With a little help from the tide

Following advice from someone that it was possible to walk from Quarry Beach (which astonishingly is still open) to Secret Beach at low tide we took that walk on 9 March.  Here is the route:

Getting there at 2:30 the tide was indeed low.

 This is the gap in the rocks between the two beaches.  When the tide is higher this is quite deep, but it would be possible to access Secret Beach by climbing the rock off to the left of the image.

 An attraction of Secret Beach is the cave.  This is the entrance on the East (town) side.  I suspect that on a higher tide it is completely under water and it would be partially flooded on any high tide.

 There is a surprising amount of light inside.  Also many foot and paw prints in the wet sand.

 Looking back out through the East entrance.

 Much folding in the rock.

 The West entrance.  Its about 1.5 m high, so not a struggle to get in.

I found that it was possible to scramble over the rocks at the West End of Secret Beach to get onto Pebbly Beach,  I'm not sure that would be a wise thing to try at high tide with a bug sea running.

Heading back we prowled around the rocks between Secret and Quarrybbeaches.  A good array of kelp in this area.

 The sea was quite vigorous  so here are a couple of breaking wave images.

At the base of these rocks some curious red-orange items were seen.  Frances waded out to look and concluded they were animal rather than vegetable but that is about as close as we could get.  I'll call them 'polyps'.

A cooperative Australian Pied Oystercatcher with flag 85.  This was put on by the Victorian Wader Study Group at Corner Inlet on 14 August 2010 when the bird was 4 years or more of age.  Thank you Australian Bird and Bat Banding Scheme for that information.

This bird was cooperative, but the flag was less so and I couldn't get a read of the number.  Definitely 2 of the 7 birds had flags.

Mussels are always cooperative.  Come in large numbers and stay put!

Some get passengers.  (Fun fact: barnacles are crustaceans not molluscs.)

Other mussels just get festive strands of algae.

A very pleasant walk.

Big Birding weekend at Mallacoota (pt 1)

A group of birders (probably about 15 in total) has got together in Mallacoota over the long weekend with objectives of putting a few $ into the community and seeing how the birdlife is recovering from the fire.  I'll be doing a more formal report on the bird situation in the near future but thought I would put a few comments here to begin with.

The weekend was largely informal with some background information provided to allow people to "do their own thing" with announced walks on the Saturday and Sunday mornings.  This seemed to work out fairly well.  It had been hoped to have a pelagic trip as well but that initially had to be shortened as, despite the area being dredged for the previous week, the sandbar at the Bastion Point ramp meant the boat could only get in close to high tide.  Then on the day the swell was apparently too big to allow the trip to proceed at all.  Such is life.

Here is a view from the Bastion Pt stairs on Saturday morning.

 Here are the attendees out near the most recent entrance to the Inlet. 

 Several (at least 5) Double-banded Plovers were seen amongst the horde of Red-Capped Plovers.

 At least 20 Bar-tailed Godwits were in the area.  These 2 were ouliers from the main flock.

I'm not sure if this one has really stacked on weight preparing for migration or if it has just positioned its wings ready for take off.

Our initial scan of the Inlet had no Little Black Cormorants.  The this skein - counted as 101 birds in total - arrived.

 A  Caspian Tern stood out among the Crested.

 Back near the steps the resident Eastern Reef Egret was spotted.

While aiming at a pair of Sooty Oystercatchers (see below) a flying Silver Gull entered the corner of the frame.  I have cropped it here as it shows the primaries rather nicely.

The Sooty Oystercatcher with an open bill had just swallowed a very long (~25cm??) polychaete worm it had dug from the sand.

 All up 27 Species were spotted.

En route to the Sunday gathering at the Waste Water Treatment Plant WWTP)  I attempted to twitch the Peaceful Dove seen by several members at the Shady Gully Caravan Park.  That was a fail, but I did see a Koala lurking in the (in-focus) foliage.

 Most of the usual suspects were on the ponds at WWTP.  I thought the contrast between te Australian Shelduck and the Masked Lapwing was amusing.

 As we returned around the back of the paddocks several Jacky Winters were on the fence wires.

 Despite the urging of one member no Brown Falcon was entered on the list.

Despite this outburst of ethics. we recorded 53 species here.  The bush birds are returning!

A different voo of the poo (pits)

A group went for a stroll around the Waste Water Treatment Plant (aka the poo pits) this morning.  It is actually quite a pleasant spot, as long as one doesn't think about why the water is such a brilliant shade of green.  I have usually walked or ridden out to the end of the big pond and come back the same way: however the group have done this route in the past.

