The House of Fran_mart

Happy Anniversary, house

2012-01-29T17:38:00.001+11:00

I realised today that it was just exactly 5 years ago that we first walked in the door as owners of the property. What a good idea that was! Here, more or les as a traditional diary-blog, are a few notes and photos of the day.

I shall begin with some pretties from the garden. The first are some oriental lilies with a white one in the foreground and the much taller maroon ones to the back.

These pineapple lilies used to lurk in the background. Frances has ut them in pots and they can now be appreciated.

These known as N@ked L@dies (that should fool profanity filters, assuming they are as stupid as most security mechanisms).

Staying around the house, the small dog joined us about 3.5 years ago. Here she is, sitting on my lap scanning the lawn for wabbits.

Looking out the window myself I spotted some Striated Thornbills having a bath. The following are not great images but all amuse me for one reason or another. The first shows them poised on the perch ...

.. this is more the trail of water as it takes off ...

.. and this shows the wingspread rather well. The one staying on the rim shows some of the features of the species also.

I have become interested in insects in the last couple of years and here are some images from today. The first two are of a hoverfly - firstly hovering off a Bursaria and then dining on same.

This one is a honeybee: mainly because I haven't taken a photo of a honeybee and this nicely shows the pollen stuck to its tarsus.

Things loose in the top paddock

2012-01-28T16:36:00.001+11:00

A few posts back I mentioned the insects gathered on some Bursaria growing fairly close to our house. On a walk with the small dog I noticed another spinney of this prickly species.

A little later in the day I took myself and the small dog back there to see what was happening in the way of photographic subjects in the upper part of the block. As it was somewhat warm (30C) the small dog wimped after a short while so I got some extra exercise doing the trip twice.

Here are the images I captured that seem to be worthwhile bothering you with. I will offer a viewer advisory - especially for folk who are little in the arachnophobic direction - that a couple of the images below show a close up of a spider doing business with a fiddle beetle. The beetle still alive so there is no need for an advisory about dead things.

First is a Flower Scarab (Polystigma punctata). It was unusual to find one of these, on Bursaria, to stay still long enough to be photographed.

Next we have a Fiddle Beetle (Eupoecila australasiae) grazing contentedly on the bush. Again unusual to find one still. Possibly due to the heat they were doing a lot of flying around, with a loud buzzing sound - like doodlebugs?

Nearby, one fiddle beetle had been a tad unfortunate in its choice of flight path. It was still wriggling, but the spider was giving its full attention to remedying that situation.

The next three images are of what I suspect to be a longicorn beetle (family Cerambycinae): it certainly has long antennae. This is clearest in the third, head-on shot. From looking at the Chew family site I suspect it is a Flower longicorn -Aridaeus thoracicus.

The next is a butterfly - unfortunately a Cabbage White Pieris rapae

A Pintail beetle (Hoshihananomia leucosticta or Mordella leucosticta - the taxonomists have been active again) or so I believe in view of the extended abdominal segment behind the elytra.

I believe this next image is of a moth. The most outstanding feature is the extraordinary length of the antennae.

The next image is of a large flywhich landed on a non-flowering plant. I suspect it is a robber fly (family Asilidae).

On the way back home i passed one of our smaller dams and found to my delight that the native water lilies Ottelia ovalifolia were flowering. Even better, I got in focus images of the them!

For the benefit (?) of those who do not have Strine as a first language I should explain the double meaning of the title of this post.

The post obviously and mainly deals with the arthropods that were unrestrained in the upper part of our property. They are free to come and go so to that extent are loose (apart from the one caught in the spider web);
There are many Australian expressions implying someone is a little low in the intellect stakes. "Not the full 2 bob", "a shingle short of a roof" are common examples as is " a few roos loose in the top paddock". One might say that describes a punter wandering through spiky bushes at 30 degrees!

Rainfall (or lack thereof)

2012-01-27T10:10:00.001+11:00

At the start of this month (January 2012) I checked the 28 Day rainfall forecast on the Elders site. The image it generated was very similar to this one (from 27 January):

However when my friend Denis sought my view about rainfall a bit east of here I had to answer that I really didn't know since it seemed that we has had no rain when it has bucketted down in Canberra and that they had had none when we had accumulated the pittance that has arrived since Christmas. I tried to get some further information about the area he was particularly interested in from the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) climate data pages but all the small stations seem to report at the end of the month rather than daily. (That is my interpretation of the lack of information for January 2012 for all except the automatic stations.)

In separate conversations with other folk a common comment is that the forecasters keep talking about showers and storms but they have never arrived. So I thought I would get a bit of data and see what is going on. My records are in the first column while BoM data for three automatic stations gives an idea of the variation around the area.

Date	Carwoola	Airport	Tuggeranong	Braidwood race course
1-Jan		0	0	0
2-Jan		0	0	0.2
3-Jan		0	0	0
4-Jan		0	0
5-Jan		0	0	0.4
6-Jan		0	0	0.6
7-Jan		0	0	0.2
8-Jan	6.7	3.8	1.4	3
9-Jan		1.2	0.2	0.4
10-Jan		0	0	0
11-Jan		0	0	0
12-Jan		0.4	0.6	0
13-Jan		0	0	0
14-Jan		0	0.4	0.2
15-Jan		0	0.6	0.2
16-Jan		0	0.2	0
17-Jan		0	0	0.2
18-Jan		0	0	0
19-Jan		0	0	0.4
20-Jan	2.5	0	0	0
21-Jan		24.2	42.2	3.8
22-Jan	2.0	0.2	2	1.2
23-Jan		0	0	2
24-Jan		0.2	0	0
25-Jan		0	0	0.2
26-Jan		0	0.2	0
Total	11.2	30.0	47.8	13.0
Raindays	3	6	9	14

My own record keeping is not on exactly the same rigorous 9am - 8:59am daily routine as the BoM stations which may account for a small amount of the variability, but the table shows that we have had falls on less days than any of the other 3 stations and particularly that we missed the big storm on the 21st. Braidwood, closer to Denis's area of interest has had many more damp days but achieved a similar modest total to us.

In the meantime, NE NSW is getting flooded again. So far in January Coffs harbour has received 320mm over 14 days. Possibly it is moving down the Coast in which case we could get a bit starting Sunday!

A plague on your Yellow Box!

2012-01-25T20:47:00.001+11:00

I have mentioned the infestations of Plague Soldier Beetles (Chauliognathus lugubris) in a few posts, most recently this one. This afternoon I noticed the heavy blossom load on the huge ( perhaps 30m high, estimated to be >200 years old) Yellow Box (Eucalyptus meliodora) tree in our lawn.

Then my eye strayed down to the branches above the daisies featured in the earlier post. Hooley, and also Dooley! There were masses of beetles up there.

This next shot gives a closer view of one of the dark masses of beetles.

I am intrigued that thus far there doesn't seemed to be anything predating the beetles. Perhaps they are so widespread that birds and other insects cannot keep up with the work? It seems that at present the beetles are restricted to the lower levels of the tree, perhaps up to 10m above the ground.

ANPS ties up to a Bollard

2012-01-25T19:36:00.001+11:00

Today the ANPS crew went to Mt Bollard in Tallaganda National Park. (This followed a reconnaissance trip almost exactly a year ago.) A large group (27) rolled up and a surprisingly large proportion (10 of us) ascended the steep bit at the end. Obviously the peak flowering season was over but some nice flowers and especially orchids were found. There were lots of other interesting things as well but we'll deal with general habitat and plants first.

The first couple of kms from the cars seemed to be a bit undulating on the way in, but after the ascent of the peak seemed quite flat on the way back. In both directions the main tree cover is Eucalyptus dives.

That habitat is shown in the background to "father of the day" - OK the typo is deliberate (for once) - left behind by a Superb Lyrebird.

On reaching the base of the Mountain itself the track turned skywards through much larger trees (Eucalyptus fastigata, E. radiata and E. dalrympleana) with little understorey - I presume that when water falls on a 1:3.5 (28%) slope it doesn't hang around to facilitate shrub growth. This shows a view from about 1/3rd the way up (or indeed, down) with the less hardy (aka more sensible) souls visible at the foot of the peak.

At the top we were into Eucalyptus pauciflora (Snow gums) and while flat, there was not a lot of soil as indicated by the rocky outcrops.

Some details of plants, beginning with the dicotyledons. The commonest flower of the day was IMHO the lovely purple Comesperma ericinum.

The Dianella had all finished flowering but these berries on D tasmanica - I think - were very attractive.

We now move to Persoonias. P chamaepeuce is a low growing, almost prostrate plant

while P silvatica is a reasonable sized bush.

At the top of the hill/cliff we found this plant which I originally labelled "not-Pimelia" but was in fact Platysace lanceolata.

Right at the start of the track in was a yellow Stackhousia viminea.

Now to deal with the orchids. The first of these was found by a member well away from the track. This was a Chiloglottis trilabra,

and it was suggested that this removed the key justification for going up the mountain. No, no! The key justification is indeed 'Because it is there'! However once up we found and snapped several more of this species.

At base camp those who didn't ascend found a good collection of Diplodium dercurvum, the aptly named Summer Greenhood.

We also found two examples of Thynninorchis huntiana, an elbow orchid. As I have already got a good image of this I didn't join the queue to snap the first and was a good distance away when Frances found the second and took a photo (from the randy wasp's view).

Arthropods were very prevalent. I suspect several members had a spider sandwich while walking off -piste. Here we have some arachnids at work.

Of course they only get to be that big if they eat lots of stuff. Here we have another spider doing the eating bit.

The less fortunate member of this duo is the larva of a Chrysomelid leaf beetle. If it had not been elected "nosh du jour" by the spider it might have grown into something pretty like this.

A luckier (thus far) larval stage is this one, with an overall view and a close up of the front end:

The final arthropodic addition to this post is a lantern fly: actually a leaf-hopper.

Not all the animals were tiny. This one was about 1.2m long

It was a Yellow-bellied Black Snake, often called a Copperhead. Rather venomous, but also very keen to remove itself from our presence.

There were a few birds around but not a great abundance. This possibly reflects the limited range of insects (which probably reflects the limited range of flowers.

To finish there was only one fungus seen all day. I don't think it is an Amanita sp but still wouldn't cook it!

The National Australian Museum of Weeds

2012-01-23T20:08:00.000+11:00

Many tears (OK it is a typo - I meant years - but it really is a good alternative) ago the then President of COG described an area in the Jerrabombera Wetlands (near Fulica hide on Jerrabombera Creek, for those familiar with the area.) as being the proposed site for the Museum of Australian weeds. That area is still pretty good (or bad), in terms of enabling people from overseas to feel at home with the vegetation, but other parts of the area now match it.

