Mt Imlay and a couple of watery outings

This post is a bit of a grab bag, but I think everything fits within the title of the blog.  On the morning of 24 June Mt Imlay was putting on a wintery cap!

In the afternoon of the 24th we went for a walk along Barion Beach where a strong surf was coming in.  It has washed up this very large clump of Sea Tulips.

Frances found an interesting, and I suspect former, starfish

Here is the outlet with a good lot of water moving through,

It was well supplied with Australian Salmon,  This was one of 4 waiting to  go home with an angler and we saw him catch and release others.  They are not related to the fish that John West selects, but more like gigantic herrings!

Footprints (of White-faced Herons or Bin Chooks - both were present) mixed with shells and sand.

A pair of White-bellied Sea-Eagles making nice on the far side of the Inlet,

My full list from Bastion is here,

 On the morning of the 25th it was a bit nippy as shown by the frost on the Lagoon Boardwalk.  A cyclist has either had fun (or had to change their undies)!

The 400 Teal seen from Bastion Beach had all roosted in the Lagoon!

The Royal Spoonbills have increased to a flock of 14!

Western heath and forest

On the afternoon of 9 June we went to a track in the forest to the NW of the town. basically between the power lines and Watertrust Rd.  As the track comes out (after merging with another) at the Waste Water Treatment Plant I call it Poopits Track 2 (it's dotted in red).  The one it merges with is Poopits Rd 1 (green dots)!

The first half of Poopits track 2 is through a heathy area (lots of Xanthorrhea and Banksia serrata) while the second half is more Eucalypt woodland.

One of our aims for this walk was to look for any Winter orchids (following from finding the Cobra Greenhoods on Saturday).  We dipped on that target.  A nice early sighting was some Leucopogon coming in to flower.  I suspect it is L. virgatus.

White is a popular colour!  This is Hakea decurrens.

The ID was confirmed by these nuts: the two small 'horns' are definitive.

We found a small number of beans in flower.  Our book wasn't a great deal of help so I went for the members of the Fabaceae listed on the Atlas of Living Australia for this area.  There are 57 of them and none match the images generated by Googling at all closely!

I have decided this is a yellow flower!  Im not game so far to even guess Family!

Not a great image, but I am quite confident this is Acacia genistifolia.  The plant was much more vigorous than the miserable little specimens we used to see at Carwoola.

A white flower!

There were a lot of white and pink Epacris impressa, but few red ones.  I have no idea why the colours vary so much.

Our local orchid books refers to several species growing under Banksia serrata,  There were a good number of them in the heath but no orchids underneath (that we could see).  This was a particularly fine cone.

I went back on my bike ride on Monday (to get a better photo of the Leucopogon) and coming back along Karbeethong road spotted a nice clump of Ramaria sp.  This shot shows the stipes ...

.. while this is a close up of the 'cauliflower' heads!

I'm finishing off with a couple of sunny snaps (rather than do a special post for them.  On the Sunday evening the rays from the setting were interesting ....

.. while the sunrise on Monday was spectacular!

Pied Currawongs

A recent post to the Mallacoota Community News Facebook Group a post commenced

"Keep an eye out for birds and weather . Remember “When the currawongs come down from the mountains, it’s a sign.....”"

This rang a bell with me about my early days in Canberra.  At that time (roughly the 1980s) the Pied Currawongs would come down from the Brindabellas each Autumn and then in Spring return to the
mountains to breed.  In more recent times this pattern has changed with the birds staying in the urban area longer.  This is thought to result from them finding that human environments have easily accessible food resources (dog food etc) that make life easier for them than gathering traditional food in the mountains.

This is illustrated in the following chart, from the Canberra Ornithologists Group Garden Bird Survey, where the series years less than 10 is 1983-1992.
The difference between the two series seems very clear.

For Mallacoota I have taken data from eBird of the number of lists reporting Pied Currawong and the number of Currawongs reported. The number of lists submitted fidders greatly from month to month. ranging from 324 in January to 42 in July.  (Which says something about the importance of tourists to the area, but that's another story.)  So I have divided the number of Currawong lists and the number of Currawongs by the total number of lists to get some rates as shown in the next chart.