 This possibly means we are a bit light on for ducks as they often like the more distant pool, which we didn't get a good look at  as that is where the liquid first enters the system and thus has the most chewy bits.  I hope you aren't eating as you read this.  The bird list is at https://ebird.org/checklist/S65411405

The catalyst for this post was looking down into the burnt woodland and spotting a grove of tree ferns, regenerating very nicely.  This led me to depart from the track - shown as the little nick out to the left - to check them out.

As well as the tree ferns there was (charred) evidence of a lot of what is referred to as spear grass: I think a sedge Gahnia sp.

Going back to the track there was a nice clump of some other fern.

Would anyone care to offer some Latin for this?

Characters from the Blues Brothers

Mallacoota was the objective of a Variety miniBash on Sunday 1 March.  Those attending included Jake Blues

... and the Bluesmobile.

Later in the day Frances went to the rocks at Bastion Point and rang me in great excitement to say she had found a bird hiding in a cave  So I took myself off to observe this.

Here is the cave.

 And here is the bird.  Its a Little Penguin - yes the alter ego of Sister Mary Stigmata.

 On Monday we returned and the Penguin was still in residence.

The thought has just occurred to me that the bird has its timing wrong.  Little Penguins spend the day out fishing and come to shore at night.  What is this one doing here in daylight?

Weather Report February 2020

My one line takeaway for the month is quite damp with moderate temperatures.

The dampness manifests itself in both rain and morning humidity being above average.  Winds were quite modest in run, but rather surprisingly focused on the SE quadrant rather than the NW as was the case for most earlier months.

Rain

We finally got some!  The total fall for the month was 110.8 mm which is the 8th heaviest fall recorded for a February. That is of course comparing with BoM records and unusually this month was wetter at home than the BoM sites at Mallacoota (84.8 mm) and Gabo Is (78.2 mm).  The fall was well above well above last year and the median.

This means that my pro-rata extrapolation for the year in total is quite impressive currently standing at 1105 mm.

Temperatures

Overall the anomaly (the difference between the current average and the long term average for February - both calculated using BoM data) was 0.4^oC.  This is largely a balance between warm overnight temperatures (21 of 29 days had a warmer than average minimum) and cool daytime temperatures (19 days with a minimum below average).

Here are the daily maxima and minima.

Maximum temperatures

My Weather Station recorded an average maximum temperature of 25.1^oC a little above last year and the long term (mainly BoM) average.

The BoM average for the month was 23.2^oC: a little below average, as would be expected following my comments in the preamble to this section.  This is not unusual as the maximum temperature at the coastal BoM site is often moderated by a sea breeze kicking in around noon.

In Summer I look for heat waves - 3+ consecutive significantly above normal maxima.  Taking "significantly above normal" to mean greater than average maximum + 1 standard deviation, gives a threshold temperature of 28^oC.  In 2020 we did not record one such period: the 3 days from 23-25 February came close, with maxima of 30.6, 27.9 and 33.2, but the middle temperature prevented a cigar being awarded.

Minimum temperatures

The average minimum recorded at my Weather Station was 17.2^oC just above the highest average minimum of 17.15 recorded by BoM (in 2010).  This month the BoM average was 16.8^oC (although readings were not available for a couple of days, probably with warm minima based on readings at Gabo).  This is the equal second highest minimum recorded for February.

In view of the warmth of the minimum for 2020 I thought it worthwhile checking time series.  While a trend line in the time series (data available for February since 1994) shows a rising slope the value of r² makes it clear the 'trend' is not significant.

A much longer time series - reliable since 2010 - is available for Gabo Island.  That shows that the series varies considerably from year to year, but within a quite narrow band and with no significant trend.

Humidity

On a daily basis the month seemed to offer quite humid weather (duhhh - check the rainfall).

Looking at the monthly averages the morning value was well above the average and the value for last year.

 The afternoon reading was well above last years value but not much above average.

Wind

Although there were a few draughty days there was relatively calm.  In the next chart I have included a series titled "avg adjusted": this includes data from the BoM site adjusted by the ratio of the annual average wind runs at my weather station and the BoM site.  (My site is 45% of the BoM site.)  Somewhat rubbery, but gets values to the same scale.  On that basis February 2020 was less windy than the previous year (both measured at my site) and the adjusted average.

 As shown by the daily wind runs the winds were quite temperate other than the 23^rd when the hourly runs were close to 20km from midnight to 1400hrs. 

Checking wind direction at my site the modal direction was ESE.  This is similar to the situation in January but I feel somewhat different to previous months where the biggest direction was close to NW.  I am having difficulty in showing that.

The red rubber ball rises again!

One for the Joni Mitchell fans!

Sunrise 2 March between 0536 and 0552.