Some orchids at the Betka River

Having received confirmation that the orchid I saw at the start of the Captains Creek FT was the uncommon Pterostylis acuminata I recalled seeing something on the Betka River walk that, with the benefit of hindsight, looked rather similar so I took myself off there to relocate it.

Alas and woe.  My hindsight is about as good as my normal sight (without glasses).  The plant at Betka had no basal rosette and didn't really look like the P acuminata.

I have gone back to our original view that it is a deformed (or still emerging) P. grandiflora or Cobra Greenhood.  We returned here the next day so that Frances could see the "Speculanthas".  The first thing she noticed was a cluster of about 20 P. grandiflora: they were about evenly split between the standard form and these scrawny efforts.

However while there I went for a small explore noting that a number of other plants that looked rather like small greenhoods were growing.  Eventually I found a more advanced specimen of same.  Perhaps 20cm high.

Looking more closely the flowers were inwards facing, which makes them what David Jones helpfully named as Speculantha parviflora.  However his names weren't accepted by some fans of DNA sequencing so are officially kept within the vast genus of Pterostylis and are thus P.  parviflora.  In the excellent book "Orchids of East Gippsland" by the Bairnsdale Field Naturalists Club these are shown as Group 4 Tiny Greenhoods within Pterostylis.  Here are a couple of images showing the flowers in close up.

Unfortunately that lot was a trifle previous as over the following week the flowers "revolved" so that they were't facing inwards!  Thus not "Speculantha".  They are what DJ would call Bunochilus, or the BFN put in a group of Tall Greenhoods.  In taking my photograph on 20 July I triggered the labellum which makes ID difficult but I think it was Pterostylis tunstallii.

I shall return to check.  We did find another (still developing) orchid near Point Difficult which was a lot taller and I think was P. melagramma.  To be watched

On our second visit as we carried on along the track we noticed a cluster of very small (3-5cm tall) greenhoods.

These look to be P. concinna.  While a new species for us our East Gippsland orchid book describes them as "Probably the most common Greenhood in EG...".

But wait!  There's more!  Not steak knives but Pterostylis nutans.  Found beside the Heathland Walk not far from Betka Rd.

That makes 5 species we have found in the last week!

Captains Creek Trail

We did this walk recently and I have posted the details on another blog.  As there is an exciting orchid recorded therein I thought I would share a link here!

Spoonbills change their haunt

For the past several weeks a flock of Royal Spoonbills has been building up in the Lagoon near Broome Street.  On the morning of 4 July they were disturbed by a passing immature White-bellied Sea-Eagle and took off.  Later in the day I noticed them out on a small island in the Inlet.  As far as I can tell this island has no official name.

On the morning of 5 July the spoonbills and the usual Australian Pelicans were still in place.

 This image of a Pelican taking off deserved its own place in this blog.

 On peering closely a pair of the spoonbills were engaged in a fair bit of what ornithologists would refer to as allopreening (or, in New York speak, "making nice"). 

 Although such behaviour isn't cited in HANZAB as a prelude to breeding I suggest we need to keep an eye open for them starting to build nests sometime soon.  A further hint would be if they are seen flying around with sticks in their beak.  From a nesting event I followed closely in Canberra I'd suggest that some of the tall shrubs in the Lagoon would make suitable nest sites.

2 Pacific Gulls were also on the small island, with this one exploring something yucky on the mud.

Having started a birdie post I thought I would include (why? because I can) a snap of three Pelicans in flight I took a few days ago.

Walks off the main road

As a change from the coast oriented walks today we went for a couple of forays off the Genoa Rd.  We started with the Double Creek Nature Trail.  I didn't fire up eBird until we were slightly into the walk- as there were few birds around (other than a horde of Bell Miners) that probably didn't matter too much.

We came across a couple of clumps of Clavulinopsis sulcata which still seems to be common despite the taxonomists changing its name.

This little red jobbie is I think Mycena viscidocruenta.  Although small the bright red colour stands out well.

 The colour and pattern of the gills also matches that species.

There are a lot of ferns on this walk,  In this image three species at least are visible:

1. Maidenhair (Adiantum sp., possibly A. aethiopicum)
2. unknown
3. Bracken (Pteridium esculentum)

 Also quite a few tree-ferns Cyathea australis.

I think this is a Lilli-pilli Syzygium smithii (yes, the name has changed)

As this walk only took a short while we headed off to the Sandy Point track a kilometre or so further towards Genoa.  We only walked a bit of the track: the red dots complete it.

 An interesting blue-grey fungus.

 I think this is Stereum hirsutum.

 A spider's home decorated by dew (still, at about 1530).

I cannot get a match for this - not even to genus - in our local book.  I am reasonably sure it had 5 petals (despite this sample appearing to have 6).

Again few birds around.  It must be habit that gets them to migrate: there were plenty of mosquitoes for them to feed on.

Berry good!

I recent days I have noticed quite a few berry producing plants around the area so thought I would do a specific post about these.  If I have mucked up the ID of anything please let me know by the comments section.

Some of the images have appeared in other posts but I thought it worthwhile to bring them together here.

Sweet Pittosprum Pittosporum undulatum 

Ubiqitous - and berries hang on for months.

