Wallagaraugh unfullfilled

 Having had reports of a Black Bittern on the Wallagaraugh, near the bridge, and needing to get out of the house we took ourselves off there.  This was because the very dreary weather of the last 2 days was leading to cabin fever: no worthwhile rain just heavy overcast.  Of course it started to rain more seriously as soon as the Pajero was out of the drive but we persevered,

It rained solidly all the way.  As we passed through Genoa the River was bank to bank, rather than the usual trickle down the middle.  It continued to rain as we went to the Wallagaraugh, and strong run off was going beside the road from the Highway to the start of the Fairhaven Expressway.

We started by going to the end of a little track before the bridge.  No Bittern, but we were impressed by the flow going across this paddock.

A small creek back towards the road also had good flow and a fair bit of foam.

The tree terns n the gully were luxuriant.  My guess is the tallest ones were approach 3m.  Quite impressive how they survived the fire.

Also impressive was this old eucalypt on the Fairhaven side of the bridge.

After turning round we parked in the middle of the bridge to scan for Bitterns.  I was confident that rush hour on the Wallagaraugh had finished, but kept an eye open for any incoming traffic!  (There was none, but we were only there an hour.)  On the subject of 'none' that is an accurate summary of the Bittern situation upstream  ...

.. and downstream.  The window was slightly up to try to stop the rain coming in too greatly.

Note the width of the river: with both Rivers running this strongly it is a good thing the Mouth of the Inlet is open.  A Eucalypt just upstream was flowering well but didn't seem to be attracting any birds.

Sunrise 220305

 This was very much under the Julian Alps rule: if a scene looks reasonable take the photo now as it might soon be gone.  In the case of this sunrise the major developments lasted about 5 minutes!

The first snap is from our house, in case everything had gone pear shaped by the time I got up Angophora to Sheoak Rd.  It is looking about ENE.

From Sheoak Rd, looking North.

Towards Gabo, with Tullaberga Island in the foreground.

This is about 4 minutes after the first photo.

10 minutes after the first image, with Mr Sun nearly above the horizon.

4 Beaches

 This starts on Monday when we looked down at the beach from Point Difficult.  It seemed clear of water, even though the tide height forecast (0.08) wasn't as low as it can get (0.01).  That led to a thought of trying the 3 Beaches walk the next day.  On the way back to the car at Betka We spotted an attractive Jacky Dragon beside the track. 

So on the Wednesday (2 March) we parked at Betka and headed West.  We soon sighted an Australian Pied Oystercatcher with a leg flag.  It displayed the usual level of cooperation.

Having thought is was out of range it then turned side on - even the side which shows the flag!  It will get chucked out of the wader fraternity for such a breach of the rules.

This is a bird I have seen before and my records show it was first banded in 2013 (at Corner Inlet, about 400km West) and a month later was first seen at Mallacoota.  It has been recorded at Mallacoota twice more before this day.

We then spotted an Eastern Reef Egret and friend.

Due to the high humidity the beach had an almost mystical (mistical?) look.

The Egret posed again.  (Our final sight of this species was on the second beach as we came back, but I suspect it was the same bird taking a change of scenery.)

An attraction of this walk is the appearance of the heavily stratified rocks of the cliffs and on the beach.

If there was any justice in the world this set of exposed rocks would be humming with Wandering Tattlers.  I recall a Larry Niven sci-fi novel based on the concept of TANJ - There Ain't No Justice!

As the forecast deluge was holding off we decided that too many beaches are never enough and took ourselves to Beach 4 (Bastion) hoping for waders.

No waders present: my guess is they were all up the Inlet on Goodwin Sands with rather less punters and pooches. 

It then became Bonus Time with a White-bellied Sea-Gull stooping at the waterline and flying off with talons full of former fish.

Here is the prey.  Can any of the fisherpersons identify this?

February 2022 Weather Report

 The overall summary of the month changed quite a lot in the last week of the month.  Until 23 February the temperature anomaly was negative (ie below average temperatures) and the rain was very little.  In the last few days the temperature has risen and the rainfall is well above long term mean and median.  Not  surprisingly it was also humid!  Hola La Niña!

Caveat

Note that in the process of moving to a new ACER computer  - much better than the Dell I have suffered with for the past 2 years - I lost data for 3 days (15-17 February). I have incorporated key values from the BoM site to plug the gap.  Also the BoM station was hors de combat for 3 days and WS values have been used instead.  Not perfect, but IM(H?)O fit for purpose.

