ANPS Pounds up and down

The Kowen Pound that is.  A couple of viewer advisories:

• Some of the antics of the invertebrates might get Fred Nile a bit upset (but, although he'd be very welcome, I doubt he reads this blog);
• The final few images involve things with 8 legs so an arachnophobe who votes for Fred had better stop at the fungus images!

Since we were last here the old road to Bungendore appeared to have been dug up.  (I say appeared t have been because further up it looked more though about 15cm of dirt had ben dumped on top to allow natural processes to come into play.  Either way, I found it amusing that they had left this sign in place!

 On a sadder note this memorial to someone, who presumably died in a car crash on 14 November 1993, is gradually increasing its entropy.

In the lower parts of the walk it seemed that the dominant vegetation was a couple of undocumented immgrants.  It did appear that some of the Serrated Tussock had been given a serve.

 Possibly up until close to lunchtime it seemed that the area was very dry and 'gone over'.  Chrysocephalum semipapposum had some colour (and an ant).

 So did Calocephalus citreus.

 This Brachycome rigidula in the grassland looked distinctly the worse for wear ..

 ... but this in the wooded area looked far more vital.

Most of the Eryngium ovinum (Blue Devil) looked brown and moribund.  I did find this nice blue one.

 At one stage I thought the most attractive stuff around would be the lichen and algae on the  Exocarpos cupressiformis  ....

 ... or the bark peeling off the Eucalyptus rossii.

 But just before lunch Jo found the only orchid for the day.

Definitely a Diplodium, and given the bulgy sinus and short labellum - well done those who didn't trigger it - I will take a punt on D. decurvum.

Both Glycine clandestina and ...

... G. tabacina were in flower.

 Desmodium brachypodum was a bugger to get in focus.  This one nearly made it! Not a huge plant!

 Lotus australis was an elite plant showing some elan

 This was Plantago sp - actually I was given a full name but forgot to write it down.

 Quite a long list of common bush birds of which I reckon Scarlet Robin was the pick.  I have put the female first, not out of a sense of chivalry or even gender balance, but because i reckon its a better snap!

 Here is one of the several males around.

 This is a fungus.  I shall try to add a little detail to that ID shortly.

 A large group of small sawfly larvae.

 A single cut-moth (Doratifera quadrigulata) caterpillar

Now we start to move into the adult section.  These beetles needed a bit more work on the ID but Roger's email solved that - Ellopidia sp..

 Roger named these as Sextius virescens (the Acacia horned treehopper).

 Note the A. dealbata leaves in the background, supporting the "Acacia" bit of the vernacular name.

A Belid weevil/beetle.  There are 175 species and they haven't been studied much - possibly because the Genus which looks like this feeds on Acacia rather than commercial crops!

 This is another member of the Membracidae - Ceraon sp..

 Here we have a tiny spider (chestnut stripe on its back) inviting a silk bound ant for lunch (for those who can remember the last line of The Silence of the Lambs).

 Finally a small orb-weaver spider - about the only one whose web I saw before I walked through it!