The areas covered in this post, which reports on a visit I made to the area today are highlighted in the following image from Google Earth.

The yellow streak is the originally nominated area, while the red streak is a particularly egregious set of current weed infestations. The three named areas are basically the spots I went to in order to see a few birds - and in fact I did quite well as explained later.in the post.

First however I will deal with the weeds.

The original area (yellow streak) has been subject to "dry willow removal". I use the term "dry willow" because all that has been removed are the willows growing on the banks of the Creek: those growing on islands in the middle have been left! While probably an accidental outcome of the contractors not having a boat, this is possibly not a bad thing as it provides some nesting and roosting sites for birds pending replanting to replace the willows that have been removed. In the interim the disturbance caused by removig the willows has provided a wonderful area for thistles, mustard weed, and a whole host of other weeds to set up shop.

By opening up the watercourse a lot more light has been let in allowing massive growth of invasive water lilies. The image also gives an idea of the state of the banks and the willows remaining in the wetter areas.

Later in my stroll I got to the area marked with a red streak. This was basically an impenetratble forest of horrible spiky shrubs - possibly Pyracanthus - leavened with a backdrop of 2m (or more) tall Fennel.

This is the top of a bank beside the Silt trap which is itself lined with dense brambles. Kellys Swamp itself is close to becoming a Typha forest.

All of this is going on in full view of the office of the ACT Department of Environment on Dairy Road. (The grounds of those offices are themselves interesting in that the have degraded hugely, mainly with an infestation of thistles and very tall grass) since the place ceased to be an agricultural/environmental education facility.) I presume this indicates that the wonderful ACT Government has gutted the budget of that function so they cannot afford to slash the weeds. Presumably the ACT Greens will workshop this problem and have a solution by about 2025.

Anyhow, enough with the negative vibrations and I realise this is the 5th post - on this blog alone - in which I have used that kvetch. I recorded 44 species of birds as I wandered around between the various bits of the wetlands. I could probably have got more had I wandered across the paddocks to the NW. Highlights were:

180 Eurasian Coots in the Sewage ponds;
Dependent Young Australasian Grebes and Pacific Black Ducks in the ponds;
A good haul of 'small grebes" generally in the ponds. This image is a Hoary-headed Grebe

11 Black-fronted Dotterel in front of Tadorna hide (effectively the western end of the yellow strip)
A Black-shouldered Kite at the Silt Trap (a young bird, doubtless wondering how to get at the mice under all the weeds);

a Juvenile Nankeen Night-heron flew across the Wetlands going somewhere; and
in the rest of the heron(ish) department White-faced Heron; Great Egret and Australian White ibis were spotted.
A group of Superb Fairy-wrens were in front of the Cygnus hide: not unusual but I thought the image cute enough to include

Bursaria starts to deliver the goods!

2012-01-22T08:01:00.002+11:00

When we first started to think about regenerating the bush on our property we consulted Greening Australia and Angela from that organisation visited us. She was very pleased to notice some Bursaria spinosa growing near our creek and said it was a good bird attractor.

On our trip to the Brindabellas last weekend Ian Fraser also commented about Bursaria attracting birds. Of course, Ian being the naturalist he is, he explained that this was because insects are attracted to the flowers and birds come along for some arthropod a la mode. When this comment was made Frances said something to the effect that "I foresee you spending a lot of time with your camera looking at the Bursaria !" As usual, spot on.

It was interesting that for the first few days on visiting the biggest clump of Bursaria I found few insects. I guess that this just meant the flowers hadn't developed full scent or nectar flow by that stage. Here is a shot of the habitat.

The slope here is fairly steep running down to Whiskers Creek: nearly all the Bursaria on our propery is close to one of the Creeks. It seems to like/need the humidity.

Here is a close up of some of the flowers:

The vernacular name for this species is Blackthorn. I am not sure about the black, but the 'thorn' element of the name is very correct.

It can be rather flesh-reducing trying to get through such armament to get a close photograph of an insect. This is particularly the case when one also has a small dog, actively exploring various rock and fallen trees, on a lead. Much as I enjoy her company, after the second occasion she pulled me off my rocky perch so that she could investigate a skink, she was returned to her cushion in the house!

This next image shows a section of a flower head in which at least 4 insect species are present.

Other more colourful ones (names to be added) soon became evident, often buried in the blossom ..

.. but occasionally emerging.

One of the issues seems to be that the insects don't stay still in these bushes. This gives rise to images such as this

showing the dorsal abdomen of a Fiddle Beetle (note the design) Eupoecila australasiae disappearing out of shot. The Flower Scarabs Polystigma punctata didn't even stay around that long. This is in contrast to the behaviour of insect on Asteraceae where the flat surface allows them to be moved around and photographed at leisure.

At times the instability plays into one's hands. This allows one to get shots of the underside of the beetle

and the overside (? why not - over is the opposite of under)!

before returning the insect to the Bursaria.

I am interested that in the last image above the wing cases (elytra) appear to have a brownish cast: this is more in conformation with other images of this species.

At the risk of diverting from purpose of this blog I will put in 2 final photos showing how the Soldier Beetles stick to daisies to the point of causing the flowers to fall to the ground. (The beetles are also attaching themselves to our lawn grass.)

Of Koels and bigger honeyeaters

2012-01-20T07:35:00.001+11:00

In commenting on my post about the nesting Noisy Friarbirds Denis asked "Do you get Koels coming in to use these birds as host parents?" The short answer is given in my response to his comment. (An even shorter answer would be 'No.", but that is no fun for me.) This post is an attempt to provide a fuller answer to he question, using information from the COG Garden Birds Survey (GBS).

NOTE:

To see the detail of Charts click on them and a larger version will appear.
In some of the Charts there are two vertical axes, where the intention is to demonstrate the similarity of shape rather than size of distribution. Be aware of this!

A key point underlying the discussion is that Eastern Koels, other than as vagrants, are a relatively recent addition to the Canberra avifauna. Writing in 1999, Steve Wilson in his authoritative book "Birds of the ACT: 2 Centuries of Change" noted "The ACT is just beyond the Southern edge of its normal distribution..." and records observations made in1946 and 1950 with a gap until 1981. He concludes his discussion with "Since <1986> this species has been reported nearly every summer, but it has never been numerous."

They might now be approaching numerous. The following Chart shows the Abundance (average number of birds per observer-week) and Frequency (percentage of sites reporting the species at least once per year) of Eastern Koels (hereafter 'Koel') over the 30 years of the GBS.

I have not included a trendline for A since the Excel trend function does bizarre things when dealing with values of '0'. However it is broadly similar in shape to that of F (with an even better value for R2).

Although the value of A for has risen dramatically it is still small (A Year 30= 0.103) compared to that of the Red Wattlebird (A Year 30= 2.881) and Noisy Friarbird (A Year 30= 0.414). In part this is due to the migration of the species illustrated in the next Chart.

Note:

Week 1 begins 1 January even though the GBS Year runs from July to June.
Separate A values were calculated for each week, thus adjusting for the low observer effort in weeks 25-27 due to vacation around Christmas.

For the next stage of analysis there seemed little point in considering the weeks when 2 of the 3 species were absent (or nearly so). From eyeballing the original data the pronounced drop-off and regathering of numbers of Noisy Friarbirds was roughly equivalent to weeks in which the numbers of Friarbirds seen over 30 years dropped below 500 and that number was used as a cutoff. This means that weeks 16 to 36 will be omitted from much of what follows.

In the next Chart I have reordered the weeks so that the peak period is not split by the year starting according to a Northern Hemisphere Winter period! (It is in fact simply a different presentation of the information from the preceding Chart.)

Returning briefly to Koels alone, the next Chart shows how their period in the ACT has expanded over the recent past. NOTE that the scale for the last 5 years (LHS) is approximately 10 times larger than that for the earlier period (RHS). It is the shape of the graphs that is important as emphasised by the yellow areas illustrating the increased duration of the species' stay in the ACT.

Having exhaustively (exhaustingly?) covered the occurrence of the three species in the ACT let us move on to breeding activity. As a first point, it should be noted that the system for recording breeding activity in the GBS was greatly enhanced in Year13 of the Survey and only records in years 13 - 30 will be considered in what follows.

The first records of Koels breeding in the ACT were in January -February 2009. and has been written up by Lenz, Haygarth and Oren in the COG Bulletin 'Canberra Bird Notes' (warning the link goes to a 3Mb file). One of the records covered by that report was in a GBS site. No GBS sites recorded Koel breeding in year 29 but in Year 30 (2010 - 11) of the GBS a further 4 Koel breeding events were reported from GBS sites. 4 of the records are of Dependent Young while one was of copulation. All occur in the first quarter of the calendar year (ie GBS weeks 1 - 11) with the copulation record earlier than the dependent young records (at different sites).

The large honeyeater species are widely reported breeding in GBS sites. As is the case with most species the commonest breeding records are the indicative 'Dependent Young' observations, rather than definitive "Nest with Egg" or "Nest with Young" records. The following Chart shows the number of Breeding Records for each of the three species as a proportion of the site weeks applicable to that week.

It appears that even in recent years most reports of the presence of Koels are made after the initial peak of Red Wattlebird breeding. It would seem that the species arrives in time for the secondary peak of Red Wattlebird breeding reports and just before the peak of Noisy Friarbird breeding reports. The (few) reports
thus far of Koel breeding (just visible in the enlarged image) occur right at the end of the breeding season for both honeyeaters.

Analysis (or at least hypothesis) Time

It is important to remember that even though Koels records in the ACT have increased dramatically in the recent past they are still not a common bird. It is also possible that many of the GBS observations duplicate records of a single bird in view of the far-carrying calls of the species. Definitive breeding records for the host species are more common, but still not plentiful. Thus observing the intersection of the more unlikely events is pretty much a lottery.

It would seem that the reliance, in the ACT, on Red Wattlebirds as hosts could be due to the greater number of Wattlebird breeding events recorded in comparison with events for Noisy Friarbirds: this applies even after the peak breeding period for Wattlebirds has passed. It appears that this outweighs the preference, described in HANZAB (for areas where Koel breeding is more common) for Friarbird rather than Wattlebird nests.

As a totally heuristic hypothesis I wonder if it might also be the case that Wattlebirds are less protective of their nest sites for their second clutches? Thus they make an easier target for the Koels? From the obseravtion of the behaviour of Friarbirds around the nest which originally generated this enquiry they are very aggressive towards predators, driving off Brown Goshawks and Australian Magpies. I would expect them to look with some prejudice at a Cuckoo in the neighbourhood!

COG does Burra

2012-01-18T21:44:00.000+11:00

The COG Wednesday Walks are really mid-month walks as they occur on the third Wednesday of each month. This month we visited the "retreat property" of a COG member about 30km South of Canberra C'B'D.