Rainfall

Quite a few of the daily falls are trivial so wouldn't show up on a column chart.  The best illustration of rainfall is the cumulant through the month.  This can be presented simply using daily totals ...

.. or with greater precision using hourly data.  

The longest vertical line shows the impact of the 19.6mm recorded in the hour from 10:00 am on 26 February.  That is the 5th heaviest hourly fall I have recorded here: of the 4 others 2 were consecutive hours (2200 and 2300) on 23 March 2021 totalling 49.4 mm.

We ended the month with 89.2 mm which is well above last year and the long term median.  (Also above the long term mean, despite quite a few February falls >100mm.)

Progress of my pro-rata annual estimate is interesting.  This is the second year in a row where there has been a large fall in the first half of January putting the estimate at daft levels early in the year.

Temperatures

My basic measure of temperature is the anomaly (difference to long-term mean.

This shows how after a very hot start to the month it dropped rapidly before gradually building up again to finish the month with an average temperature 0.14C above the long term value.

The next chart shows the comparison of BoM data with the ling term averages for each day.

On this comparison the month ended with the minima 0.69C above average while the maxima worked out to 0.42C below average.

My Weather Station shows a similar pattern, with maxima as usual somewhat higher on many days due to less exposure to afternoon sea breezes.  (But note opening caveat about technology fails!)

Minimum Temperatures

The average minimum temperature for February 2022 was well below the value for January 2022 but above both the value for February 2021 and the average February value.

While the trend line for the time series does slope upwards the low value of r2 shows this not to be significant.  Removing the very low value for 1996 does not increase the value of r2!

Maximum Temperatures

The average maximum temperature was below the average but a little above last year.

The time series chart resembles a cross section through the Andes and as would be expected from such a chart there is no significant trend.  Indeed the regression line of best fit is about as close to flat as could be imagined! 

Having now got at least three WS observations for each month I thought it might be worth exploring a chart of the current month against the average for the weather station alone.  On attempting this, the current year and the average for both months of 2022 were so close the line overlaid each other.  Lets see what happens with March!

Humidity

The month felt quite humid confirmed by average readings for both 0900 and 1500 hrs being well above average for the month.  

Daily values  for those times were also quite high with the 1500 value often being close to the 0900 reading.

Wind

This variable is particularly difficult to assess for the month as 

• readings for my WS and the BoM are rather different, due to the greater exposure of the BoM site; and 
• the readings for the BoM site are missing for some days.

However, looking at the maximum wind gust data available from BoM suggests that the days lost from my WS were not abnormal.  Thus I have taken the average wind run for the 25 days for which WS data is available as a reasonable indicator of windiness.

This suggests an unremarkable month for wind.  Almost exactly average for daily run.  That being said the run of 284 km on 20 February was the 4th longest February run (of 101 readings) but only the 31st longest run (of 1116) runs overall all months in which my WS has been operating.

Bastion Beach and Point

 We had a break in the damp weather on 25 February so took ourselves for a walk on Bastion Beach.  For reasons outlined below we extended the usual walk to cover the rocks at the Point as well.

The beach was not crowded!  Note also the amount of eel grass washed up as a result of it being swept out of the Mouth.

There have been other people on the beach recently as evidenced by these mini-inuksuks at the mouth.

The Mouth itself is still wide and quite deep.  It is also still cutting down as evidenced by the edges to the channel.

We watched this boat go out to see how navigable the bar was.  Not too spectacular but I suspect equally not for novices.  The bow came a bit more out of the water after I took the photo!

There is a lot of exposed rock at the Point, but the pools continue to be relatively free of life.  Some large crabs were seen so perhaps it is coming back?

I recorded 29 species on the walk which is not a bad total.  I might have got more with a telescope as there seemed to be a few shorebirds I couldn't ID on more distant sandbars.  A Raven posed on the dunes, with the prominent hackles confirming it was an Australian Raven.

We found a family of Red-capped Plovers with a very young chick.

I took this snap primarily for the size comparison between the three species.  When seen on its own I 'feel' that White-faced Herons are quite large birds so its surprising to see the body isn't that much bigger than an Australian Pied Oystercatcher.

A flock of ~5 White-fronted Chats was pleasant.

The reason for visiting the Point was to check the rocks for Tattlers (especially the Wandering Tattler seen recently at Clinton Rocks).  No joy, but there were 7 Willie Wagtails fluttering about.

As a bonus, a seal was happily thermoregulating off the point