Green Cape etc

 Although not strictly in my Mallacoota District Green Cape would be included if stupid eBird offered a custom polygon facility, as does Birdata.  The area is 23 km off the Princes Highway on a reasonable road (dirt-with-potholes for the last ~18km).  This snip from Google Earth shows the 3 main areas covered below.

Before getting to the target area (sic, in view of what follows) as we turned off the highway on to Edrom Rd we noticed a fenced off area with signs saying OD Depot and indications this was a Commonwealth facility.  WTF?  

• My first go at Googling "OD Depot" took me to something on the Border Force (BF) website.  I rang BF but the charming lady I spoke to there couldn't help me further, but we did have a nice chat! 
• Frances then Googled "Eden OD Depot" for which the first hit was an 2013 announcement by Mike Kelly in his Ministerial role rather than as an electorate issue.  However I thought that Kristy McBain, the current Member, might know so rang her office.  Another very pleasant conversation - and very fast follow up - confirmed it is an ordnance depot for "ammunitioning" Naval vessels at their wharf out near the Chip Mill.

Once past the Depot our first stop was at Disaster Bay, primarily to donate some funds to NSW Parks.  The stupid people require exact change: who carries cash these days?  Also, I have a memory that if you put 8 x $1 coins in the envelope it doesn't fit through the slot!  Probably good to know that NSW Parks is as daft as their Victorian counterpart!  Excuse the rant: the view was stunning!

As we headed down the road there were many white flowers visible.  The first of these was clearly a Pimelea, possibly P. linifolia: certainly not the usual P. humilis.  Jackie Miles, an expert observer on iNaturalist has identified it as P. l. linifolia.

The iNaturalist AI has come up with Poranthera corymbosa for this umbellate jobbie.  Confirmed by Jackie Miles.

The initial guess by the AI was Acosta sp: a native to South Africa.  I don't think so.  On asking again the suggestion was Coronidium elatum!  The latter agreed by Jackie Miles.

We then descended the rather steep track to City Rock, feeling pleased we were in the Pajero rather than the Mazda!  Walking from the car park to the rock we passed this Pomaderris.  Over to a human for getting this to species.  (I have put some images of leaves to the app, but they are rather boring,)  The human was Jackie Miles, and from her comments I suspect she saw the same plant in 2018: she submitted a specimen to the Sydney Herbarium who identified it as Pomaderris prunifolia var. prunifolia.

The track was of deluxe standard: my mind boggles at the cost of schlepping all this rock and road metal to this area and then getting it along the track.  Then building the steps etc.  It seems that, as with most Governments they will happily pay their private sector mates for 'stuff' but not employ the staff needed to monitor what is going on with the wildlife etc.

A couple of views of City Rock.  Apparently a popular rock fishing spot.

Ascending the steep track was not a problem and neither was going down to Pulpit Rock.  The latter was not challenged by Ground Parrots, possibly due to some Parks workers manicuring the walking trail with a brushcutter.  On getting to the coast our gast was well flabbered by the stream of Shearwaters going by.  I put down 10,000 as my guess at the number we saw (that works out to 5 per second over 30 minutes which is possibly conservative - drawing lines across the following images touches 5 -15 birds, depending on the line).

This is the view to the North.  It doesn't show the 20 m vertical drop to the red rock, on to which my cap got blown.  I didn't even think about going after it: that would not have ended well.

More shearwaters!  A Peregrine Falcon was soaring in the distance over the flock: it didn't stoop, possibly being embarrassed for choice of victim.

We then moved on to the lighthouse  where I captured a passing Gannet!

Here is the lighthouse.

The view North.

We then moved on towards Merimbula, stopping at Wheelers fish restaurant .  An excellent meal was had, accompanied by a very pleasant beer (see below).  As we visited the Fishpen to check birds on the oyster beds some blokes were working on the beds.  To my surprise the water barely came to their knees!

As usual, lotsa Crested Terns.

