A July walk on Captains Creek Fire Trail

The weather of 14 July was ordinary, approaching average.  However, rather than spending the whole day more or less huddled over the fire, in the afternoon we went for a walk along a kilometre or so of the Captains Creek Fire Trail.  My aim was to take snaps of the flowers, and hopefully find an orchid or two.  Cutting to the chase we saw no orchids and only heard 4 very common birds!  However I did get some reasonable images of a few flowers.

The first image is at the start and shows a mass of white flowers: mainly Hakea decurrens and Spiridium parviflorum.

A bit further in and Acacia - in this case mainly A. suavolens - in the dominant genus.

There are some impressively tall specimens of Banksia serrata along this walk.  In this example a branch had fallen from the arrowed site.  On hitting the sandy ground it had embedded itself by about 10cm.  I think one would have been unwell  had it sconed one!

Now to some close ups, as identified on iNaturalist.  Hakea decurrens

Spiridium parviflorum - actually some flora here, although very parvi!

Styphelia ericoides - it used to be Leucopogon ericoides but someone needed a publication, and had a DNA sequencer on hand.

In this image the 'beard' is easily visible.

The three colours of Epacris impressa are shown here.

Dampiera stricta

There were a few wattle species in flower.  Here they are in alphabetical order.  A. myrtifolia

A. oxycedrus

A. suavolens

A. ulicifolia

This walk added a few plants to the list of July(ish) plants in flower!

Not quite Mallacoota birds

 On 11 July we headed for Merimbula.  Our first stop was Pambula to check for the Magpie Geese, which were sitting on the edge of the small pond waiting to be seen.

(About 30 minutes later I checked my email and there was a rare bird alert for NSW, including these birds!  Isn''t the internet amazing!)

I discussed the birds with another couple (based in The Fishpen) who had heard that this species requires some additional birds before they will breed .  The Social Organisation  section of the HANZAB entry for this species includes "Family parties always contain a male and a female, but may contain additional males or females or both. Trios of male and two females seem common."  The section goes on to describe in detail the involvement of the auxiliary birds, but stops short of requiring more than two birds before breeding.  However the HANZAB  article does say, under Breeding dispersion  " ... rarely nest as single group but one breeding group of four birds has done so in wild at Seaham Swamp, NSW. "

I searched the fringing Melaleuca hoping for a Nankeen Night Heron and found 2 lurking just above the water.  Pretty well camouflaged.

After a little retail therapy in Merimbula we visited the Osprey site.  Their nest is well obvious and a bird was seen on a nearby tower.  It soon flew over and perched next to the nest ...

.. and then hopped in for a little tidying.

Frances saw two birds at once, while I was entering the record to eBird!  A little later I saw what I thought, from the very long legs, was a White-faced Heron.  It turned out it wasn't a Heron, but one of the Ospreys carrying a metre long stick which was quickly built into the nest.

A bit more on Drongos on the corner

 There seems to be enough interesting material about Spangled Drongos (hereafter 'Drongo') in the SE Corner (essentially East Gippsland (VIC) and Bega Valley (NSW) to merit a small research post. 

The most recent qualitative snippets are Facebook comments: 

1. from a reliable (visiting) birder saying that he "may" have heard and seen a Drongo near the Mallacoota Log Cabins in March this year.  This makes it seem as though they may be close to year round residents or possibly even breeding in the area.  (The birds seen at Karbeethong in 2023 were assessed as young birds and their presence at that time explained as post fledging dispersal.)
2. from a local resident including a photo from May, clearly showing a Drongo.  This is the most common month for Drongo reports in Mallacoota, 

Bega Valley Shire

I have eBird data from Bega Valley up to August 2023: that contains only 4 records of Drongos.  I believe all off those records have been copied to the Birdata data set and are covered in the attached snip from the  Birdata website, using a custom polygon. 

Note that the dots on the map are the points for a 10 minute grid cell not the precise point coordinates - zooming in shows for example that dot near Wyndham at the Southern end is actually quite a bit lower, and North East of that village.  The gap between Central Tilba and Broulee is "interesting".

