beach carpark.

On the way home we called in at the Davis Beach car park to see if any of the Solanum aviculare fruit had turned colour yet.  (We expected them to go go tomato colour - which seems to be supported by the images and text in Flora of Victoria.)  However most of them were still green ...

.. and where the empty receptacles indicated the fruit had ripened and fallen off ....

... the fallen fruit just looked brown and/or manky.