September updates and oddments

This will be a repository for occasional photos that don't merit a blogpost but may be of interest to folk who don't follow the Facebook pages of Mallacoota Birds or Mallacoota Weather and Wildlife.

First up is a nice Eastern Whipbird taken on Lakeside Drive.

 Second is finally catching up with the Balck Swan family: the number of cygnets (4) was more than I was expecting (2)

A Scarlet Honeyeater posed nicely above the Shady Gully boardwalk.

 Very unusually, when it flitted it went to a better pose!

On the morning of 9 September we noticed the Swan family while we were on our morning walk.  At first we thought there was only one cygnet  but then noticed a grey patch on a parent's back,

 After a wee while the grey patch popped into the water, so they still have two left.

 A photogenic bunch of Cormorants (mainly Little Black) on a jetty.

More testing,  A Rainbow Lorikeet flew in.  It was 4 m away for the first shot and about 2 m for the others,

Wind and Wood

The wind has died down.  Down is the word applicable to a fair proportion of the wood in the area!  We drove out to Fisherman's Point yesterday and there were a few shrubs blown into the road,  On discussing this with the serving-person at the servo he mentioned that there were a few trees across the Casuarina Track.  So checking that out became an objective of my bike ride today.

In fact I didn't have to get as far as the Casuarina Track.  This was the situation at the top of our road: it is a short dirt cut-through goat track which makes the street more or less a cul de sac unless you need to go that way because of flooding.  My guess is there will be little pressure from residents to remove the blockage.

There were a few small trees across the Casuarina Track but I was able to go round (or jump) them until I got to this one: perhaps 60 cm high.  I had to get off and lift the bike over.

No real root ball here, but presumably some roots still in the ground as it was a substnatial bit of lumber.

Later in the day I drove to Karbeethong Rd to check out the orchid situation,  Before I got out of the 50 kph zone there was a cut up tree  beside the road,  Then I got to this one which would have thoroughly blocked the road.  Points A and B were connected but are now about 15 m apart.

This shows the daily wind runs since we moved in.  Yesterday was the second longest we have recorded at home.

I mentioned orchids as my target.  There were a lot of Caladenia catenata and a surprising number of them were pink rather than white.  I think they were all good samples of that species rather than the hybrid we found the other day (which was under part of the fallen tree).

There were also some birdy things of interest though the day.  After the Casuarina track I visited the Satin Bower Bird site on Rasmus St.  Again the owner nicked off when I arrived, but I did get a decent shot of his work.

Heading home from Karbeethong I took a few snaps of the three species of Cormorant on a jetty.  First up is  Great Cormorant.

Little Pied Cormorant

Little Black Cormorant.

Wind and waves

As you may have noticed, 7 September was pretty windy.  I recorded a strongest gust of 72 kph: about 7 minutes later a/the squall got to Gabo Island giving it its big speed of 111 kph.  The reading on my station was the highest I have recorded here (by 11 kph).  The wind run (the distance the wind traveled in a day) was 339 km - the second highest logged here.  ( A site at Mittagong reported a run of ~750 km!)

This stirred the sea up a bit.  Not a good day for fishing or a pelagic birding trip!  Here are a few photos.

WE first went to Fisherman's Point, from which lookout the Gabo Lighthouse was barely visible.

 There were a few pelagic birds visible (1 each of Great-winged Petrel, Black-browed Albatross and Shy Albatross) and several flocks of Gannets totaling at least 60 birds.

The strongest gusts of wind stirred up patches of spray ...

 .. that got quite dense at times.  Some had a rainbow effect but I didn't catch that.

 The waves were quite large.

 On the way home (dodging fallen vegetation as I didn't have my chainsaw with me) we paused to look at Betka Beach.  The waves weren't quite eroding the dune but clearly some breakers were getting over.

 At Bastion Point the breakwater was getting a workout.

 A nice breaker!

 A view along Bastion Beach.

Mainly Shipwreck Creek

Some orchid loving (and expert) friends from Canberra have visited us.  There were three species that they wanted to see in particular:

1. Pterostylis concinna (they'd not seen it);
2. Pterostylis curta (they needed photographs of the whole plant in habitat)
3. Glossodia minor (very hard to find in the Southern Tablelands - and I don't care if the mysteries of DNA sequencing have led some some misguided souls to call it a Caladenia).

We found a single miserable specimen of P. coninna on the Betka River Loop on their first evening with us, so point 1 was achieved.  I think the flowering period for that species is close to finished so we were lucky with that.

For point 2 the best colonies I am aware of were on some dunes near the Betka River estuary marked with an X below.

So we took ourselves off there on the morning of 5 September.  The orchids delivered on point 2!

A close-up: note the twist on the labellum.

Our friends then noted some finger orchids nearby.  These were identified as Caladenia latifolia.  A new species for our Mallacoota list.

We then moved on to Karbeethong Rd to check out the Caladenias there to see if there was anything other than C. catenata.  This small pink jobbie was spotted, but so far has resisted identification.  The word "hybrid" has been uttered, but followed with "with what?"

I sought advice from one of the authors of "Orchids of East Gippsland" and he has kindly advised that he agrees with 'hybrid' and suggest it is between C. catenata and C, fuscata.  Now all we have to do is find the parent C. fuscata!

To deal with objective 3 we took ourselves to Shipwreck Creek where I had once recorded Glossodia minor in the heath towards Seal Creek.  The road from the Airport to the Park boundary was in average (but close to ordinary) quality.  Potholes-R-Us had done a delivery.  Once past the boundary there were less holes but many more examples of wind-bonsai.

We simply followed the tracks of others and drove round.

On arrival at the campground our aim was to do the loop towards Seal Creek and back along Betka Rd.  Here is where we went.

Almost as soon as we left the beach we found a couple of specimens of Glossodia minor.

This snap was a specimen seen a few hundred m further along the track, but does show the detail quite well.

This was the biggest colony we found.  I have put red circles around 11 G. minor in the image.  You probably need to click the image to see them clearly!

Several specimens of Bossiaea ensata were seen.  The Flora of Victoria lists this as "rare" - it didn't seen to be rare yesterday!

I hope this gives an idea of the whole plant.

There were a lot of Patersonia around.  Going on the text in "Wildflowers of the Wilderness Coast", as this had flowers well above the foliage I am going for P. occidentalis.

A white flower that I identified at the time but can't relocate in the book!  That was because the book shows the pink form of Euphrasia collina!

Glossodia major was also present.

This is definitely a bean but I am not sure which!

Back to orchids.  I think this is Diuris pardina (unless the taxonomists have renamed it while I was ignoring them).

I have taken a guess at Platylobium parviflorum for this.

A beetle was creeping along Betka Rd.  It seemed unable to fly, which I attributed to it being not long out of its pupal case.

After a pleasant lunch at the picnic table we headed homewards - with the 'wards' coming into play at the track into Pebbly Beach.

The obvious name of the game continued to be Caladenia catenata, both in pink  ...

.. and white.

I thought this flower was very attractive.  Particularly so when it turned out to be Pomaderris intermedia.

This sample of Pultenaea daphnoides was particularly good.

We took a brief stop at Quarry Beach to show our friends the rocks and then home.