It was quite a bit higher (880m according to Google Earth) but still rather warm on our first day of real Summer weather (33C) in 2012. I will start with a slightly modified version of the message I put on the COG email discussion group.

17 members and guests had a most enjoyable, albeit un-cold, walk to the property at Burra this morning. Many thanks Ian for inviting us andguiding us around the property.

Once we startedbirding we did well, ending up writing down a good haul of 39 species on andaround the property, including Crested Pigeons and Galahs seen on the approachroad, but NOT including theHelmeted Guineafowl seen grazing on the verge.

The highlight was a Yellow-faced Honeyeater nest attached to a vine outside Ian's cottage. A quick peek showed 2 eggs inthe nest, but as the bird was in the vicinity no further disruption wasoffered. A Peregrine Falcon nest was also seen n a tree but the chicks had fledgedand left a few weeks ago.

A good crop of Thornbills was harvested with Yellow-rumped, Buff-rumped andYellow seen before we moved from the parking area and Striated and Brown addedlater. A Speckled Warbler warbled convincingly and a White-throatedGerygone emitted th e"tinkling fall of diamonds call" as well as ayoung bird (little white on the throat) prsenting very good views close to thegroup. Red Wattlebirds, Noisy Miners and Yellow-faced Honeyeaters were commonin the trees and single of Noisy Friarbird and Eastern Spinebill added to thediversity of the area.

As it is still summer (indeed, some would say this is the first summery weathersince November) we saw a couple of migrants in Dollarbird and DuskyWoodswallow.

A full list of species seen will be posted on the Trips page of the COG website indue course.

The significant amendment was to correctly identify the Spinebill. In the original version it was subject to a small typo leading to a (the?) reader of the message to enquire if it was not unseasonably early for an "Easter Spinebill."

The birds generally didn't hang about long for photos. An historic wall did stay put: it was thought that this may have been a boundary wall in days gone by for "Duntroon" one of the original settlements on the Limestone Plains. (It seems to me that it is way too far from the homestead for that to be the case.) Another theory is that a landowner engaged some workers - possibly Chinese - from the Snowy Mountains Scheme to build the wall. But that seems far too recent for a wall like this: perhaps they were coming from the Goldfields of Kiandra?

There were a number of nice plants around of which this Swainsona sericia was an attarctive example

... as was the white Wahenbergia sp. (A traditional blue 'bluebell' and some Vittadinia muhlerii also appear in the image.)

After the walk myself and a friend called in briefly to Queanbeyan Park to see what was going on with the Australian Hobby family which nests there. We saw an adult perched high up in the nest tree but not the eyasses.

A colleague who lives and works in Queanbeyan commented that when the the young are flying in the area it is "noisier than a bungee-jumping convention". Recent news from the Zambezi area suggests that would mean lots of "splash" sounds!

Insects weird and wonderful

2012-01-17T21:54:00.002+11:00

A key reason for photographing, and blogging about, insects is to reflect on the extremely diverse forms they take.

This could be exemplified by this image of a basic member of the family Diptera, feeding on a garden daisy of some form.

These are extremely common, but when the detail is viewed, incredibly complex.

On the subject of 'common' on the night of 18 January a beetle swarming occurred. This was the scene around our outside lights at 10:30 while escorting the small dog on her toilet break.

Less common is the next selection. We noticed these on an Acacia pravissima bush beside our drive. Only one, fairly isolated, shrub seemed to be infested.

My first thought was that they were snails but on looking more closely realised they were soft and totally unlike snails!

My next thought was that they seemed to have moth-like antennae but on closer looking again, from head-on, that may have been a leg?

They stayed in the same position all day so I went out this evening to see what was going on. Ants were going on! (Sorry about the quality of the next image:I'll try to do better tomorrow night - see below.)

This started me thinking about aphids and on consulting my Field Guide in that part of the Insect world I found a pretty close match with Icerya purchasi "Cottony cushion scale" which feeds on Acacia in Australia but is/was a big pest on Citrus in the USA.

It is now the 'next night' and I think I have done better in the image department!

I have left the original image so that the reader can see "before and after" shots. The principal difference - as far as I am aware is that in the second image I used a halogen headlight to illuminate the target area. This meant that the camera was able to auto-focus on that (in zoom-macro mode) rather than attempting to do so in the brief time the flash was active.

The story continues to develop! On checking the scale insects this morning I found that a number of them had small red dots on them. After considerable swearing and more constructively, work on my breath control, I was able to get an image of the detail of the red dots.

My initial thought was that these were some form of parasite but referring to the University of California site revealed that these are first instar crawlers of the scale insect itself.

Roos in the morning

2012-01-17T07:32:00.003+11:00

While checking emails and my usual daily sites I noticed a small mob of Eastern Grey Kangaroos hanging about on the hillside out the window.

Apart from illustrating several of the usual positions adopted by 'roos this gives a "hook" for a story from Sunday.

I was taking the small dog for a walk, as we do every morning, and heard some loud grunting. This turned out to be a pair of male kangaroos discussing 'issues". I have posted about this in the past so my lack of a camera doesn't matter. Although we were only about 10m from them the roos carried on kicking each other, with the thuds clearly audible.

The small dog was very interested in this performance but didn't bark. Obviously both she and the roos are thoroughly habituated to each other. We had to move off first, leaving the furry gentlemen still sinking the slipper into each other.

A second tour of the environment in the Brindabellas

2012-01-16T12:40:00.001+11:00

In December I posted about a trip we took to the Brindabellas with Environment Tours. It now being a few weeks later another trip was taken to visit a couple of different spots and to see what had changed in the interim. The expectation was that some of the plants we saw flowering would be 'finished' while others would have started up. This was slightly mentally modified by the non-Summer thus far delaying things.

Yesterday's weather would have done little to accelerate the late starters - cool and in cloud for a lot of the time. These are some snow gums (Eucalyptus pauciflora) at the Chalet Rd cloud forest.

The trip began as before going out along Cotter Rd, through the slums-in-waiting of Coombes and Wright. This area used to be a pine forest, the training ground for many of Australia's best long distance runners, and has now been "developed" to a bare earth paddock. The streets have largely been laid out so one can see the area is going to be full of tiny house blocks, that will undoubtedly be covered by unnecessarily huge houses. Some exotic, deciduous, trees have been planted in the streets (because there won't be room for trees off-street after the house, garage, BBQ patio, above-ground pool and tool shed have been dumped on the plot).

To distract us from this tragic sight our fearless leader told the story of flowering plants over a few epochs (from when plants first emerged from the primordial water to the present day). The climax of the story was the way the plants we are to see developed fertilisation methods. A key point was that most of the plants in the high country are insect pollinated rather than bird pollinated. This last point was emphasised by seeing very few birds (Flame robins and Gang-gangs were my standouts - , see Sandra's comment below for a better sighting) but, as will be apparent in what follows, a whole lotta insects.

After leaving the mess of the Molonglo subdivision we crossed the Murrumbidgee at Uriarra Crossing. I took a snap from the bus window to show what happens to Casuarinas when they get in the way of a raging river. This may be of interest to readers with property in the Bahamas!

After a traditional toilet stop at Bulls Head we made our first 'proper stop' at the South end of Moonlight Hollow Road. We had walked the length of this road a couple of weeks earlier but today just went a short distance down to a small dam. Dicotyledonous flowers seen on the way down included this Chloretrum pauciflora (aka Sourbush).

Next we have Euphrasia collina.

and a side on view of Australian caraway.

I am sorry for using a vernacular name but I just cannot force Oreomyrrhis eriopoda into my mind. (Come to that, I am not sure if once it is briefly in there, I can pronounce it!) This species is usually photographed from above to get the pinwheel effect of the seeds-on-stalks but I thought this view better as it showed the leaves also.

We did find the first of the day's several Wahlenbergia gloriosa Royal Bluebells on this stretch of road but it was pretty tired, and my photograph did not greatly improve the situation! The same applied to later clumps also, so if you are desperate for an image of the ACT floral emblem I suggest you refer to the Moonlight post.

We passed a couple of clumps of Microtis unifolia (an onion orchid).

The orchid also features in a very small way at the bottom of the following image, taken by Wendy, for which I have alternate titles:

Mzungu kubwa (Kiswahili for Big white hunter);
Call me Bw(an)ana;
Twerp in grass!.

The dam was very pretty, in a reflective sort of way. Ian commented that it was built for fire-fighting but when the fire risk is really high it is often dry!

On the way back to the bus a couple of samples of Pterostylis monticola (the Large Mountain Greenhood) were found on top of the bank.

One interesting insect was seen in this part of the trip.

I am reasonably sure it is a beetle, rather than a bug, but am having some difficulty getting further than order
On getting back to the bus we headed to Chalet Road for a lunch stop since the weather was unlikely to be propitious at Mt Ginini. The first image in this post, and the one following, might suggest it wasn't really propitious at Chalet Rd either. The twerp was still present, but this time wandering about in the fog.

As we ate our repast I noticed some fruit on a nearby example of Dianella tasmanica.

A little later in the trip I came across some flowers of the species (note the artistically positioned dew-drops on the anthers and the webs in the background).

Note also the colour of the anthers (yellow) which is one way of distinguishing this species from D. revoluta with dark anthers. It was a surprise to see the latter this high but the photograph below is evidence.

The D tasmanica held a number of interesting insects, shown in the following images. Names will be added as they become available. (Not surprisingly I am finding difficulty in lining these images - taken at about 1300m above sea-level in the ACT - up with the images on Brisbane insects, taken about 1200km North and 1200m lower!)

The mating insects may be Lycid beetles ...

... this looks like a Shield bug (aka stink bug) in the family Pentatomidae: it certainly has 5 segments in the antennae.

... and I definitely call this a weevil (family Curculionidae)

Also in this area but not photographed were:

a plague of Soldier Beetles (already have an image),
a brachinid wasp (wouldn't stay still amongst some dense grass stems to be photographed: and
a whole lot of tiny ants (once discovered I didn't wish to stay in their vicinity).

We then moved onwards and upwards to the end of the road at Mt Ginnini. Propitiousness was certainly lacking in the weather! However there were some really good flowers available there.

The first two images are of Celmisia costiniana the Snow Daisy. In this first image the purple underside of the flower is shown (I have thus far been unable to find a reason for this colouration) while the second image shows the silvery stem and leaves.

There were also large numbers of Microseris lanceolata (Yam Daisies) and Craspedia aurantia (Billy Buttons).

Insects also found these plants attractive: The first is (IMHO) a scarab and the second a leaf beetle.

We did a few more walks on the way home, and some images appear earlier in the blog since that fitted my narrative needs . If you expect linear coherence, you are reading the wrong blog!

