A trip to the near West

The weather looked good on 10 September so we headed for the You-yangs and because it was close thereto a couple of sections of  the Western Treatment Plant.  A couple of navigational snafus added a little to the drive over but we got there OK.  We went to the Visitor Centre first but it was closed and their info stand was of course empty.  Must be run by Parks Victoria.

We decided the first walk would be the Big Rock Track.  We didn't have to go far up the track (100m?) to spot a Koala in its usual state of activity.

The vegetation was puzzling.  This area - a few Hectares -had no litter and no understorey and with the trees in nice orderly rows has obviously been planted.  No idea what is going on.
Its a rock! It's big!  When we got there the group on top seemed to be doing a cultural tour.
A view towards Geelong from the top of the Rock.  I am not sure if we have been to this area previously in Spring: I have no memory of so much canola in flower.
A clan of 15 Choughs taking a bath!
As would be expected from a Parks Victoria site there is no information about this sculpture available at the location. Googling reveals it's called "Remnant Canoe" in this blog post.  There is much more detail about the artist and the work here.  The sculptor is Benjamin Gilbert and the work is from carting a canoe from the You-Yangs to the mouth of the Barwon River (where it was set on fire) in 2014.
The Rock is granite (basalt is out on the flat stuff) and was being used for rock climbing.

There wasn't a lot in flower.  A Yellow Daisy turned out to be Osteospermum moniliferum, https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/240863194.  This interested me as its common name is "Bitou" and it turns out to be a different genus to Bitou Bush, common in NSW but possibly not now in Victoria.  Another flower evident was Nicotiana suaveolens Native Tobacco: there are several species in the genus.
After a pause for lunch we headed for the WTP with an aim of going to the T-section ponds and the  Western Lagoons.  This we managed, writing down 20 species at T-section and 25 at the Western Lagoons.  The most notable winged thing at T-section was an amazing number of mozzies: I think there would have been 50 on the car windows at one point.  The birds were pretty much the usual suspects, with my comment to the BAD Facebook group:
Then a quick visit to the T-Section and Western Lagoons. More White-front Chats than a stick could be pointed at; several cisticolas; Yellow-billed Spoonbills in several places; 3 Brolgas (which usually get the gig from me); but I decided Black Kite was the go today as a little harder at the WTP than a Brolga.
The drive home was notable for three crashes on the M1 each of which slowed us down a bit but not too badly (and as the 3rd was on the Westgate Bridge that is a surprise). There was, according to our satnav, another at the far end of the Burnley Tunnel but we turned off the M1 and on to the Kings Way before that disaster.


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