This is the lunchtime beer.  In the beer list it was shown as Ryefield Hops Bemboka which being very local encouraged me to try it.  I think the brewery 'Dangerous Ales' is at Milton, but not too far away.  The brew is not too dangerous at 5.1 ABV but was very pleasant indeed.  A light body and rather rather sharp which made it very refreshing. 

For the evening I had a first sample from a Plonk box.  It needed a bit of thought but this offering from BentSpoke got the gig.  At 8.8% some caution is warranted!  Very fruity and full bodied.  I have yet to have a bad beer from this crew.

Back in the Kayak

We have been very slack about getting out in the kayaks for the last year.  Either it has been too windy or too wet, or too many powerboats around.  So today the forecast looked very good for the morning: sunny and wind 2-11 kph.  So we loaded up the Pajero and set off for Fisheries Jetty.  

Surprisingly we more or less remembered how to set things up and launched.  A very polite person on the jetty commented that we looked very professional.

We were so professional I didn't get the eBird tracker going for about 500m but here is our route.  I wasn't sure where the entrance to Harrison's Channel was and the wind was getting up so we turned.  The wee loop on the way back was trying to get too close to Rabbit Island and having to search for deeper water to keep the foot paddles going.  But no biggie.

I think that is Horse Island in front of us.  There were at least 4 Pied Cormorants around as well as quite a few Little Pied.  Bird of the Day was a White-bellied Sea Eagle which flew over, getting escorted from the area by a bolshie Australian Raven.

A nice view of Stingray Point with a distant Genoa Peak in back.

The image below comes from  Gippsland Ports site which I consulted to learn the meaning of the different colours of the channel markers.  Lots of nautical stuff about port and starboard and upstream, but basically keep the green ones on your right and the red ones on your left.  But also keep an eye out for eel grass getting close to the surface!

Two heath cove

 Frances suggested that we tried a slightly longer walk today, and after thinking about a couple of options we agreed that a walk from Pebbly Beach towards Shipwreck Creek was what was needed.  This reflected the likelihood of there being some good wildflowers along the way.  Here is the route.

Those of an inquiring mind may wonder about the title of this post.  This is the name proposed by Frances for the cove where the walk ends  It reflects the route passing through two areas of heath.  

After a brief descent through woodland we arrived at Pebbly Beach.  This first stretch was notable for there being no visible orchids.  In the past the area close to the beach - in particular has had a good collection of greenhoods and spider orchids.  This time everything was covered with the regrowth of dicotyledon species.  On getting to the beach it was well endowed with Oystercatchers,  The surprise was that there were 4 Sooty Oystercatchers as well as 3 Australian Pied Oystercatchers (the Pied are on the far right of the image).

As our passage disturbed them they flew to the far end of the beach and joined a small flock of Silver Gulls in dining on 'stuff' and 'things' in a bank of rotting seaweed.

On the return leg they had gone back to the first section of beach and walked around on some rocks.

The sea was quite vigorous.

Moving into the woodland the track had been cleared but the density of vegetation was very clear.  Lots of the plants were in flower.

It has been quite wet recently so some well positioned logs were helpful!

Our first orchids in the heath were Diuris orientis (Wallflower Orchid).

The yellow form of D. orientis is reasonably common around Mallacoota.

We found several buds of Thelymitra sp. and then one that was nearly open ...

.. and eventually a fully open T. ixioides.  It was only ~16C which in Canberra would not encourage sun orchids to open, but at Mallacoota the acceptable temperature is a bit lower.

Caladenia carnea.

Moving into dicotyledons Bossiaea ensata with flattened, chlorophyll enhanced stems.

The heath was colourful.

In both woodland and heath there was a fair amount of Dodonea triquetra in seed.  I've not noticed this species in the past but this year it is everywhere.

Hybanthus vernonii

Lomandra sp.

Some eucalypt blossom back ibn the Pebbly Beach carpark.