Noisy Friarbird Nest

2012-01-14T16:25:00.000+11:00

It is important to the study of birds to have records of breeding activity. It is also usually difficult to find nests to record since many species are very careful to conceal their nests. So today I was very pleased to find a nest of a Noisy Friarbird in a very obvious position where I can keep an eye on it and take the odd photograph or 50.

The nest was revealed to me by the noise generated by the chicks - presumably being fed. The nest is about 3m above the ground in a small Yellow Box tree, and quite exposed to view from the West. I'd like to say I was able to identify the ownership of the nest by looking at its materials, style of construction, position etc, but that would be telling large porkies. I identified it as a Friarbird's nest as I saw an adult Friarbird fly away from it!

Before getting to photos a brief pause for background. The Atlas of ACT Birds shows this species having nests with young from October to February. This is confirmed by the COG Garden Bird Survey as shown by this chart.

Looking at the Chart I judge that this is a slightly late first brood (a fair call as Carwoola is about 200m higher than the bulk of the ACT and could thus expect things to be 2 weeks late) rather than a rather early second brood.

This first image shows a pair of chick's heads poking up above the nest.

I returned a little later with a tripod and found the adult was in position.

It stayed in this gaping position for the 5 minutes over which I observed the nest. Although the nest is a tad exposed, and the sun was in the NW by this time, the day was not particularly hot.

One further thought is that the location of the nest probably explains why the Friarbirds have been quite so enthusiastic in driving a Brown Goshawk away from the area. It possibly also explains why the Goshawk has been visiting so frequently in recent days.

I was unable to spend much time watching the nest on 15 January and when I put in a few minutes looking at the nest early on 16th there was no sign of adult or chicks. Had the Goshawk got lucky? Fortunately, if I may be allowed a little bias in favour of ugly passerines, no. I heard the chcicks calling about 11am and on positioning myself with my camera saw an adult bird moving cautiously through a series of trees towards the nest. It then fed the young:

The beak of one of the chicks is just visible above the rim of the nest. As the adult seemed aware of, and a tad uncertain about, my presence I didn't hang about but left the area a soon as I had taken the pictures.

On 22 January I was showing a friend the nest and we could clearly see 3 beaks protruding from it. I was however unable to get an image of this.

It is pleasing to report that on 24 January two of the chicks were out of the nest and posing well.

In this image note that these very young birds don't have the 'bump' on the beak. That can be a trap for young players since it makes the birds look somewhat like Little Friarbirds. The following (less zoomed) shot shows these two birds in the upper portion of the image with the head of the third bird just visible still in the nest in the lower left corner.

A day in the life, plus flowers.

2012-01-14T07:35:00.002+11:00

Today was quite busy so I thought I'd do a traditional, diary type blog. To make life a little more interesting for readers and viewers I have included some images of garden flowers after that.

After the usual checking of emails we headed off for our dog/exercise walk. The highlight of this was finding the male of our frogmouth family in one of the favourite roosts. From looking at past years they usually vanish for a couple of weeks around New Year, and on return the youngsters are not with them. I wonder if the female will be found later or if he will have to recruit a new friend?

After this warm up I went for a short run as part of my effort to get fit. This included a couple of 'digs' over 600m to try to get some speed into my legs. I did mange to do one of them in less than 3 minutes, so I am getting somewhere.

It was then time to head for Queanbeyan and Fyshwick for various activities mainly, in my case, related to the process of acquiring the technology needed to control the local rabbit population. (More detail will come on the conclusion of that process, expected some time in April: as a hint, the word "bang!" is helpful.).

On the way out we noticed a small dragon lurking in the creek.

The first was to visit the Motor Vehicle Registry in Queanbeyan to correct a name error on my driving license. This was done without my blood pressure getting much over 300, so I must be getting both fitter and tolerant!
My next stop was to visit Tony de Queanbeyan for a haircut. It was suggested I should have done that before I had my photograph taken for my license!
Then to Bunnings, the Australian equivalent to Home Depot, in Fyshwick to acquire some hardware needed for the later stages of the technology process. This was followed by a visit to a gun shop to sign up for a course, and to check that gun storage rules hadn't changed. They had - or at least the implementation of them has so much rethinking of plans needed. No biggie, just very very annoying.
After visits to the Fyshwick Markets for some fruit and the ex-government furniture place (mainly to see what they around) it was back home.

My main business at home was taking some of the following photographs. The first is of an Oriental Lily which is trying to achieve an award in a Triffid competition. Rather than the smell of rotting stuff that accompanies triffids (in our case occasionally generated from the fly trap or possibly the old bones the small dog has buried under the deck) this lily has a very pleasant perfume pervading the Northern side of the house.

After a couple of years we finally have some hollyhock flowers. This red one is spectacular.

The remaining pictures are of various forms of gladioli, of which we acquired 250 mixed bulbs earlier in the year. They are in three clumps around the garden and doing very nicely.

They also do well indoors, when the spikes break off in the garden!

ANPS does Boboyan Forest

2012-01-12T13:04:00.002+11:00

The weather forecast today offered strong winds and showers in the afternoon. In fact the wind howled all day and showers were evident soon after the kick-off just before 10. (The most serious shower certainly occurred after noon to get the cars - and the road -all steamy as we headed for home, so give the BoM at least a pass-mark for the day.)

Looking out over the valley as we started it was apparent the kangaroos were enjoying the weather, and the amount of feed. The image shows above half of them.

Some other walkers saw a large boar just off the track but I didn't so no photo. (There was some pig damage seen, but nothing like that evident at Smokers Gap a few days earlier.)

As my main role is to do with birds, I'll note that I recorded 23 species today (nothing extraordinary) and this pair of Laughing Kookaburras were good enough to pause and pose.

Let us now head into the flowers. This meadow of Chrysocephalum semipapposum, backed by some Cassinia longifolia was a common feature early inthe wlak.

At the more individual level a lot of Ajuga australis was noted.

Near the lunch stop much Glycine clandestina was wriggling its way up through the other plants

This Hypericum gramineum is a close, and native, relative of the foul St John's Wort (one of the few weeds under-represented on today's walk, although very evident on the drive from Tarwa).

Lomatia myricoides

This is an interesting one. It was deemed to be a member of the genus Mentha but not to be the commonest species (M. diemenica). Having reviewed what Plantnet has to say about other members of the species, they all fail on one attribute or another so I wimp out and call it Mentha sp!

Some Euclalyptus pauciflora aka Snow Gum) flowers and capsules were on the ground.

This more vertical Eucalyptus pauciflora has obviously been providing shelter to a bunch of insect larvae

Other insects had a closer and more obvious relationship with plants. This first specimen is a fly possibly a member of Tachinidae dining on a Calotis flower.

A crane-fly (family Tipulidae) was investigating the underside of a Chrysocephalum semipapposum. Other crane-flies were ensuring the propogation of their species have been included in another, special-interest, post.

The next lot shows some Kunzea ericoides which has got in the path of some Plague Soldier Beetles (Chauligonathus lugubris. Anyone got n opion why they have 'plague' as part of their name?

This group was one clump of about 50 of a similar size on a cluster of Kunzea bushes. They were also on the much lower Fleabane and Centauri bushes, in smaller clusters.

A scarab beetle (Phyllotocus sp) had its head buried in a Leptospermum flower.

Other invertebrates captured - in a digital sense - during the day included a Bee-fly (family Bombyliidae)...

.. and a Bush-cricket (aka Katydid) Chlororodectes montanus. From the long ovipositor this is a female.

Regardless of the sex or gender the detail of its front-end is very attractive.

All of this nature was living on the soil and rocks of the area. Taking a long view, the top of Mt Gudgenby was still quite exposed after the 2003 bushfires ....

... while spectacular boulders - in various arrangements - were found throughout the second half of the walk.

The backside of Palerang

2012-01-09T20:58:00.000+11:00

That is of course a reference to Mount Palerang after which the magnificent Shire in which I reside is named! The backside bit of the title refers to my visiting the Eastern side of the mountain, which is the far side when viewed from our property. My main reason for visiting this area was to revisit the junction of the Mulloon and Gourock Range fire trails where we found a few orchids and a mass of orchid leaves on an ANPS trip some time back.

On first getting to the area (after a very easy crossing of Mulloon Creek) I spent several minutes checking the area for orchid flowers or leaves. Alas the forest floor was bare: obviously the species are all spring flowering and now it is Summer.

So I unloaded the bike from the back of the car and went for a ride. I had wondered about the Gourock Range Fire Trail, but on checking the map that seemed to involve a fairly solid climb of about 100m in the first kilometre so I took what looked to be a softer option and went South along the Palerang Trail behind the mountain. It was undulating rather than scenic.

However looking at the slopes of the mountain itself it appeared to be very scenic: very steep and well covered with vegetation, some of it of a prickly nature. Overall the first part of the ride is tall forest.

In the understorey were a number of attractive native flowers. The commonest were trigger plants (Stylidium sp).

See comment about the following image from Denis below. That puts it as Rhytidosporum - and on reading what Plantnet has to say about the 5 species I believe it is procumbens.

Some Acacias were flowering along the edge of the track.

(A small parenthesis if you don't mind. Many (>30) years ago I read a book about a series of physicists. This may have been by C P Snow - the key point is that the author - or possibly one of his subjects- rated the physicists according to how they would be scored if their expertise was in cricket rather than physics. A journeyman would be considered a solid County Player someone quite solid in their grasp of the subject (possibly Edward Teller, if you discount his politics) would be rated an average Test player while the top line (Einstein, Niels Bohr) were rated as opening the batting for a Test Team.)

A lot of Xerochrysum bracteatum was growing along the track. I'd rate this as basically a club player of a plant (we have acres of the closely related, but shorter and stickier X viscosum at home) but due to its height here promote it to County standard.

This species was also providing food for an attractive Tiger Moth (Eressa augustipenna)

There were some very steady Test players in the Tree Fern department.

In case the reader wonders why I didn't get a close up of these plants I will ask the question "What is it about the words "Snake habitat" you don't understand?".

However definitely opening the batting for the National side - at least they would be if Scotland had a Test team - were the thistles.

I leant my bike against the plant for a sense of scale, but the fact that a thistle is able to support a MTB is itself a rather strong statement. I would rate it as quite likely that the thistle growth was a side effect of the tasteful efforts of the timber industry:

Whatever the quality of this wood - and I think it is mainly stringybark - I suspect these piles would keep a suburb in firewood for a couple of years. Instead it is lying here going to waste while useful trees are being felled out in the plains.

The Australian Pine

2012-01-08T06:36:00.001+11:00

In a comment on another post my friend Mary, writing from the Bahamas, asked me to compile something about "Australian Pines". I'm not sure how qualified I am to do this but I do have a few thoughts, observations and (as usual) opinions so here goes. While much of what follows may be well known to readers in the Bahamas I have put in the background for the benefit of others.

