A phew phorays around Mallacoota

After a pleasant walk to the Lagoon this morning I took myself off for a ride round the campground to see what was occurring.  I first pulled in at the Inlet depth gauge to see how ir was going.  Getting deeper  seems to be the idea.  It has risen by 16 cm - to 0.56 m -since I first started to think about this measure.

Does anyone record these depths systematically?  If so are they published anywhere - the Mouth would be a good place!

Heading off up towards the high part of the campground I saw an immature Pacific Gull cruising the Lake.  Note the massive bill.  The first of this species I have recorded this year.

After lapping the camp I swung by the Bakery Gazebo to check on the Nankeen Night Heron.  No joy  - it seems to have left the area after many of the branches it used to nest on have been cut off.  (I did notice a fair bit of trade entering the bakery and paying close attention to social distancing - thank you all.)  

Glancing up in to a very fruity Pittosporum I was rewarded with a view of the underside of an Australian King Parrot.  It looked to be contemplating applying some serious beak to the fruit.  There is a lot of the fruit around and if it brings in more King Parrots  that would be very good.  (I have been surprised that the pigeons are not paying attention to the Pittosporum>)

On the way home I noticed a flock of about 40 Little Black Cormorants fly from Coulls Inlet towards the water off the start of the Lagoon Boardwalk.  I usually see Cormorants land and look around before diving for their food.  This lot seemed to angle straight in to the water.  Here are a few, with some Silver Gulls.

After lunch we went for a stroll around the Recycled Water Plant.  The most interesting sighting there was the number of Australian Shelduck.  At least 10 birds around, and on, the first pond.  They were also very vocal which was pleasing.

Epacris impressa is beginning to blossom over the area  With this sample I particularly liked the silver-lined bracts.

There were also some flowers on Dillwynnia sericea and Astroloma humifusum so some nice colours even as we move in to Winter.

Things in, on, and near the water

Our walk on Friday 5 June was to the Inlet mouth and then to the tip of Bastion Point.  

From the steps to the mouth along the ocean was fairly quiet with just a few Red-capped Plovers and one Double-banded Plover.

Once across the dune the waders were more common.  This Red-necked Stint, although staying here rather than heading for Siberia, looked to be considering developing breeding plumage,

The usual flock of Crested Terns were on a sand spit.  Some were out in the water bathing.  I thought an image with water flying all over the place would be interesting.  This was of course the signal for the activity to stop, but I thought this of take-off was quite attractive.

The two Red Knots were still around, although they seemed a little nervous today.  

We walked back past the steps and found the usual group (family?) of three Sooty Oystercatchers on the rocks.

On the ocean side of the breakwater a LOT of sand had been washed away by recent rough seas.  This image shouws the small cave/burrow in which a Little Penguin sheltered while it was moulting.  The yellow line shows the height of the sand at that time: my guess is that about a metre has gone (similar to Quarry Beach, a few kilometres South.

A blue sea star was making tracks as it tried to get back to the water.

A few surfers were enjoying the very clean waves.  They seemed to be getting very long rides: whether this was due to the nature of the break or the skill of the surfers is a good question.

This is out of chronological sequence but I still thought it interesting to record some flowers out in the dunes.  Unfortunately they are both introduced plants (and both were identified through iNaturalist.org).  The first is Calkile maritima (Sea Rocket)).

The second is Arctotheca populifolia (Coast Capeweed).  It is native to South Africa and in Victoria is known only from this area and the very far West of the State.  As noted in Flora of Victoria it "is a species of coastal dunes (with e.g. Spinifex sericeus), accreting mounds of sand as it proliferates."

The Betka is nearly there!

As we have had another (still welcome) 5 mm of rain this morning I wondered if the Betka River had broken through yet.  In brief, not yet!

The road is also very close to getting overflown.

While the walking track has given up the struggle after about 50m!

While at the car park I heard a very loud outbreak of quacking coming from the trees on the far side of the road.  Far too loud for any of our ducks.  As expected a White-bellied Sea Eagle flew out of the trees and across the river, leaving its co-quacker behind .

Now that is a sunset!

About 1630 this afternoon I went out on our deck to check a pair of passing Glossy Black-Cockatoos which I heard calling as they flew over.  I noticed a bit of cloud.

About 1645 Frances drew my attention to this:

By 1655 the sky was back to dark grey murk.  Ya gotta be quick!

And then ya gotta wait until the glow moves round!  This was a phone picture about 1715, looking towards the Narrows.  I like th reflections in the Inlet.

Movements of Banded Pied Oystercatchers

Updates as at 5/6/20: 

• Flag 57 seen on Big Beach where Howe track hits the beach on 4/6/20.  8 days after last sighting  on Quarry Beach (11kms away).  I haven't updated the graphics (yet).
• Looking at my records I have found a record (and photo) of JJ on Quarry Beach in September 2018..  Details to come.

From time to time I get photos of Australian Pied Oystercatchers in which I can read the codes on their leg flags,  (I can never manage to read the numbers on the metal bands, and have read an authoritative statement that it is im possible unless you have the bird in hand.)  In the past I have reported this to the Australian Bird and Bat Banding Scheme (ABBBS) but they seem to have abandoned taking records of birds other than in banding projects.  (I am following up for more details on this,)  However for shore birds the vacuum has been filled by the Australian Wader Study Group (AWSG) who not only took my recent sightings but sent back detailed and very interesting reports for the 4 birds I have seen in the past 6 weeks.

