Footmobiling the clifftops

 On 17 November the Footmobiles decided to walk from Quarry Beach along the clifftops to Pebbly Beach.  According to my eBird app that was 2km each way.

The regrowth is now quite high.  I'm not sure quite what this grassy material is: I have heard it called 'sedge' but it didn't satisfy the mnemonic "sedges have edges".

The Melaleuca armillaris is sprouting, in some cases, from the lignotubers.  However it looks unlikely that it will form the monculture forest that was there: possibly a good thing.  I suspect it will take several years for the burnt trunks to fall, and longer for them to decay.

A gully down to the sea, populated with Cyathea australis tree ferns.

Looking West, towards Secret Beach.

Looking East - again towards Secret Beach.

There were some interesting flowers along the way.  This is a Fringe Lily Thysanotus sp.  I suspect it is T. tuberosus  based on the woodland habitat and the number of flowers per plant.

After months of ground covering vegetative growth the Kennedia prostrata is keeping the flowers happening for a good long while.

A solitary Caladenia carnea growing under a Solanum bush.

The shape of things to come!  I spotted several spikes of Dipodium sp (Hyacinth Orchid) growing along the track.  A couple of weeks at least off flowering.

This Lomandra longifolia has gone to seed.

Lomatia ilicifolia in flower

The Kangaroo apples (Solanum aviculare) have been showing big green berries (a la Granny Smith) for a long while.  I am waiting for them to go orange or red (Cox's Orange Pippin?)!

We were accompanied by one Pippa.  A very game little lady!

Someone had been creative adding twigs to span the gap in this stump. 

There were a good number of flies, which appeared to like the Footmobiles t-shirts.  To save you counting there are 26 in this image.

Another nuisance was this sign.  There is no reason whatsoever for this sign.  All works have been completed (very well completed, one has to say).  Presumably "they" have forgotten where they put out the signs: in some circles the track is known as the "Bureaucracy Track".

Various sightings

 This is a grab bag of various things seen over 15 and 16 November. 

I begin with some land art seen on the middle of the three beaches walk, below Point Difficult, which we did as the tide was low on the 15th so the walk was possible without abseiling (or swimming).

We now advance to 16 November.  When we returned from our morning walk (a tad unpleasant as the temperature - at 0815 - was close to 30C) there was a large flock of Tree Martins swooping over the paddock opposite our house.  I took my camera out to try to get a photo.  Nice House Sparrow!

Nice Red-bellied Black Snake seen at the bottom of the paddock!

The best that I could manage of the hirundines.  A Welcome Swallow on the left and a Tree Martin - trust me, I'm a doctor's father - on the ground to the right.

We had noted this cute little family of Australian Wood Ducks on the walk.

On the afternoon of the 16th we went to check the rock pools at Bastion Point.  I am pretty sure this is something of the animal persuasion, but iNaturalist has taken a punt at 'Life'!

The next few images are of Sea Hares and/or their egg masses.

There are a LOT of egg masses.  This was the greatest colection.

I have in the past decided these are sea squirts, which seems to be the default ID for colourful blobs attached t rocks!

Bastion Point is a hotspot for Eastern Reef Egret but it is unusual to see 2 together.

Stinkhorns as climax vegetation?

 As this damp season progresses we have been finding several colonies of stinkhorn fungi.  Most of these have been identified as the relatively small Anemone Stinkhorn (Aseroe rubra).

The colony we see most often is next to our drive where there have been a couple of 'outbreaks' of about 6 fruiting bodies at a time.  However about 250 metres down the road we found a colony of at least 25 fruiting bodies.  The extent of this colony is shone by the red box in this image.

More recently a much larger fruiting body appeared near our drive.  That has been identified as 

Clathrus archeri (Devils Fingers).

My foot is shown for scale: I measured the arms as approximately 12 cm long from the stipe.

The size of the specimen was part of the identification by a guru from iNaturalist.com.  They were also able to assess the presence of the gleba (ie the brown gooze) on the arms.

November 1985 was soggy

This month is looking to conform to a La Nina pattern with a fair bit of rain.  By the morning of 14 November we are up to 47 mm, thus exceeding the monthly total for 11 of the 40 years for which I have records.  On looking back the outstanding November was 1985 when Mallacoota scored 340 mm.

The daily falls really got going towards the end of the month:

The second chart shows the cumulative fall through the month.

For interest I compared the falls at Mallacoota with those for Gabo Island.  This suggests that on the 9th and 26th the rain came in thunderstorms that missed the Island.

Anatomy of a storm

Last evening I happened to glance at my lightning tracker app and it seemed that Gotterdammerung was heading our way.

This appeared to be confirmed by the Weatherzone radar.

However nothing arrived, nor seemed likely around 0500 hrs.   A few strikes somewhere near Albury.

Radar image also boring.

Around 1500hrs on 12th there were a few rumbles heard to the NW.  Blitzortung showed a steady  line of flangs headed straight towards us.  This is 1520 hrs.

By 1528 it was getting very close.  White circles are strikes within the last 20 minutes, white crosses 20 - 40 minutes yellow cross 40 -60 and orange  60-80 minutes.

By 1535 the strikes had moved across to the Howe Flat with 16 strikes in the last 40 minutes.

My weather station recorded 10.8 mm at a rate of 63 mm/hr.  The peak rate was 164 mm per hour at which the gutters gave up the struggle.  In the 20 months we have lived here I have only had 4 rain rates higher than this!

 Showing the "hit or miss" of storm cells the BoM site at the airport recorded 2.8 mm and Gabo Is 1.0 mm.  A private WS in town has recorded 8.89 mm. 

The Victorian Weather radar shows another storm heading in this general direction but it may go to the North.
 

Exciting Orchids

 An orchid expert friend called in to show us some orchids to be preserved for Herbarium records.  Note that in each case there a number of specimens left in the ground.  

The first is Calochilus pulchellus only known (until now) from Jervis Bay.  This specimen was found in a Grass Tree Swamp well West of the NSW/VIC border and has caused much excitement in the Victorian orchid world.

It is thought that this species seems to only flower after fire so the New Year fire probably opened up the Xanthorrhoeas enough for it to emerge.  Will it flower again in 2021?

The next three are Prasophyllum species 'Noorinbee' which occurs in that locality.  It is yet to be formally described , which is why these specimens were collected.

White-fronted Chats

 I realise it's been 5 days since I posted!  Not sure why.

We went to Bastion Point today and it was quiet wader-wise.  There is so much exposed sand they could have gone exploring further inland.  While the Mouth looked wide it was clear that there is a lot of sand just offshore and a very narrow passage on the inland side: getting a boat out would need a lot of skill and/or some luck and/or a powerful motor.

As we came back we came across 4 White-fronted Chats.  The demographics as I interpret them are:

2 Adult Males

1 adult female

... and (lower bird) a juvenile of unknown sex (together with one of the males above).

The juvenile suggests that they bred somewhere in the vicinity but a bit tenuous to report as a breeding record.

Some animal pix

Walking the Casuarina track on 4 November (inter alia to escape the depressing news from the USA) we spotted an attractive lizard.  Despite browsing "Reptiles of Victoria " and lacking the details of scale shapes needed to use their otherwise excellent keys I haven't been able to put a name to it.

An interesting dragonfly decided to come along for a ride.  No idea of ID below sub-Order Anisoptera.

For those interested, the t-shirt was a gift from my daughter and reads "GRUMPA: like a regular grandpa, but grumpier."

Also, good to see the bridge has been rebuilt.