Mary has posted a link to this post on her blog. There is an interesting comment there already!

I'll begin with a clarification about my interpretation of the term "Australian Pine". I started off with a view that this would refer to one or more Casuarina species rather than a true member of the genus Pinus. That view largely came about from our time in Tanzania where Casuarinas were referred to as "Whistling pines" because of the romantic sound of the Trade Winds blowing through them. My view seems to be confirmed by Googling "Bahamas Casurina" and finding it to be a topic of some controversy and debate.

The controversy is not limited to the Bahamas. A similar debate appears to be going on in the Turks and Caicos Islands.

In Tanzania the Casuarinas appeared to be growing more on Zanzibar, the smaller of the two members of the "United Republic" although we did come across them in a few beach front locations on the Mainland. There is a paper indicating that C. equisetifolia does permit - possibly enhance - indigenous regrowth in some areas of Zanzibar. (That last point will be heresy, if not anathema, to the People for Botanical Purity (PBP). Oh dear, what a pity. never mind. ) We were told by some waninichi (ie locals) that they had self-established, with the seeds floating across from Western Australia. This is possible if the seeds managed to dodge Madagascar and could survive in salt water for however long it takes them to float some 8,000 kilometres across the sea.

However, to get to the Bahamas the seeds would have a far longer trip and have to either:

dodge the whole of Africa; or
pass through the Straits of Magellan!

Fortunately a helpful (albeit highly repetitive) article from the Bahamas National Trust (BNT) is explicit that "In the 1920’s when the Casuarina was introduced to TheBahamas ... ". (A naturalist friend in Australia puts the odds as "London to a brick" that they were also introduced to Zanzibar.) This raises the whole issue of introduced weeds and what to do about them, but before -briefly - having a look at that I should address the issue of what uses could be made of the Casuarinas in the Bahamas and other places where they have been introduced.

A first comment is that the trees seem to be well regarded by the Real Estate mob. My initial Google Search produced many links to places with names along the lines of "Casuarina Bay View Resort". So it would seem the trees have a positive view amongst the property buying classes (the realtors would probably find it more difficult to market Deadly Nightshade Condominiums).

Probably the worst thing that could be done would be to pile the chopped trees up and burn them: a default option in the ACT!

Any use that can be found for the Casuarinas would prevent some other, more desirable, tree from being felled. I recall that in Tanzania Casuarina timber was suggested as suitable for scaffolding - for which endangered endemic mangroves were normally used. A timber oriented paper does suggest use of Casuarina timber for pit-props (this is probably not applicable in the Bahamas - and I would certainly expect them to have OHAS issues with Casuarina scaffolding)!

More tangibly, Wikipedia is a start. However, other than windbreaks and firewood (eg the fire under Mary's hot tub, and the barbecues mentioned in comments on the Bahamas Pundit post, linked above) the article is a tad thin on uses of the species evident in the Bahamas. Mention is made of its high nitrogen content so one possible use (if all else fails) is to mulch the trees when chopped down.

A further way of using the felled trees is to put them in eroded areas where they will act as seed-traps for the seeds of other plants (hopefully desirable ones) that are blowing in the wind. This will make islands of revegetation. It seems from a massive experiment being undertaken just North of Canberra that dumping tree trunks (felled by the land developers and road builders) will also encourage invertebrates and thus the reptiles, mammals and birds that feed on them.

Help comes (as might be expected) from Greening Australia. In the section of the linked paper on uses of these trees they note that all species have similar characteristics so the high end uses such as furniture would seem to apply to any Casuarina species. From discussions with the craftsman who made our furniture, it is however important, for supply to furniture makers (beyond the hobbyist level), that a good amount of high quality wood is made available to allow them to create matched sets of chairs etc. This leads to a key point, that the use of the trees must be planned and managed.

Planning and management are also important in the removal and replacement of the trees. While Bahamas Pundit and the BNT both seem to feel the trees encourage erosion, the timber article states that in Indonesia one species is particularly used as a beach erosion control mechanism! (Both Bahamanian articles also mention moving a road in the case of the main grove being considered: perhaps the road and its trail bike and quadbike users is really the issue?) I would suggest that simply whacking down the trees en masse is certainly not going to help if a hurricane arrives soon after. A better approach would appear to be to thin the trees (perhaps taking out half in the first cycle) and for a year or two replacing them with desirable indigenous species which are allowed to grow before felling the remainder. (On observation in the ACT such nuances appear to be beyond the capacity and skill of the planning authorities and their contractors). It is good to see that the authorities in the Turks and Caicos are offering free mahogany trees as a replacement!

It is also important that any replacement planting is maintained. Keep the yoicks on trail bikes away, perhaps shelter the new plantings from wind and seaspray until established, suppress weeds etc. This is a hard concept to get across to the suits controlling funds for public works who seem to feel intense pain about any expenditure which involves paying people to maintain services.

Summary

This post is written by someone who has spent a whole 104 hours in the Bahamas and is thus extremely ignorant about local conditions in that archipelago! However the arguments that seem to be floating (or blowing) around appear similar to those used in Australia whenever a successful introduced plant is considered to be needing removal.

A first point is that there is often an element of ideology "Import=bad, indigenous=good." bubbling away beneath any science that is quoted. This tends to press my cynicism button! In this case that debate is exemplified by one paper saying the Casuarinas encourage beach erosion while another paper cites a case of them ameliorating the erosion. Resolving that conflict is "problem not bilong mi.".

If it is concluded that the Casuarinas are due for the ultimate bonsai treatment there are many uses, included above, to which the resultant material can be put. That needs to be thought through and managed before the chainsaws and bulldozers move in.

In addition the way the clearing process is managed requires a little more thought than simply putting a Caterpillar D9 at one end of the affected land and a guy with a can of petrol and a box of matches at the other. It is essential that the task in managed in such a way that there is always vegetation cover on the land.

Plumed Whistling Ducks at Kelly's Swamp

2012-01-06T15:26:00.004+11:00

Last year a flock of Plumed Whistling Ducks were reported from a developing wetlands at Dickson in the ACT. They moved on very quickly and few observers saw them. I dipped, despite getting to the sight just about at dawn.

This morning a flock of 20+ of these birds were reported from Kellys Swamp. They seemed inclined to hang around, with many birders getting out there to see them. The first image shows the whole flock that were there when I arrived {note: some browsers may only show part of the image: click it to see the lot!}.

IMHO this second image shows the plumes on one of the birds rather well. The Grey Teal and Swamp-hen are collateral image.

Fly (or crawl) United!

2012-01-06T10:37:00.000+11:00

I have previously posted about the habits of damselflies careering around whilst mating. Yesterday I came across a pair of Vine moths (Phalaenoides glycinae) performing much the same feat.

I was quite intrigued that they seemed to fly quite well with the insects facing in opposite directions. Well enough at least, that I couldn't get a better image! (I have been told that Cairns Birdwings - huge butterflies - also adopt this position for flight at times.)

A few days later I came across a pair of craneflies doing the business.

Shortly thereafter I came across a horde of Plague Soldier Beetles (Chauliognathus lugubris) most of whom seemed to be crawling whilst conjoined.

On arriving home I found one of our white daisies had been invaded by a pair of Flower Scarabs Polystigma punctata. They were so preoccupied I managed to get a couple of reasonable images.

Men at work

2012-01-06T07:50:00.001+11:00

This covers two recent developments around the property.

The Eastern end of our house has always been a bit of a goat track, and we have had plans to fix it for some years. A bunch of pavers were acquired to form an edge and various flattish rocks collected to form a nice crazy paving effect. After a little initial work I realised how much effort was going to be required to level this off etc and everything had gone on hold.

Then Frances suggested using the pavers to form an edge and filling the rest of the path with Eucalyptus mulch (of which we still have a good supply following the visit from Country Energy's power line clearing contractors). After a little thought, that seemed like a good idea so I got stuck in.

Here is the result to date.

At the other end of the house ever since we have been here I have been concerned about the state of a large dead stringybark (Eucalyptus macrorhynca). It has leant towards a power pole in one direction and, with a little swivel to slightly change direction, could annihilate a fence and our clothes line if it fell. Eventually we got a recommendation for a tree-surgeon from Burra who did good work at a reasonable price (we had heard tales of them charging $5,000 to take out a tree). So we got Garry to give us a quote for pruning and it was indeed a good price.

And he did a very good job. Here is the an early stage of the work;

It isn't the start of the work since there was a lot of thinking before work started. Frances watched most of the process and said he was like a medical surgeon with much time spent working out where to cut and relatively little with the chainsaw running. A few more images taken by Frances, with remarkable timing (particularly the last two).

I now have a couple of days work with my own chainsaw tidying up!

Walking on Moonlight..

2012-01-02T17:02:00.002+11:00

.. Hollow Road. This is the report of a foray, with a couple of friends, along Moonlight Hollow Road in the Brindabella Ranges (part of Namadgi National Park). This is described in the excellent book "Above the Cotter" by Ian Fraser and Margaret McJannett (unfortunately out of print).

Apart from hoping to have an enjoyable walk we were also checking the place out as a possible venue for an ANPS Wednesday Walk. With 6.3 scenic (ie a bit more than undulating) kilometres probably a bit too long for the latter purpose. However the walk was very enjoyable.

The venue is shown on the attached map extract. It is possible that a quick glance at the map underplays the undulations!

A simple description of the walk is a traverse below the border ridge line crossing several deep moist gullies. This image shows a view looking down into one of the gullies, well populated with tree ferns.

This is particularly pleasing as the area was effectively carbonised in the 2003 Bush fires. There are also some nice tall trees along the road.

Incidentally, note the density of the vegetation at ground level. This is mainly - at this point on the road - Daviesia mimosoides a highly flammable shrub, the seeds of which require scarifying (eg by fire) to regrow. This is an example of how a fire can cause, rather than reduce, a fuel load problem as described in a recent post on the Nature of Robertson..

Anyhow, we positioned our vehicles as required for a car shuffle and set out from the high point. The first significant flower we saw was Veronica derwentiana.

A little later in the walk we found a sub-gully rather full of this attractive plant.

After the delights of the swamp a few days previously I was hoping to get a good lot of orchids on the walk. Alas, we only found one cluster of this family. They were of rather understated glory also, being Microtis (aka Onion Orchids).

As best as I can work out, noting the colour of the flower and the shape of the labellum this is Microtis sp aff unifolia - the Alpine Onion Orchid. I will note in passing that I reckon the 'aff' designation is pathetic: it is saying "We reckon this could be something different but haven't been able to prove it, even to our own satisfaction, yet."

