Footmobile Orchids

 On 1 October the Mallacoota Footmobiles did a car crawl, with short walks, checking out flowering orchids.  This shows where we stopped.

Calochilus paludosis Red Beard Orchid

Thelymitra carnea Pink Sun Orchid

Thelymitra ixioides Spotted Sun Orchid

Prasophyllum elatum Tall Leek orchid

Diuris orientis Wallflower orchid

Glossodia major Large Waxlip Orchid

Caladenia tentaculata Eastern Mantis Orchid

As we got back towards the cars a pair of Jacky Lizards (Amphibolus muricatus) were taking some rays.

They let me get quite close!

Following a tip on Orchids

 The Grand Final of the AFL was boring in the extreme so we went to check on a sighting of Beard Orchids reported by a friend.  That was at point 1 in the map.

We found beard orchids very quickly.  According to iNaturalist these tow images are Calochilus paludosus.

This one seemed 'different'.  Possibly just aged but I have called it C. campestris, Copper Beard Orchid.

We then explored the track into the Water Treatment Plant (WTP).  Area 2 on the map. Few Beard Orchids but many buds of Thelymitra sp. (Sun Orchids).  The weather was not propitious for the flowers to open, being about 15C and very windy.

One small Onion Orchid (Microtis sp.)

We moved up to the track under the power lines (3 on the map).  

Despite the weather referred to above this one has a bud open.  I feel safe calling it Thelymitra ixioides - the default Sun Orchid in this District.

On the verge of the main road, heading towards point 2,there were many Glossodia major (or whatever the DNA freaks are calling Waxlip Orchids this week).

A few other images.  I think this (from area 1) is Thelionema caespitosum in a white, rather than blue, form.

Mitrasacme polyforma from Area 3.

When we got home Channel 7 was still showing proceedings from the G.  I hesitate to call it football as the Lions were around 80 points in front.  The Swans had given up and the Lions were playing a style of football I remember from playing in Torrens St, Mitcham with my mates: dobbing the ball from end to end with no real purpose.  Glad we went out for a nice walk!

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,

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.