Some natural history commentary

One day last week our lawn was graced with a Red-necked Wallaby.

Of the 3 common local macropods this is the least frequent on the lawn.  As can be gathered from its pose, it didn't hang around for long.

Yesterday (28 October) was the day of COG's annual Bird Blitz of the ACT.  As I had various other duties my input was a tad abbreviated this year - but at least I got out, unlike last year.  I visited three sites.

The first was the Kowen Pound: this is a Travelling Stock Reserve which is no longer on a road, and judging by what I saw yesterday has no food for the stock if any happened to pass by.

 I recorded 15 species of birds there: none unusual and none in extraordinary numbers.  As I was leaving I noticed one eucalypt (possibly E. meliodora) in blossom.  No birds were visiting it.

 The next tree had a flowering mistletoe (I think Ameyena miqueli) which did have some birds and I thought I might be scoring Mistletoebird.  It wasn't that exciting, turning out to be two Eastern Spinebills.

My next stop was a dam on Yass Rd near the intersection with Sutton Rd.  I stopped here as it is about as close to NSW as can be managed while staying in the ACT.  Jeez, how I hate these administrivia boundaries.  This can have some less common birds but yesterday was vanilla birding with 22 Australian Wood Ducks being the majority of the 6 species present.

Then on to the Queanbeyan Sewage Works which can now only be peered down into from some adjacent land.  It is amusing - from the view of administrivia that while Queanbeyan is in NSW their poop is processed at a site in, and leased from, the ACT.   (This is no dafter than most of the ACT's water being stored in Googong Dam in NSW - but that is extremely daft.)  I recorded 21 species here, mainly the usual suspects but in quite modest numbers.

On to today 29 October.  On the dog walk this morning I noticed a nice crop of violets (Viola betonicifolia) .

 Some of the local Lomandra sp were also flowering nicely.  I often overlook these flowers as the spikey leaves tend to hide them.  It appears that things are so crook the roos are eating the Lomandra leaves in the absence of anything softer, and thus the flowers are more visible..

A little later in the day I heard a strange rustling noise.  On going outside it turned out to be a large Shingleback.

As I could foresee it as unlikely that this reptile and the small dog would play well together I got my leave holding scoops and removed the lizzid out of the dogs way.  From its  girth I suspect this might be Ms Shingleback with an abdomen loaded with the next generation.

A while - perhaps an hour - later I found a very similar looking Shingleback in the drive.  So she  is moving around quite quickly for an animal that seems so slow.  The map below shows 1 where I first saw it 2 where I shifted it to and 3 the position on the drive.  From 2 - 3 is roughly 50m.

On the way back I could hear a male Rufous Whistler flaunting his wares.  This photo shows his whole body but is downgraded by the intrusive vertical twig.

 This shows the body pattern well, with no intervening timber, but I chopped off the tip of its tail!