This next flower is one I have been looking for, for quite a while. It is the floral emblem of the ACT, Wahlenbergia gloriosa, the Royal Bluebell. As I have noted previously it is a bit of mystery why this is the floral emblem as it is not endemic to the ACT, but found through to the Victorian Alps. A suggestion was that it was chosen because it was easy to make into a logo!

Viola hederacea were very common in shady spots (of which there were many).

This daisy is Ozothamnus stirlingii.

Another Veronica - this one V. pertifolia.

There were relatively few weeds along the path - far fewer thistles than at the nearby Chalet Rd. Not very many blackberries (hooray) but quite a few Native Raspberries (Rubus parvifolius).

This is Bedfordia aborescens with the interesting vernacular name of Blanket bush. In this case I was able to capture the small (OK, tiny) yellow flowers with a zoom shot down a mini-cliff. Most of the specimens we found had finished flowering.

Persoonia chamaepeuce looks very attractive in images. The flowers are rather small so are not as striking in the bush. Perhaps that is an advantage of photography- it lets one appreciate the beauties that might otherwise be concealed?

We found few examples of Cullen microcephalum. Again it is more impressive as an image that the actual small plant - which does of course does not mean preserve the image and not the plant!.

Although it is generally against my principles to photograph grasses I thought this one was worth taking. Unfortunately I got the wrong plant and this Acaena novae-zelandii was next to the Echinopogon (translating as Spiny beard) which is the grass I thought I had taken..

A number of stumps along the way - probably residue from cleaning up after the bushfire - had got a good collection of fungi, moss and lichen.

Linking between the vegetative and animal worlds we found a gall encrusted leaf that was very colourful. Perhaps they could be sold as Christmas decorations?

Insects were few and far between. The only one that I photograped was this hairy caterpillar.

Caterpillars are a mainstay of the diet of Cuckoos of which a fair number were heard during the trip. Birds generally were in good supply. I wrote down 24 species on the walk. The only one got a good (OK, tolerable) image of was this Spotted Pardalote.

The birdie highlights were:

A good sighting of a Red-browed Treecreeper; and
Superb Lyrebirds, with a male running across the road in front of us and a female perching on a dead branch not far off the track.

Birds are, in evolutionary terms (I have no idea, nor interest in, how they line up according to the weirdnesses of Creationism) close to lizards. So that justifies me in including this lovely Water Dragon guarding our creek crossing before we got home.

A close-up oshows the colouration of the head (and the spines).

So that was 2011!

2012-01-01T07:14:00.001+11:00

Good morning, Happy New Year!

I decided that I would wait to write my review of the year until it had finished. It did so a little later than is our usual wont with a very pleasant evening at neighbours, after which we walked a bit over 2km home on a lovely warm moonlight night.

In what follows I am not going to write about our health and mental attitude etc. No problems for myself, Frances or Tammy. To say more would be BORING!

An unusual feature of 2011 was not going overseas at all. Indeed I didn't get on an aircraft once during the year. Our travels to the North Eastern NSW and NE Victoria were handled by car.

Birding: I only totalled 210 species for the year, with 2 additions to my life list. The additions were

Southern Emu-wren, found after some hours searching the heathland at Mallacoota; and
Black Falcon, found on the Hoskinstown Plain following a tip from a friend over whose property the bird was flying. That followed years of looking at Brown Falcons!

The most interesting aspect of birding has been the changes in our local area as a result of the drought breaking in 2010. That led to nearly all water birds leaving the local area in that year and they have slowly returned over 2011. The change in rainfall (see below for that topic) also led to a mini-mouse plague which in turn led to very unusually large numbers of birds of prey in the area.

Exercise: No significant injuries during the year and a couple of good results in the ACT Veterans Monthly Handicap meant that I covered more distance than I have for the past 2 years. The total - including walking and mountain biking was equivalent (using equivalences from Dr Eddie Cooper, the inventor of aerobic exercise) to 1493 kilometres running. The running component was 855km: pathetic, but 200km more than 2010.

Blogging: I made 237 posts in the year, which is probably too many, but a true 'log' should have 356!

Over the year my main blog received 5588 hits, taking me to about 10,500 since I started: thank you all very much I hope you enjoyed the experience. What I find fascinating is where the hits come from. I am now up to hits from 103 countries, having added 44 countries this year. (There are issues with how the country of origin is defined - I am sure Google and Sitemeter use different definitions- but it still indicates a fair spread.)

I have created 2 additional blogs during the year covering:

Our holiday to the North Eastern NSW; and
Birds of Carwoola, intended to be a record mainly for members of the local community.

Weather: The only aspect of the weather I have recorded systematically has been the rainfall at Carwoola. In summary it was rather damp until mid-March from whence we had a very dry patch, recording <20mm rain per month for 3 consecutive months. For the second half of the year rain was averageish, giving us an overall close to 4 year average fall for the year. A graph might illustrate this.

This next graph shows the comparison with the four previous years.

Petroleum matters: Over this year I have average 29.46 mpg (or for those who have moved on, 9.502 l/100km). The price of petrol continues to defy any ethical standards, being driven by that well known economic force - the profits of oil companies. On average we have paid 12.86 c/km for fuel. The worst prices have been at Mallacoota where the only servo for 100km has a nice captive audience.

Onwards to 2012!

December updates

2011-12-31T23:58:00.000+11:00

Links to those posts which have been updated since the initial post.

More insects have been added, more than usual identified! In fact two additional posts have been added
The moth from Mt Franklin has been identified
Images of the Swallowtail and a Stinkhorn fungus have been added to the Brindies blog
An artichoke is apparently digestible.
The hyacinth orchid had got more flowers and an astonishing number found at the 6 Mile TSR.
Quite a few corrections have been made to the Touga Rd post as a result of reader feedback.
A couple of corrections to insect names on the Swamp post

Apparently there was a red-moon event (ie a lunar eclipse) on the 10th of December, but it was around midnight so I was well asleep by then. However earlier in the evening I got this image - spiffy, but not worth its own post - about 10:30.

Happy New Year!

Unsquare Swamp

2011-12-30T19:00:00.000+11:00

I posted in November about a visit to Square Rock in Namadgi National Park. Today we visited the area again, but instead of visiting the Rock we spent most of our time in and near the swamps to the North of Corin Road. The primary objective was to look for Orchids in the company of a group of friends who are expert in such matters. Cutting to the chase we - needless to say, mainly "them" - found 10 species.

This first image is of Simpliglottis valida. It is going over (orchid-speak for a flower being fertilised which is equivalent - in the current generation - to 'passing away', 'joining the majority', 'croaking' etc etc) but this was about the best example of a flower we found.

The only 'donkey orchid' found was Diuris monticola which added to the many yellow plants in the swamp.

We now move on to the 'potato orchids". Two species were found on the day, on the slopes above the Swamp. The first two images are Gastrodia entomogama - recognisable by the warty appearnce of the base of the flower. First a close up ...

.. then a shot of the whole spike.

The examples of G sesamoides were rather scrawny.

Hiding amongst the grasses and reeds were a few examples of Prasophyllum canaliculatum. Despite its vernacular name, this doesn't look at all like any part of a leek!

There were quite a few examples of the Greenhood orchids. Fortunately they tended to be the larger and more exciting genera. The first example is Pterostylis aneba the smallest species found on the day, and also the rarest, this being about the only colony known in the ACT. I am advised that in this case the labellum has been 'triggered' due to someone's size 9 having gently tapped the plant.

Pterostylis falcata is much larger with a definitive shape to the dorsal sepal.

The next three images are of P. monticola, with a much darker labellum.

Sometimes a hitchhiker turns up ..

.. and, like buses, after a period of none around there is suddenly a rush. In this image I have put red dots on the 10 flowers in the image.

The final greenhood is Diplodium decurvum. It was described as a 'baby' as it wasn't fully open, but the decurved dorsal sepal, and bronze tip thereto are visible.

Although the day was relatively mild a colony of sun orchids Thelymitra cyanea were kind enough to be open for us.

The curlicues on the column produced interesting effects! Put your own name to this face!

Moving from orchids, but sticking with monocotyledons for a little longer here is a small vanilla lily Arthropodium minor. In close up, I was particularly struck by the woolly stalks on the stamens.

The only dicotyledon to catch my fancy was a Comespermum.

The first animals to be sighted were a bunch of kangaroos that seemed rather reluctant to shift from the only bit of dry ground in the swamp.

As with our previous visit there were hug numbers of skinks in the area.

The insects life was interesting but largely not hungry (at least not for our flesh). This March fly (possibly Dasybasis sp) just sat on my jeans to be photographed.

While a turquoise moth posed obligingly (now, if only it will offer up its name so helpfully...). The nearestt I have come, with thanks to Denis's comment below is the family Geometridae.

Back at the car this colourful insect appeared. After a side track into paper wasp (subsequently rejected as it doesn't have a waist) I have concluded at a Steel-blue sawfly, Perga dorsalis.

I noticed surprisingly few members of the order Orthoptera (grasshoppers and crickets) around. This one, a Katydid, Acripeza reticulata, is a wingless female.

Over the day I recorded 24 species of birds. The highlight was a family of Little Ravens: as the adults fed one of the very noisy chicks this became a breeding record.

I will conclude with a photograph taken by Frances, proving that I too get down and dirty when the Gastrodia demands it.

Sitting on a red-hot poker

2011-12-29T06:45:00.000+11:00

Now that your eyes have stopped watering, you will be pleased to know this is about the garden plant - Kniphofia sp - and nothing to do with urban legends about the death of Edward II of England nor the Red Hot Polkas.

Last year I did include some images of Eastern Spinebills feeding on the flowers. This year the crop of flowers is even better and we are getting a wide range of birds dining on them. So I thought I would use this post as a repository for the images captured.

The first image is a juvenile Eastern Spinebill.

Followed by some adults (note the prominent throat spot).

Next is a White-eared Honeyeater

The next two are of Noisy Friarbird. The first image is included mainly to illustrate the bizarre positions these birds can adopt when feeding.

To my surprise these have been the only species of birds coming to dine at the poker table (although they have been coming very frequently). Insects have been few and far between also: this ant is the only one that has been kind enough to pause for a picture.

This did inspire me to take a shot of just the flowers: the sheer number of florets shows how much nectar must be generated by these flowers (and how many hiding places for arthropods there are).

Third arthropod post this month!

2011-12-26T13:05:00.003+11:00

I read a tip from Google analytics that too much stuff in a page makes them slow to load, which annoys the punters. My second arthropod post for this month was starting to get a bit big so I have added this third one. When I have worked out exactly how to do it, I will put up a consolidating post as an index to all the mini-beasts I have been able to identify! In the meantime here are some more which I find interesting, or attractive, in shape.