Looking at the bar chart shows that there have been 21 sightings of Drongos in that area (which includes - by accident- a little of Eurobodalla Shire) since 2001.  

East Gippsland Shire

There are 41 eBird records for East Gippsland Shire of which 19 are in the Mallacoota District.  The patterns by year are rather different for Mallacoota and the rest of East Gippsland.

The pattern reminds me of Striated Heron which was commonly reported in about 2014 then not seen again until 2021, was common for 2 years but now become hard to find again.  Perhaps an occasional bird or two ends up in the area but fails to establish a viable population?

The monthly pattern in the Shire for Drongos still suggests post breeding dispersion.  (The November and December sightings were in the Gippsland Lakes sub-region in 2008 and 2020.)

SE Corner Maps

Two maps of records from eBird.  The first covers the SE corner as a whole. an shows large gaps either side of the Mallacoota District.  Although the birds are far from common I would have thought there was enough birding activity in the country from Eden to Moruya to have spotted at least one bird as they moved through !

The small scale obscures the detail for the Mallacoota District which shows the birds restricted to an area from the Coast along the shores of the Inlet to the Narrows.

Yes Virginia, there is a Spangled Drongo!

 I reported yesterday (4 July) on a frustrating failure of a search to relocate a Spangled Drongo reported on Facebook near the Log Cabins (point 1 in the map below).  

That became even more frustrating with another report of a Drongo hawking on Lakeside Drive (point 2) almost immediately below our house (point 3).   This was a few days earlier.

On 5 July we played croquet at the Mallacoota Golf Club (point 4) and throughout the game (an hour) could hear a call, identical to the second call of a Spangled Drongo on the Pizzey and Knight ios app, coming from the bush alongside the driving range (aka the old soccer field).  

After our game we walked over towards the source of the calls looking for a hawking bird.  This was not successful, and the calls had ceased.  So I played the set of calls in the Pizzey and Knight app on my iPhone to which I got responses from firstly a New Holland Honeyeater and secondly an inquisitive Spangled Drongo.  The Drongo didn't hang around but it was an all dark bird, larger than a Common Blackbird but smaller - and slimmer - than a male Satin Bowerbird.  Also, the call heard constantly was definitely that of a Drongo.  Tick!!!!

A misfiring twitch

 There is frequently some confusion about the origin of the term "twitch".  It refers to following up a sighting of a rare bird, ticking it on a list of some description (typically a personal life-list) and then departing without studying the bird further.  Usually such a follow-up involves some effort (recently exemplified by people who travelled from Sydney - or possibly further - to see an American Golden Plover at the Borrow Pits in the Werribee WTP) and often at some cost.  

According to Mark Cocker on p52 of  "Birders: Tales of a Tribe", which I take as authoritative, the term  arose due to a pair of British birders who travelled to see unusual birds on a Matchless 350 motor bike.  The guy on the pillion became very cold on Winter trips and would shiver uncontrollably - ie he twitched - on getting off the bike.

My attempt at a twitch today was a very mild example.  Following up on a sighting (with photograph) of a Spangled Drongo I drove from home to the Log Cabins on Rasmus St: a trek of 3.8 kms according to Google Maps.

Once there I wandered over 1.85 km for 51 minutes as logged by eBird.

I spotted a male King Parrot perched high in a dead tree.

As I was leaving, without seeing the Drongo, I watched a female King Parrot mumching some Pittosporum berries

I then took a punt on the bird having decided that the campground might have some nice perches from which to harass insects so did a lap of the Shire Caravan Park.  No Drongos were seen, but a squad of Satin Bowerbirds were a pleasant sighting.

I then went to Kabeethong where a drongo has been seen a few times in the past.  The Narrows Car park produced the usual Nankeen Night-Heron ...

.... but no Drongo.

VERY Annoying update!  A reliable local observer has just posted a comment saying that, a couple of days ago, he saw a Drongo hawking at the bottom of the paddock below our house!

A Heathland Walk ...

 .... with forest, beach and dunes!

This walk is named after the Davis Creek Heath.  Here is the route.