We met 2 Red-bellied Black Snakes today: both were quite chubby, reflecting the number of frogs in their vicinity.  The first bolted quickly but this one had decided to get some rays so posed well.  It was aware of me and did a good cobra impression after I put the camera down,

Here are rocks at the cove.

Two sticks were needed to get across the creek on to Pebby Beach.

September 2022 Mallacoota Weather Report

 I am tempted to start with "Same old, same old" or "Here we go again" as the weather shows the same major attributes as it has for most of the last three years.  Warm nights and rather damp!  I should probably modify that slightly by adding "Ending up with ...." as until about 21 September the anomaly was lurking in the red and rainfall was well below expectations.  From then on every overnight minimum was above average and we had rain on 8 of the last 9 days.

The August weather report included "In terms of human behaviour we have not had a fire for the last 5 days on August and have turned the booster off on our hot water: solar is doing the job."  The hot water booster has been on for the last 10 days: the need for this is shown by the BoM cloud cover ratings from Gabo being 7 or 8 (8 being the maximum) for 12 of the 20 readings.  I also lit the fire in the lounge in the evening of the 30th to escape the dreariness rather than it being very cold.

Rainfall

This ended up being 80.8 mm for the month (107% of mean and 123% of median).  It was a little less than recorded in September 2021.

The concentration of the fall in the last 10 days is shown clearly in the next chart, which also shows how moderate the daily falls were, with a maximum of 11.4mm on the 29th.

None of the falls were particularly intense: the maximum rate of rain was 72.4 mm mid-morning on the 30th, which is an underwhelming 36th heaviest rate I have recorded here.  

My prorata estimate of the annual fall has been holding fairly steady for about the last three months.  Given the forecast of La Nina for the future that seems like a fair guess.  

Should we achieve the estimate of 1375 mm for the year that would be about the 3rd highest fall since records began in 1975 (with a few incomplete years in the early 1980s).

I have also examined the number of raindays in Septembers since 1975.  (Most of these data come from BoM and in earlier times - presumably when data was compiled manually - it is common for days to be combined, or missed completely.  Where that is obvious I have omitted the record from this series.)

Clearly a very variable item, with 2022 in the upper part of the range.

Temperatures

The anomaly (difference to long term mean) ended at +0.38C, with a balance between warm minima (+1.3C over the month) and cool maxima (-0.5C over the month).  The next image shows the development of the anomaly through the month.

Another general comment on the weather is the daily extremes.  

The two current series for BoM data show quite clearly how the anomaly developed.  Comparing the current BoM series with those for my WS is interesting:

• for the Maximum series the lines are almost overlaid until the 25th, when for three days my WS records much higher.  I believe this is due to cloud from the sea reducing the maximum of the BoM series.
• the Minimum series has more significant differences.  I suspect (but cannot prove as BoM do not present the time of minimum temperatures) this reflects the BoM series resetting at 0900 while my WS follows the more far rational approach of resetting at midnight.  

Minimum temperatures

The average minimum temperature recorded by my WS was 9.77C. This is the second highest recorded, although there have been several over the years which exceed 9.5C.  

I have plotted the time series of monthly average minima for the 4 years we have been at Mallacoota.  It shows recent months this year as warmer (less cold?) than other years sfter a period in which all years were very similar..

Maximum temperatures

The average Maximum temperature of 17.27C was among the coldest recorded for Mallacoota.  It was well below 2021 and the long term average.

Looking at the 4 years from my WS shows this year to be very much on the low side.

Humidity

Basically a very damp month, with the lowest humidity at either of the standard times being 57%.  It was particularly noticeable that the 15:00 hrs readings were high relative to those of 09:00 hours.  (Note that the cropped vertical axis exaggerates the unusual values.)

The above changes are shown in the charts for 0900 and 1500 hrs below,  

The comparison of these periods for the BoM site are not so pronounced, but still show 2022 as more humid than 2021.