Rough-fruit Pittosporum Pittosporum revolutum

Maxwells Forest Walk (25 May 2019; Lat -37.4141 Long 149.8136)

Bolwara (Eupomatia laurina)

Maxwells Forest Walk (25 May 2019; Lat -37.4141 Long 149.8136)

Lilli Pilli Syzygium smithii 

Double Creek Nature Trail (2 July 2019 Lat -37.5297 Long 149.6882)

Shady Gully Bushland Reserve (3 July 2019  Lat -37.5566 Long 149.7527)

Wombat berry Eustrephus latifolius 

Shady Gully Bushland Reserve (3 July 2019  Lat -37.5566 Long 149.7527)

June 2019 Weather Report

As well as the quantitative measures which form most of this report, it may be noteworthy that we have seen quite a few plant species in flower in June, which are described as Spring flowering.  Or it may be that there always a few plants that bloom out of season!

In what follows I make frequent use of data from the BoM site on Betka Rd near the airport.  The heath on the site has been slashed recently and I wonder what effect the change in albedo and the decomposing slashings will have on the readings there.

My overall summary is that the month was (again) quite dry with below average (BoM) to well below average (Angophora Drive) rainfall.  The afternoon humidity (BoM) was well below historical levels but the morning humidity was a bit higher than history.  Temperatures - especially the average maximum - were above average while the mean temperature worked out to a little above average.  Winds were not remarkable.

Rainfall

Rainfall this month shows interesting differences according to the weather station examined.  In the table below "Wunderground" refers to private weather stations on the Weather Underground network.  The 5 sites are marked (approximately) in this Google Earth clip.

• Angophora Drive  41.0 mm
• BoM Mallacoota  66.4 mm
• BoM Gabo Island  55.4 mm
• Wunderground Bellbird Creek 50.3 mm
• Wunderground Maramingo 37.1 mm

It is unusual, in the 4 months that we have been here, for my station at Angophora Drive to be lower than the BoM site, so a little maintenance would seem to be indicated.  (That has happened and all seemed OK with the rainfall cup.) For the time being I am taking the BoM Mallacoota reading (66.4 mm) as a better measure.  This is still well below last year and somewhat less than the median value.

In terms of year to date we have currently received 357 mm which is 92% of the median fall to this month.  We have usually received 49.7% of the years rain by end of June so extrapolating that for the year we are looking at an annual fall of 720 mm.

A similar pattern was seen with the number of rain days in the month.

In recent months the rainfall deficiency has eased for many parts of the country.  As a Victorian example the BoM site at Woodend - near Ballarat - has reported 324.6 mm for the year to end June, after being at 41.6 mm for the year to end April.  A doom-laden graphic is the BoM 14 month rainfall deficiency for Australia.

Updating to the 5 month deficiency shows that there is very little of Victoria or NSW (outside of the NE corner)  with a serious or worse deficiency.

Coming back to the local situation I have compiled series of rolling cumulative rainfall for 18 month and 12 month series for BoM Mallacoota.  Both show the series ticking up in the last few months.

Temperatures

Overall the month was close to average.  We finished with a calculated average 0.2^oC above the long term average and - unlike Europe - had no dramatic extremes.  

Maximum temperatures

The average maximum temperature was well above both the average and the value for 2018.

 Minimum temperatures

The average minimum temperature was a little above both last year and the average, but not significantly so.

Humidity

As is usually the case humidity varied considerably from day to day through the month.  The data in this overall chart are from my weather station: the 1500 values there are very similar to the BoM readings but my station recorded lower values at 0900 (some of the BoM values for 0900 are very low, such as 60% on the 30th - this seems to be due to a breeze blowing the humidity away from the BoM site while we were under a small inversion). The most notable reading from my WS was the very low 1500 hrs on the 30th.

Humidity 0900

For this comparative data I have used information from the BoM site.  The averages cited by BoM are from 1908 to 2010 - I have no idea why the series ends in 2010, although cost-cutting would be the usual suspect.

This year is above the average but below June 2018.

 Humidity 1500

In contrast to the morning readings the afternoon value for June 2019 is well down on the average, as well as the value for 2018.

Wind

The 1500 wind speed suggests the month was not unusually windy at Angophora Drive.

In terms of average daily wind run the month was lower than the past 4 months for which I have records at Angophora Drive which seems to be broadly similar to the historic data from BoM.

The strongest gusts over the month recorded at 3 local stations were:

• Angophora Drive 46.7kph on 4 May
• BoM Mallacoota 72 kph on 3 May
• BoM Gabo Island 81 on 3 May 

The relativities are pretty much as expected (the difference between 3 and 4 May is of no consequence as they were both windy at all three sites).

In terms of the direction of the wind as usual the majority of winds come from the Western half of the rose, with no "on the hour" recordings from ENE, E or SSE.  To some extent these may reflect items blocking the flow, but past research has shown a close match between my wind direction readings and the BoM site.  Also, some of the gust readings do contain records from the 'missing' directions so the blocking is not complete.

I have looked at the reading for the highest speed gust in each hourly interval to see how wind speed varies according to direction.  To give some context to this I have calculated the average speed for the hourly gusts in June and all readings since we moved here.

Although few in number the gusts from the SE quarter seem to have been particularly strong in June.  Looking at the period overall the average speed of gusts seems remarkably unaffected by the direction from which they come.