Acacia myrtifolia

Acacia suavolens

Spiridium parviflora

Epacris impressa

Dillwynnia sericea

Goodenia ovata

Hakea decurrens

Allocasuarina paludosa

Banksia integrifolia

Olearia axillaris Thanks for the ID Jackie:  I have no idea how the iNaturalist AI came up with the initial suggestion. 

Correa reflexa

This walk has lengthened - a little - my list of plants in flower in July.  We also logged a reasonable list of birds.

June 2024 Weather Report

 In summary, yucky.  A very wet month and overall cool with only high minima saving it from being rated as cold.

Rain

The month totalled 241.4 mm at Angophora Drive.  There were significant falls on 15 days and only 8 days failed to trouble the scorer.

The monthly total is 355% of the median fall for June and obviously well above last year.  There have only been 4 Junes with heavier falls, with the heaviest being 309mm in 1978.

To provide some context, the following map shows falls recorded in June 2024 at some other nearby sites.  (A wunderground site at Tamboon, well to our West recorded 386.3 mm for the month, similar to sites in the Marlo area.)  The differences apparent reflect the squally nature of the showers, with the fall at any point in time of space being more or less random.

A further indicator of the squally nature of these falls is the maximum rate on the 2nd being 102mm/hr and on the 3rd being 72 mm/hr.  My WS has 585 records of rain rates and those are 23rd and equal 56th respectively.  

The falls at Angophora Drive have given a large boost to my pro-rata estimate of the 2024 annual fall.  The year-to-date amount (570.4 mm) is already above the total for the driest year recorded (532 mm in 2019).
 

Temperatures

The anomaly for the month ended in negative territory(just: -0.13C).  This follows a period of unusual warmth earlier in the month.

My time series analysis - a 12 month moving average - suggests that the warmth coming from the La Nina of the last 2 years is calming down - although more data is needed to be sure (to be sure).

A chart of the daily extremes shows maxima consistently below average for much of the month while the minima are mainly above average.  These are discussed more below.

The most common mixture of min and max was minimum above and maximum below.  A much higher than normal proportion of observations were in that group.  There were no prolonged spells of consecutive days with both extremes significantly above or blow the long term mean.  With high minima and low maxima the daily range of temperatures was typically lower than average.

Minimum Temperatures

All indicators show the minimums to be higher than usual. The average minimum for the month was 8.1C, well above 2023 and the long-term mean.

The set of annual results from my WS shows the value for June to be on the upper edge of that pattern.

There is a marked difference between the start and end of the month. The minima for the 6 days from the 4th to the 9th were all >1 SD above the monthly average.  The 'minimum' on the 7th, 13.6C was >2 SD above the long term mean for the month and the 7th (out of 892) highest June minimum.  In contrast 5 of the last 10 days were > 1SD below the long term mean.

Maximum temperatures

The maxima show the opposite pattern to the minima.  The highest temperature recorded in the month was 19.2 C - only the 67th highest June maximum - while the lowest maximum of 11.5C was the 10th lowest June maximum.  The average maximum was very much below 2023 and the long term mean.

As would be expected my WS series has the maximum way down.

On 11 days the maximum was more than 1SD below the long-term mean maximum for the month with 2 days going >2SD below.  Only one day was >1SD above the mean.

Humidity

For the first 3 weeks both standard time readings were quite high and the closeness of the two values was very noticeable.  A more normal pattern was apparent for the last week.

The 0900 readings were rather higher than average and last year.

As would be expected from the foregoing, the afternoon reading were very much above 2023 and the long-term mean.

Wind

Generally the daily windruns were about average.

At the daily level the only outstanding day was the 3rd, recording a run of 193km, the 5 longest for June, and again reflecting the squally storm cells.  Looking across all months that value is only the 177th longest run.

Solar Radiation

A friend with a house near the Wharf has kindly made available, since September 2022, his WS data recorded through the Tempest system.  This includes a number of measures not covered by other  stations including lightning strikes and Solar Radiation.  Only 1 Lightning strike was recorded in June but the Solar Radiation data emphasises the gloomy nature of the weather in June.