Orchids continue to overachieve

 I have from time to time wondered about the patch of vegetation near the Captains Creek FT which looks "different" in Google Earth.  This post will get back to that towards the end because I got distracted by orchids which two friends showed me..

The first was Acianthus caudatus the Mayfly orchid.   Tiny dark brown plants.

I took Frances back to the area later in the day and found another.  This was even smaller but I did manage to sort-of include a leaf in the image.

Then another: a giant amongst Acianthus!

My friends also revealed some very attractive Caladenia clarkiae: another new species for me.

There were quite a few Glossodia major in the area.

This one appeared almost white in the field.

While in the area I revisited yesterday's colonies to get some leaf photos.  These are Caleana major and are a rather more uright than suggested by my book.

And here is a whole-of-plant image of Lyperanthus suavolens.

Not an orchid, but Amperea xiphoclada.  This tiny flower, on a leafless stem, deserves some encouragement. 

After revisiting the Fire Trail we crossed the road to the power lines.  A few closed Prasophylums appeared and then a further two plants of Lyperanthus suavolens.

We then found a few open Prasophyllums  All were P. elatum in both green form ....

.. and the more sommon dark form.

Back to the strange vegetation.  In this mud map the red line is (roughly) the Fire Trail and the green line marks the boundary of the swamp.  

It is pretty desolate at present but regrowth is happening.  The soil must have had a high organic content as it did not bear my weight.  It's basically ash.

There is a lot of regrowth happening: I think it will be basically Meleleuca of a couple of species, but I am not good n leaves.

Again the Banksia serrata was dsplaying epicormic growth.  The cone looks as though it is about to open but its base is burnt so I think the fire froze it in time.

Pretty birds, pretty orchids (and some scenery)

 On our morning walk a neighbour told us that some Spotted Pardalotes were still using their nest in an area where a boardwalk had been burnt so I fired up my bike and headed off with my camera.  Thanks to the directions given I was able to find the nest.  A small stick was across the entrance, providing a convenient spot for a bird to perch while entering the nest tunnel.

My first effort was not too good just catching the birds best feature as it was about to enter the nest.

On the next visit I was better prepared.  I think it is carrying a piece of lerp (a sugar shield used as protection by some bugs). 

The lerp can be seen clearly

On the way home I heard bird noises from some burnt Meleleuca and found a confiding Eastern Yellow Robin.

For our afternoon walk we went to the Captains Creek Fire Trail.

This has been a hotspot in the past and it did not disappoint.  About 50 m from the start I found a Lyperanthus suavolens (Brown Beaks).

A short distance later we found a colony of Caleana major (Large Flying Duck Orchids).  At least 50 plants, several in flower.

We have seen Caladenia alata elsewhere, but I wanted to complete the day list.

Ditto C. catenata.

One specimen of C. catenata had a bonus tiny fly.

At the top of the sand hill a good view of Genoa Peak is available.  Zooming in to the original image it is possible to see the lookout perched on top, but possibly the metal stairs were "compromised" during the fire.   Who knows when Parks will reopen this area.

Spring is not so silent

 On 3 September we did another foray from Pebbly Beach towards Shipwreck Creek.  

The last time we did the walk there was no birdlife in the woodland or heath: only 5 species recorded and those all at Pebbly Beach.  On this occasion we recorded 16 species and there was quite a lot of bird call through the whole outing.

The principal objective of the trip was not birds but orchids.  As we started out we recorded Caladenia alata, Caladenia latifolia and Pterostylis nutans in the woodland.  A friend had followed up our sighting of Glossodia minor and reported that there were "about 100".   The colony is increasing: after finding a few as soon as we got into the heath we came across a patch, of which this is about a third which Frances started counting.  She got to over 100 and found it impossible to keep track.  At a guess, 150 in this patch and at least another 150 plants through out this area of heath.

The other plant species present en masse was Burchardia umbellata.  No attempt to enumerate them: thousands of flowers.

We found some specimens of this pretty lily: I think it is Thelionema caespitosum.  After the app agreed with that, the good folk at iNaturalist have identified it as Chamaescilla corymbosa (Blue stars).

One of the many specimens of Solanum aviculare had progressed to the fruiting stage.  The vernacular name for the species is Kangaroo Apple, but these don't look like apples.  Not surprisingly they look more like tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum note the genus name!)

We went down a creek towards a rocky area visible from the track.  Part of the creek bed looked like smooth gravel: it was very loose and not at all pleasant to walk on.  Back to battling through the blackened trunks!

A few weeks back a post on Facebook commented on the white run off coming down a creek in this area and asking about its cause.  I don't remember any explanations but, assuming this was the creek, it has stained the rocks white.

Spring is sprung

Some photos from the first 2 days!  On 1 September we went to check out Bastion Point.  A first excitement was spotting a Pied Cormorant with some Lille Pied Cormorants.  Note the ivory coloured bill (and also how it has the look of a penguin rather then the puppy-like LPC)

Then a pair of Hooded Plovers were seen.  They didn't seem unduly fussed by our presence but toodled off from the mouth back towards the vegetated area where they took a bath.

This Red-capped Plover was very confiding and walked around within 5 metres of us.  I think it is an immature but a friend wondered if it might be an adult female.

