Mallacootie September 2014 (pt 3)

The day began.
This is one of the default 'moods' of the Inlet: calm with the sun rising through light cloud.  Later in the day a breeze arose causing strange wave patterns, but alas I didn't get a photo of that.

Walking into the town in the morning a group of Royal Spoonbills were nicely reflected in the water of a side lagoon.
 So was a nearby Great Egret.
 I have included this image to show the relative sizes of a White-faced Heron and a Great Egret.
 When seen alone I think of the Heron as quite a large bird but clearly it's relatively small.  Why is the next bird called a Whistling Kite?
Because it whistles!  I am not sure who it was calling to: another bird (possibly its mate?) was lower down in this tree, or a third bird about 100m away.
In the afternoon we went for a walk along the Casuarina Trail to the West of the town.  Should any trail bike riders infest the track this would improve their attitude.  (We had some evidence that mountain bikers could could negotiate the obstacle.)
 I will have to look this fungus up when we get home.
 We'll now move into plant photos, ending up with some more orchids.  I begin with Leucopogon lanceolatus, common on the sandy heath.
In the bush this looked like yet another Acacia sp.  However looking at the image I wonder if it isn't some form of Callistemon.
 Comespermum volubile.
 A lily!  Pass - although it is very pretty.
In addition to those featured the Casuarina trail had a good collection of Myrbelia, Correa and Tetratheca, shown over the previous two days.

We ended up with 6 species of orchid along the track.  This first had no associated rosette of leaves leading me to the genus Diplodium rather than Pterostylis.  I believe it is D, grandiflorum, the Cobra Greenhood.   (Apart from anything else most other Diplodiums are Autumn or Winter flowering.)
 Petalochilus fuscata.
 We ended up finding quite a few Rustyhoods,  The amount, and shade, of 'rust' varied quite a bit, but it seems that there is only one candidate in this area- Pterostylis pedunculata.  But they are pretty so here are three images.



 The only example of Stegostyla clarkii was at the town end of the track.
 I believe this to be Bunochilus longifolius.
 From the brown-ness of the labellum. and the smaller number of leaves I called this B. tunstallii.

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