The aim of this post is to attempt to summarise those reports for the interest and edification of birders who visit East Gippsland.  

Two of the birds were aged at 1 when first captured, another as 2 years and the fourth as 4+.  Arithmetic reveals that when last sighted they were 7, 12, 16 and (at least) 14 years of age.  HANZAB is silent on the maximum age the species can attain.

All the birds have been banded at Barry Beach, Corner Inlet.  For reasons not known to me Barry Beach doesn't register with Google Earth but this image shows Corner Inlet in relation to Mallacoota.

Note that it is 328 km straight line between the locations: I suspect the Oystercatchers will call in at other spots as they travel around.

In total the reports for the 4 birds mention 14 locations at which the Oystercatchers have been trapped or observed.  7 of those are in the Mallacoota area: Mallacoota per se; Pebbly Beach; Quarry Beach; Betka Beach; Davis Beach; Devlins Inlet; and Top Lake.  The other 7 locations are shown below:

Note that there are three sites (Barry Beach, Roussac's Farm and "Off Mann's Beach") in the general area of Corner Inlet. 

In terms of where the birds have been sighted the following table image summarises the number of times each of the 4 birds has been reported at each site.  

I have found it very difficult to portray the movements of the birds by date and geocoordinates.  This probably reflects my lack of software and - more importantly - graphics skills!  Hopefully the following images get the ideas across. 

Note that the axes vary between the latitude and longitude charts: that gets the latitudes going up and down and the longitudes going left to right.   

A few general comments seem relevant:

• These birds seem to have settled down in Mallacoota in recent years although 57 did move from Mallacoota to Stockyard Point before returning and 85 returned briefly from Mallacoota to Corner Inlet.
• There are some large gaps (up to 3 years at times) between sightings.  As it only took 84 days for 85 to move from Corner Inlet to Merimbula there could be a lot of movements not detected by these records.
• I would be surprised if the birds have revisited Corner Inlet and not been recorded but they may have been missed at (eg) Wingan Inlet, Cape Conran or Eden which are all between Corner Inlet and Merimbula.

Following from this last point is the clear message that all observations in which a flag is seen clearly enough to read it should be reported.    It would also be interesting to hear of any radio tracking off this species which could plug some gaps.

May 2020 Weather Report

Overall a rather damp and cool month.

Rainfall

Possibly the big item for the month thanks to the major event from 21 to 25 May giving 98.4 mm for my weather station.  As this chart shows the total fall for the month (114.4 mm) was well above both the average and 2019.  I have posted elsewhere with some details of the event. 

As a result of these very welcome falls my pro-rata projection to the end of the year has taken a sharp upwards turn.  At the end of the month the projected annual amount is 890 mm compared to 780 at the start of the month.

The post linked above also commented on the problems with the BoM station due to the rain collector being block with fire debris.  That has now been resolved: the total amount recorded seems to be consistent with other records in the area and is still currently shown on the BoM site (although the hourly records were rather different to other stations.

It is also noteworthy that the falls did not go far inland.  Folk have mentioned falls at Gipsy Point of around 70 mm and Wallagaraugh around 60 mm.

Temperature

As will be apparent in what follows the month was cool overall with no outrageous temperatures in either direction.  That being said:

• the BoM site recorded 24.2^oC on the 9^th  which was the 14th warmest May temperature (out of 789 records).   As would be expected my WS was slightly warmer recording25.7^oC on the same day.
• And the BoM also recorded a minimum of 4.1^oC on the 15th which was the 16^th coldest May night! (My site managed 4.8^oC on that night.)

My overall assessment off the temperature is guided by the difference between the average temperatures observed in a period and the long term average.  This started off low for May but gradually approached 0, ending at -0.29^oC.   

There were less than expected days with both extremes above average and more days than expected with both below average,

Maximum temperatures.

The average maximum temperature was slightly below both the average and the value for 2019.

Over time the series of average maxima for May looks very variable.  While a trend line seems to slope down, the value of R² is way too low for significance.

Minimum temperatures 

Somewhat higher than average and almost identical to 2019.

The time series of minima seems to slope up, but again the value of R² shows it is in the category of "Move along folks, nothing to see here!"

Humidity

I continue to be surprised at how similar the morning and afternoon humidity readings are!  

I was surprised to find that the latest version of EXCEL includes a chart category of "Combo" which allows combination of different types of chart.  So here is a line chart of 0900 hrs humidity with a bar chart of rainfall!  I am a little surprised that there isn't a more obvious linkage.

Overall the morning average humidity was well up on both the long term average and the value for 2019.

In contrast the average afternoon reading was below the average, and only slightly above the 2019 value.

Wind

The average daily wind run was slightly below 2019 and a little more below the average.  The two longest daily runs were ~210 km which wold place them about 50^th out of 475 records.

As always seems to be the case with statistics about wind there are many ways of presenting material about it.  In the pie chart below I have shown the result of using number of observations as a counting unit.

This shows the dominance of wind from SW round to N.  This may in part reflect my site being sheltered from Easterlies.  I also looked at using hourly wind run as the metric but the two series have a correlation coefficient of 0.92 so show very similar patterns.  The most noticeable difference is a bigger slice of pie, for the North category, suggesting that winds from that direction are stronger,