The first two are yet more images of the Vine Moth - after endless pursuit last year they are turning up everywhere this year. This one was perpetrating some form of mischief on a strawberry leaf.

Next we have some ants (life is too short to ID small ants) climbing over some other insects, which on the 'usual suspects rule' I will say are a juvenile form of aphid. Two variations on that theme are in this image: a light brown xample in the centre and a darker form below it.

A couple of days later the aphid being tended was green.

Dave Rentz has identified the following as a first instar nymph of a Torbia species These early stages mimic ants possibly to dissuade lizards and birds from eating them. It is identifiable as a Katydid rather than a grasshopper since the antennae are so long.

Here we have a millipede. I originally called it a centipede on the basis of it having one pair of legs per segment. See the second comment from Denis below to see the detail of why that was not the best call I have ever made! The 'orrible wrinkly background is my hand!

I am unsure of the reason for it, but we seem to have more insects around than ever before. Possibly the relatively cool, humid weather has encouraged them to breed or perhaps I am spending more time in the garden looking for them. Anyway here are a bunch more images.

The first two are Lepidoptera:

Next a shield bug Nezara viridula ( a bunch of these have appeared on our potatoes, so may have low life expectancy)

A cucurbit plant was being visited by a bunch of 28 spotted ladybirds and these happy little insects (Blister beetles, Zonitis sp). Judging by the munched edges to the leaves they may have a similar life expectancy to the shield bugs!

I have posted in the past with images of leaf beetles (Paropsis sp). The following image is included because of the angle captured showing the some of the undercariage of the animal.

A hoverfly on a white daisy (introduced, so no Latin)

A rather delicate member of the family Diptera .....

... and a less delicate, but very colourful, member of that family.

This rather large (compared to most of the tiny ones around)grasshopper seems to be a Gumleaf Grasshopper - Goniaea vocans.

The next two images are Ecnolagria grandis - the Brown Darkling Beetle. The second image is included as a victims eye view of the beast.

I will finish with a couple of non-legist images. First a small spider found on a white daisy

and conclude with a scorpion detected under some leaf litter as we were constructing a new path.

Happy Christmas!!

2011-12-25T05:34:00.000+11:00

A small dog in canine heaven - lurking in the Kunzea!

May you have a happy one also!

More confusing fungi!

2011-12-23T11:18:00.000+11:00

We have scored a fair amount of rain in the last 2 months. It now appears that we are likely to have got more rain this year than the average for the previous 4 years. (I am reminded of the school in Lake Woebegon, Minnesota where all the children are above average.) As a result everything is growing strongly. As well as serrated tussock, St Johns Wort, sweet briars and brambles, covered elsewhere, the fungi are beginning to pop up.

All are welcome. Some even get invited to dinner! This morning we found a very good crop of fruiting bodies on our morning walk. The first two species shown below were intriguing because both looked pretty distinctive but I could identify neither with certainty! The third species found on Boxing Day was even more perplaxing!

Suggestions welcome.

Species 1.
Note this image includes the direct image plus a reflection in an old truck mirror.

From the white gills I thought this to be an Amanite. However I can find no references to any member of the genus Amanita with a pink stem!
With pink involved my next port of call is the genus Russula. I wonder about Russula rosea but it (according to Fuhrer) "Occurs in tall eucalypt forest" not the grazing land with grassy box attributes!
Perhaps it's purple rather than pink? That makes Rusulla purpureoflava the go: its habitat is described as "Common in Eucalypt forest and heathland".

That (R purpureoflava) is where I end up on this one. Comments from Dr Tom May at Fungimap agree with the genus Russula but not R purpureoflava which always has some yellow.

Species 2.

This is clearly a bolete of some form. The deep dpression around the stem, and the red flush to the stem suggest Boletus barragensis. However Fuhrer describes the "Pore surface dark reddish brown..." which doesn't really match my example but mine isn't too far off this image from Morwell NP.

Looking at the top surface of the cap - visible in this - seems to match the image in Fuhrer.

He also comments "the pore tissue bruising bluish green", which matches what happened when I bruised that fungus. I am not sure how the colour of the bruising will come across in this image (I don't want to interfere with it by digital enhancement). The area concerned appears basically white but tinged greenish.

The habitat is described as "Solitary to gregarious in Eucalyptus /Leptospermum forest" and the word 'forest' causes me some issues as a description of a cow paddock reverting to Box woodland.

On balance I think Boletus barragensis is as close as I can get. Other suggestions welcome (the information and images supplied did not permit Fungimap to offer an ID).

Species 3
When I first saw this the white shape looked like a puffball, but on getting closer and having a look inside it had white gills. There were several fruiting bodies so one was taken home for a photograph!

The whiteness of the gills made me consider the genus Amanita as a starting point. However none of the species listed in Fuhrer seemed to be hemispherical - convex was the closest on offer. Also the fungus seemed to have an umbo

and ratio of cap width to stem height seemed a little extreme for an Amanite. Possibly the shape of the bodies at first sighting was misleading, since in three days time they had flattened out almost completely (although an umbo was still discernible).

The spore print is white , but that doesn't rule out Amanita, nor a bunch of others.

In summary, Help!!!

Help has been received for the third species at least. See Denis' comment below and the link to the SFSG image. Between that and Fuhrer's image I think they support the ID of Macrolepiota dolichaula. That is particularly so as the caps have flattened out as they have aged. Fungimap have joined the consensus on Macrolepiota dolichaula.

Going deeper into Touga Road

2011-12-22T20:54:00.001+11:00

In October 2011 the ANPS (ACT Branch) took a Wednesday Walk to the start of the Touga Road in Morton National Park. Prior to this, but following a very enjoyable day with Denis Wilson and Alan Stephenson a little further along the Braidwood-Nowra Road (Highway 92) we had been wondering for sometime about exploring the area further down Touga Road. One planned event had been put off due to bad weather but today we were determined to go.

Off we went at about 9:15am. 90 minutes. and 125 kms, later we were at The Jumps, some 7km down Touga Rd from Highway 92. The main characteristic of the area is the sandstone pagodas including these at the start of the Park (Bulee Gap)...

... and those at the bottom of The Jump.

The watercourse running to the West of this formation is called Water Race Creek while that heading East is Bullfrog Creek! We didn't ascend the track up The Jump in our car, mainly because of time shortage and other things to do, but it looked quite feasible to go further than we did.

Here s an extract from Google Earth showing the general topography of the area. The Jump is in the midle of the screen where the road (light linear feature) takes a dogleg to the right.

We had hoped to find orchids on the day but all that we could find were some fertilised sun orchids (Thelymitra spp). It is possibly heretical to say that we found enough dicotyledons in flower to make up for this omission. But it does do away with my feeling of inadequacy! Here are some interesting images.

As we drove towards the stop (and when we arrived) we noticed a lot of yellow flowers - Phyllota phylicoides.

The other really apparent flowers as we drove were tea-trees. The most obvious flowering species was this moderate sized flower, Kunzea ambigua, which has one unappetising vernacular name of Tick Bush. It is an addition to the ANPS Touga Rd list.:

Another common tea-tree still in flower was Leptospermum trinervium ...

... while L rotundifolia had mainly progressed to the fruit stage.

We were particularly excited to find some flowers of Isopogon anethifolius as well as many 'cones' of the fertilised plants.

By number, the most obvious flower was Stylidium linearis. While the flowers were somewhat similar to the trigger plants common in Carwoola (and indeed at the start of Touga Rd) the rosette is very different.

Goodenia heterophylla was also common and attractive. (When several flowers were close together it reminded me of the exotic Oncidium orchids - Dancing Ladies - which shows how the withdrawal from finding native orchids was setting in.)

Staying briefly with the yellow flowers this Persoonia mollis ssp ledifolia was very attractive, and once one 'got the eye in' quite common in the area. This "common-ness" led me astray in my naming since one of references described P. mollis as rare! Thanks Denis for the correction.

Blue Dampiera stricta (?) was well represented in the understorey (and enhanced with raindrops).

The next flower introduces 'white'. Denis Wilson has advised that it is a succulent, Calandrinia sp, described from the Nerriga area. Not only is it attractive but so is the background of moss with which it was growing on a rock shelf back at Bulee Gap.

Also white in flower were the 'Flannel flowers' (Actinotus helianthi)...

.... and Lesser Flannel Flowers Actinotus minor (a second addition to the ANPS list, identified by Frances). These are much smaller than A helianthus - more the size of Stellaria pungens.

A white flowered Eucalypt was growing in the gullies between the pagodas. A particular attraction was the chocolate coloured (I didn't do a taste check) caps on the buds. The first image was taken at some distance on full zoom and still came out well.

I was not allowed to climb down the side of the pagoda to examine the tree in detail, which possibly explains why I am not currently in:

hospital; and
traction.

However looking at the leaves in the bottom of the image above suggests it is Eucalyptus obliqua - Messmate. This is another - the third - addition to the list. On the way out I managed to get a close up of a more cooperative tree.

Moving on to invertebrates, the first image is of a spiders web on the ground, full of raindrops. Artistic, already!

Another spider was doing a more traditional act up in the air ...

... possibly to stay away from the ants: wouldn't you wish to stay away from mandibles like this?

It was not at all timid and although it didn't do any jumping I have concluded it was a Jumping Jack Myrmecia pilosula. (Possibly the 'jumping' refers to the actions of the recipient of a bite?)

The other fierce insect I noted was a huge wasp with bright yellow legs and antennae. It disappeared into a burrow before I could catch an image, but I believe it to be Abispa splendida. I am totally unsure if the wasp was nesting in the burrow or had gone in there looking to dine on the regular inhabitant.

Getting back to the gentle side of insects there were a number of Varied Sword-grass Brown Butterflies (Tisiphone abeona) around.

Also, many of the flowering bushes were covered in Plague Soldier beetles Chauliognathus lugubris in the family Cantharidae rather than a leaf beetle as I previously thought (thanks to Roger Farrow for picking that error up).

In case anyone is wondering about a bird list for the trip there were very few around and identifiable. In the main this is due to the density of the vegetation off the rock shelves: there could well be Moas in there and no-one would see them. One highlight occurred in Bungendore where we counted 24 Australian Shelduck on the Trucking Yard Lane holding paddocks. Amazing what ducks will do for a free feed!. The highlight on the sandstone was a calling competition between 2 Superb Lyrebirds near the Jumps. I am sure I was within 5m of one of them and could hear him rattling his tail feathers but caught nary a gilmpse.

Overall a very good day. We had no rain while out of the car, and it really only rained in the last 5km or so driving home. Even better, we found 8mm in the gauge on arriving home and after greeting a very anxious small dog, who does not like thunderstorms when she is on her own!

Be careful where you swim!

