After a
good nights sleep all round – except possibly for the possum – the day dawned
with a sunrise (possibly sun-before-rain).
The boaties were out in force, heading to fishing spots.
After
breakfast we wandered off along the Inlet towards Mallacoota to check out Shady Gully. This was where I had lost my phone in
September 2011 and there was a joking thought that I might find it again. The amount of regrowth, particularly of
Senecio and
Goodenia, made it clear there was no hope of that. (It also says something about the
pointlessness of hazard reduction burns!)
We had a pleasant stroll around and added a few species to the birdlist and some images to the plant list.
Dipodium roseum was the only orchid seen in the entire trip!
Exocarpus cupressiformis does have flowers: just not very exciting ones!
By the time
we had got home we’d walked about 11km – the small dog was still going well at
the end - so a bit of lunch and some R&R was in order. This was followed by a walk without the small
dog to part of the National Park.
The walk
was basically a bulldozed track along an arm of the Inlet.
From my view it was not a well designed
track for people interested in wildlife as it was between the water and the
woods and that was it. More interesting
walks could have been designed to run a little further from the water so that
they entered the gullies etc. We did get
to see a few interesting plants
Solanum densivestitum was in flower ...
.. and fruit at the same time! Tomatoes anyone?
Linum marginale
Prostanthera sp. 1
Prostanthera sp. 2
This was a vine, growing where I would expect Wonga vine to appear, but the description of Wonga vine seeds in Plantnet does not match this!
Daviesia sp
Unlike our earlier walks there were a few insects around. I am sure these blue blobs are insect eggs laid on the inflorescence of a vine.
A beetle!
Ibelieve these to be longocorn beetles. There are likely to be a lot more of them in the future!
A
moderate (a tad over 1m long) sized Goanna (aka Lace Monitor Varanus
varius) wandered across the track in front of us. It was not greatly fussed by
our presence and gave us an opportunity to look at it for quite a while.
Hind leg - notice the skin sloughing off at the top.
I am unsure if it was just having a pause or feeding in this shot.
A close up of the eye and one of its front claws. No wonder they can climb trees so well.
After
finishing the walk I dropped Frances off at the house and went to fill up with
petrol, to save some time the next day.
I had thought to drop in at the Police Station to thank the guy for
being very helpful in the matter of my phone on our visit a tear ago, but no-one was there so “Pole
sana na asante sana. Hakuna matata!”
Back
at the ranch we put out some mango peel for the Bowerbirds.
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Before
they arrived a couple of young Magpies turned up and gave the small dog some
exercise.
They
were followed by a full-grown Silver Gull that nearly didn’t make it out of
range: obviously not used to terrier’s rates of acceleration.
A few other random bird images follow.
Laughing Kookaburra
Chestnut Teal
Little Black Cormorant.
Here are links to other parts of this saga:
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