A Phirst, Phutile, Fasmid Phollow-up

As the pin was pulled on the normal ANPS WW (given the naff weather we have been having so far this year, pin-pulling is becoming the knew knormal) today a suggestion was made that members may wish to try a stick-insect (family Phasmida) search instead.

This follows from the news that the stick insect photographed by Roger on our walk in Stoney Creek Nature Reserve a couple of weeks back was thought to be an undescribed species.  I was up for advancing science but unfortunately the weather forecast didn't improve so no-one else was game to come.  As I was going in to Queanbeyan (and thus passing the site) anyway I went ahead.

In the event the number of mm of rain that fell on me exactly matched the number of stick insects I found.  A big, fat round number: 0, zero, nada, zilch.  However there were a few interesting things around.

I didn't take any photographs of flowers (feeling lazy) but there were quite a lot of Brachyscomes, several Glycine and one thoroughly confused Bossiaea buuxifolia in flower.  That should keep the plant people happy!

Here are some invertebrates.

First up, two views of a Hoverfly(?)

 This is definitely a caterpillar!
This should be bog easy as it looks so strange.  However I have been totally unable to come up with a match.  The best I could do, from the shape of the head, is a lace-wing (but the wings do look right for that)! Roger Farrow has identified this as Poremus strigatus, Osmylidae: Porisminae (endemic monospecific sub-family) - and it is a lacewing!!

Spiders were everywhere.  Unfortunately the wind was blowing them around so photography  was not easy.
At one point I heard a weird bird call, similar to 5 Dollarbirds having a stoush.  On climbing a bank to look across the road I found:
.. wandering around a paddock.  Just what we need: another feral species!

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