It stretched its neck and bobbed constantly, but didn't do a distraction display.

On the second I went a few metres up the Narrows and found an Indigofera australis.  I thought it was a bit light in colour but that is the only Indigofera in the area.

In the afternoon we followed up a tip from a friend and found a patch of Caladenia tetaculata.  I really do think this is daft science and am much more comfortable with Arachnorchis as the genus name.  They look like spiders for Deity's sake.

There were lots with buds.

Then Frances found the one fully open flower!

A close up of the large green combs!

A bit further along the track were lots of Pterostylis.  As all the ones we checked had a twisted labellum I am putting them all down as P. curta.

Also a very good crop of Caladenia latifolia - emphasised with a red circle.

Moving up to the heathland the number of Diuris chryseopsis has increased a little.

Another pair of Hoodies were sitting on the beach at Betka.

An albino Solanum.

August 2020 Weather Report

 Overall a rather mild, damp month.

Rain

Non-trivial rain (ie >0.2 mm) fell on 14 days, and the total recorded at my Weather Station  (WS) was 128.6 mm.  This is just over twice the median fall for August and puts the total fall for the year to date up to 135% of the YTD fall.   By the end of the month we were 303 mm in front of last year to that date (and indeed 154 mm above last year's miserable total).  Here is the basic comparison.

Estimating the annual rainfall by a prorata expansion of the fall year to date gives an estimate of 1,044 mm at the end of the month.  The following chart shows how that estimate has varied over the year.

If we end up close to that level it will be the 11th highest annual rainfall since BoM records began at this site in 1975. 

For August the BoM total was 155 mm.  It is difficult to do a day by day comparison due to the BoM habit of starting the day at 0900 hours, reflecting the history of manual collection of data at that time.  However the main differences are attributable to the event of 15 - 16 August where the centre of the rainfall was to our West: Gabo Island had a similar fall to my WS).

Temperatures

My overall assessment of the temperatures is the anomaly, the difference between current average temperature and long term average.  I use BoM temperatures to calculate this.  For August the anomaly ended up at +0.45 C so a little warmer than average.  The daily average was greater than the average for that day on 18 days and the most common situation was the minimum temperature above average and the maximum below average.  (This is to be expected in a soggy month, with cloud insulating at night and blocking the warming sun in the day.)

Here is the movement in the anomaly over the month.

A second approach to overall temperatures is the daily extremes.

The most notable extreme is that of 30 August which reached 26.8 at my WS.  This exceeds any BoM August maximum temperature .  However the Bom station is often somewhat cooler than my WS and on that date only reached 25.5 - which is still the 5th warmest August maximum out of 814 records.

The comparison of WS and BoM temperatures on the 30th is interesting.  The BoM temperature plummeted about 1300 hrs while the WS temperature dropped slowly as an overcast came in. (Both of these phenomena were confirmed by our car thermometer.)

The explanation was simple.  A sea breeze from the SE arrived at the BoM site and dropped the temperature 8 degrees in short order as shown below.  The WS was still under a NWly airflow and thus maintain its warmth.

Minimum Temperatures

The coldest temperature was 2.4C on the 5th. The average minimum temperature for the month was 7.19C at my WS and 7.07C at the BoM site.  The difference is insignificant, and at a daily level shows a mixture of positive and negative differences.  The value is slightly higher than 2019 and the average.

As indicated in the commentary about the anomaly for most days the minimum was above the average value for the day (all measured at the BoM site).

Maximum temperatures

A rather more difficult kettle of fish, as there seems to be a significant difference between the BoM site and my WS and previous investigations have shown a different pattern of differences between 2020 and 2019.  The two major factors appear to be:

1. The impact of the sea breeze (demonstrated above for 30 August); and
2. The difference between days beginning at midnight (my WS) and days beginning at 0900 (BoM).

The latter case is exemplified by 31 August where the WS maximum on a calendar day was 17.9C (recorded at 0100) and for a day starting at 0900 was 12.8C (BoM) or 13.2C (WS).  I have yet to work out an efficient means of rebasing the WS data to 0900.  Thus the comparison with the long term average is rather dubious (as the values for 2019 and 2020 are both from WS they are comparable).  

However the warmest day was 30th reaching 26.8C (WS) and 25.5C (BoM).  The latter temperature was the 5th highest record (out of 814).  The average maximum was 16.2C (WS) and 15.1C (BoM).  For what little it is worth here is the comparative chart.

Humidity

The daily humidity values were all over the place, especially for the 1500 hrs reading.

The comparison charts for the two times show similar pictures.  As expected the rH this wet year was notably than higher than the drought of 2019.

Wind

As measured by the daily average run the month was fairly calm.

The daily run was extremely variable.  I have also shown the rainfall to look at the extent to which the wind was the passage of a front.  I conclude that fronts were not the key factor: the longest run reflected high pressure to the South interacting with, and blocking, an East Coast Low.  Lots of wind, but limited rain.

The direction of the wind was very much from the Western half of the compass.  The notable exception is the ESE segment reflecting a low pressure system which sat in Bass Strait for 2 days pumping in rain (my WS was just outside the main impact of this.