 The lines are quite variable, possibly reflecting which sites are being reported.  So to remove that "noise" from the lines I have calculated (or rather, Excel has calculated) a polynomial trend line for each series.  That shows  rather nice - approaching significant trend - peak in June of the number of Currawong included.  The curve for number of lists reporting Currawongs is not significant different to a flat line.hovering around 1 chart in 3 (a rate of 0.3).

As there aren't a HUGE number of lists for Mallacoota I decided to repeat the exercise for the whole of East Gippsland.

That shows a more marked movement to a peak in March which is more or less sustained until Spring.

Shipwreck Creek walk

It is becoming a ritual to go for a longer walk, without Tammy, on Saturday.  We did one on 8 May from Pebbly Beach to Shipwreck Creek.

The day started off somewhat overcast which made for an excellent sunrise.

It was still overcast when we started the walk at Pebbly Beach (where last weeks walk turned round).

After ascending through some forest we go to the first section of heath where some white Epacris impressa was found and photographed.  There was quite a lot of the white form on this walk, unlike most others we have done recently.

This was an unusual Acacia.  From consulting the excellent "Wildflowers of the Wilderness Coast" we have concluded it is Acacia myrtifolia.

WRT to wattles generally A. terminalis seems to have done its dash but A. suaveolens is still in fine flower.  I didn't bother photographing the latter as I have put several images in various posts.  It was thus frustrating to be looking through the book and discover that the more yellow flowered wattle with long thin leaves was possibly A. mucronata - although that is supposed to flower in Spring!

As we got close to Shipwreck Creek the coastline appeared through the murk.

After a pause for lunch we set off coming back on the 'other' leg of the walk at Shipwreck.  This was Tetratheca sp, and from the hairiness of the leaves I think it is T. pilosa.

Off the track, so photo taken on zoom, was Hakea decurrens.  I chose this on the apparent length of the leaves: it is supposed to flower frpm late Winter to Spring (so is a tad early) but the other species in the book is Summer to Autumn (so would be late).

Our first bean: well early.  Dillwynnia sericea.

Looking North into the murk.

A tunnel through the Melaleuca armillaris forest.  This is a very boring habitat as the canopy is so dense nothing grows underneath.

Some tree ferns in a gully,

I am quite sure that these leaf bases indicate Cyathea australis (which seems to be far more common here than Dicksonia antarctica)..

This was about the only fungus seen today, growing in the middle of the track.  I have taken a punt at Podiscytha petalodes.

In the last forested section the Exocarpus sp were well endowed with fruit.  The shrubs didn't look quite 'right' for E. cupressiformis (Native Cherry) so I have concluded - assisted by the shape of the fruit holder - that it is E. strictus.

As we returned to Pebbly Beach the Easter Reef Heron was evident again.

The highlight of the trip was at the base of the path from Pebbly Beach to the car park (ie with 200m of the 10km walk to go).  Our first Winter orchids Pterostylis grandiflora (Cobra Greenhood).

Ocean and Beach scenes

There was a Southerly Gale blowing today so I have been down to the sea a couple of times.  The first was to Fisherman's Point to look for pelagic birds being blown inshore.  The sea suggested this was a better idea than going out in a boat looking for the birds.

 With the help of my telescope I found a few birds and could identify about 6 Gannets of various ages, a Wedge-tailed Shearwater and about 6 Fairy Prions. No albatrosses.

In the afternoon we went for a walk at Bastion Point.  The wind was causing a strange sight by eroding sand around pebbles.

 The is Gannet's head was washed up and I originally took the photo to show its plumage.

 Then I looked more closely and noticed what looks like a strap around its neck so I think this is one more victim of plastic pollution.

Another member of the Mallacoota Birds Facebook group has since opined that this looked like it was skin colour with post mortem flexing of the neck causing the feathers to fall out.  On looking closely at the original image I think she is right.  A subsequent attempt to relocate the head failed.

As we got back to the the stairs we noticed a couple of former leatherjackets getting washed up.  Apart from the interest in the individual fish I thought this might foreshadow another massive kill of these fish as we found in April 2017.  I'll try to get a species ID shortly.

 The next two images are looking from the top of the steps at Bastion Point.  The seas appeared to have died down quote a bit in the hour we were there but still nice. well separated swells coming in