2011-12-22T07:13:00.001+11:00

Especially if you are a skink!

As is usually the case in this area our household water originates on the roof of the house, is collected in a catch-tank and then pumped to our main tank. When the rain is really pouring down the flow into the catch-tank is much faster than our pump can handle and the tank overflows. We have positioned a red plastic bucket (holding perhaps 50l) under the overflow spout to catch at least some of it. (This is then used to water container plants and seedlings.)

At the start of this story, where we have eventually arrived, the two sticks were not in position, having been removed when bailing out some water. The reason for the sticks is to allow animals that have fallen in to the bucket to climb out (the plastic doesn't offer enough traction for most beasts). On looking into the bucket I noticed 2 frogs and 2 skinks therein. Here is half of that assemblage:.

The frogs seemed quite happy, the skinks decidedly otherwise. I decided that all 4 should be removed. The RDS (Recently Departed Skinks) were positioned so that they would enter the nutrient chain while the frogs were kind enough to pose for a photo before heading for the foliage.

This is a spotted Grass Frog (Limnodynastes tasmaniensis).

This has the characteristics of a Plains Froglet (Crinia parinsignifera).

The sticks were replaced (although Frances has pointed out that she has found dead frogs in there even with sticks in place - she concludes frogs are stupid). I do have questions about how the animals arrive in the bucket.

Since they seem pretty agile it is unlikely that they fall in by accident.
Perhaps they sense arthropods in the water and seize the moment for an easy snack?
My favourite thought is that the bucket is the amphibian/reptile equivalent of a cenote (the sacred wells of the Maya, into which sacrifices were thrown). As the day of these observations is one on which the Mayan Long Count calendar switches to a new major cycle (thanks Denis) it seemed appropriate to contemplate small green vertebrates running through the garden wearing funny hats and hurling one of their number into the bucket. No dafter than many thoughts about organised religion.

Incidentally, referring back to Denis' post, it is now (in Carwoola at least) the day after the calendar shifted so the doomsday crap is just that.

Hyancinth Orchid rides again

2011-12-20T09:23:00.002+11:00

Each year that we have lived here a Rosy Hyacinth Orchid (Dipodium roseum) has reared its flowers in the paddock outside my study window. This year is no exception and four flower stems have appeared.

I have put some chook wire around them as some protection. In case you wonder "Proection from what?" note the pile of wombat poop below the stems! The plant is leafless, getting its nutrients through a symbiotic relationship involving the orchid, a saprophytic fungus and a nearby Eucalyptus mannifera. (Thank you authors of A Field Guide to the Orchids of the ACT.)

Zooming in closer I noticed the ants crawling around the flowers. Presumably this is getting ready to do some pollination when the flowers open.

A day later and at least one flower was fully open. The faint red spots can (just) be seen.

The spots are more visible in this close-up.

By Boxing Day more flowers were out::

As a footnote to this post, on 31 December we visited the 6Mile TSR (between Bungendore and Hoskinstown) and found many of this species. Under one tree (Eucalyptus mannifera I think) I counted34 flower spikes, some approaching 1m high.

Some birds raucous, others less so

2011-12-18T11:59:00.001+11:00

Some years ago (strewth, it is about 30) when we lived in Scullin we used be very pleased we didn't live in a house in Hawker which always seemed to have 50+ Sulphur-crested Cockatoos sitting in a tree above it. The noise when we took the dog for a walk in the morning was appalling.

Here in Carwoola these screechers are usually absent, but for some reason (possibly related to seed formation in the Acacias) a flock of 25+ has taken to visiting us. This morning there were about 40 perched in a couple of trees between the house and the dam and certainly did nothing to improve our view of their desirability. Even with only 6 or 7 of them calling the din was most unpleasant. Here are a couple of specimens demonstrating the crest!

Confirming my view that one of the things attracting them to the house area is the fruit on the Acacias this image shows a Cockie doing what they enjoy most: destroying stuff!

The Cockies leave a few things behind. Both classes of 'thing' are basically white. One of types of thing is proof that they have been feeding (no image supplied) and the other is a feather or two. The detail of the feathers (click to enlarge) is very delicate:

While checking this bunch out I located the Tawny Frogmouth family in a roost which was obviously a tad crowded for them. (They usually choose a branch on which at least the male and the two chicks can sit together.)

The upper branch, with two birds on it, has been a popular roost for the adults in the non-breeding season. It is the first time I have seen the chicks in that tree. I am not sure who is what but suspect the two adults are together and chicks separate. An issue I have yet to observe is when the chicks depart from the parents: hopefully my increased knowledge of their range of roosts will resolve this.

This entity - the upper single in the group shot - was definitely keeping an eye on me.

While nowhere near the racket from the Cockies, the Frogmouths are not absolutely silent. While the male was brooding we would often the adults making the best known call - a series of 'oooms' at about once a second frequency. (This is much quicker than the call of the Common Bronzewing - a fat pigeon, which also 'ooms'.) The young frogmouths making a 'churring' noise (amongst other weird sounds) which has ed me to find them a couple of times recently when they have roosted in unusual spots.

Suillus granulatus: confusing fungi.

2011-12-16T10:36:00.000+11:00

While walking the dog this morning I noticed a lot of fungi around a few Pinus radiata trees near our main creek.

At a quick glance I thought I could see gills and concluded that they were Gymnopilus junonious. However Frances applied her eyes a little better and opined, correctly, that they were spongey - ie a bolete. This image shows how the 'tubes' in the interior of the fruiting body resemble gills and the actual spongey surface.

So having determined that they are a bolete the question is which one? My usual starting point is the huge Phlebotus marginatus (which has been found on the property) but these were in large numbers and modest in size. My next guess in the field, referring to A Field Guide to Australian Fungi was Suillus luteus, even though the purple annulus was not evident.

On returning to my computer I consulted Australian Fungi - a blog (thanks Gaye) and found that without the purple anulus the fungus was Suillus granulatus which, like S luteus, is found around pines. Here is an image of one of the patches of fungus. My estimate is that there were around 200 fruiting bodies around the clump of pines (the circumference of the clump being about 80m).

Swathes of colour

2011-12-16T06:00:00.002+11:00

I visited the dam in the top paddock yesterday hoping to find some Ottelia ovalifolia flowering there. Alas the cupboard (or at least water) was bare. However there was a lot of colour around.

The 'daisies' are in full swing. I'd suggest clicking the images to get a bigger picture. The first is an area of Xerochrysum viscosum - possibly an acre in extent.

In the middle of that patch is an area covered with Chrysocephalum semipapposum with nice grey foliage.

As the kangaroos don't eat these plants I suspect they aren't greatly palatable to livestock which would annoy farmers. However we aren't farmers so I am delighted to see these flowers. At least they are naturally occurring here unlike St Johns Wort which is an introduction, highly invasive and equally unpalatable to stock. (As I pull up or spray any that I find we don't have any swathes of that.)

Getting back closer to the house, the tank paddock is full of Kunzea ericoides which is doing the White Christmas thing.

As well as the mass display the flowers of Kunzea are very attractive in close up!

Weirdness at the washing line and elsewhere

2011-12-15T13:46:00.001+11:00

While hanging out some washing on our Hills hoist this morning I found some strange material on the washing line.

The line is standard thickness twisted wire (measuring off a tape, about 3mm diameter). Taking that as a benchmark the 'seeds' are about 0.67mm x 0.54mm. I also noted that the 'strings' seem to glisten as they catch the sunlight (this can be picked up if the image is clicked to increase size).

My options for the nature of this were:

fungal hyphae and fruiting body; or
some form of plant material; or
something do do with invertebrate animals.

I then noted a bit of spider web in a nearby angle of the line where it meets one of the arms of the hoist. So I wondered it they were spider eggs. However my spider reference (Spiders by Barbara York Main) says that spiders tend to wrap their eggs in cocoons.

Any other suggestions welcome.

The next day I found several clumps of small structures on a Eucalyptus leaf.

They seemed be like mussel shells, but clearly were not. On scraping one off the leaf and turning it over ...

... it was clearly hollow inside. Presumably whatever was in there - a larva of some form?- had gone somewhere else. Again, any ideas welcome.

COG does instant Kama (but no Chameleons were seen)

2011-12-14T16:10:00.000+11:00

Apologies to John Lennon and Boy George. I should also point out that Googling 'Kama' is an exercise for adults only!

To get to business. 14 members and guests visited the Kama Reserve, between William Hovell Drive and the Molonglo River this morning. (Interestingly, but barely surprisingly, I couldn't find a map of the Reserve, nor any reference to it, on the ACT Government TAMS site.) The weather was great: sunny and low 20s with no rain and a gentle breeze.

Overall we recorded 36 species with 6 of them breeding records. A full list of species will occur on the Trips page of the COG Website in due course.

The undoubted highlight was a dependent young Horsfield's Bronze-Cuckoo interacting with its parent Superb Fairy-wren. It was doing this from the middle of a small tree so hard to get an image better than this.

The next image does (sort of) show the Cuckoo and the male wren flying towards it in a rather impressionist fashion.

This should count as two breeding records since the cuckoo was DY (Dependent Young) while the fairy-wren was CF (Carrying Food).

Other contenders for bird of the day were 5 Varied Sitellas, at least 4 Brown Treecreepers (two being very young and noisy birds rated as as DY), 3 Superb Parrots which overflew the Reserve heading to the fa side of the Molonglo and a female White-winged Triller.

An occupied Red-browed Finch nest was located and many Tree Martins and Red-rumped Parrots were seen inspecting hollows. Here is the female Parrot ...

.. while the male relaxes nearby.

Despite the heavy blossom on many Eucalyptus rossii

.... these trees did not seem to be attracting many birds or insects. Honeyeaters were scarce with only White-plumed Honeaters in numbers, together with a single Noisy Friarbird and a single Red Wattlebird when back at the cars.

Other interesting flowers were Vanilla lilies (Arthropodium milleflorum)

and, in a dam, Ottelia ovalifolia.

It was disappointing to note the amount of St Johns Wort, Saffron thistle and other invasive weeds in the Reserve. It is to be hoped that Canberra Nature Park gets this under control as soon as possible.

More December arthropods

2011-12-13T17:58:00.001+11:00

I felt my earlier post was getting a little unwieldy so have decided to start this second one. the main cause of the excess images was a visit to a revegetation area where I found a heap of insects as well as some weeds. There were at least two interesting fly species which didn't get imaged, in addition to what follows.

This first image is, I think, of Paropsisterna variicollis. This appeared in the earlier post dining on grapevine. Here a slightly different coloured beast is enjoying a Eucalyptus sp leaf.

This next creature is a great example of the weird body-forms adopted by insects. This is Rhinotia haemoptera, translating from the latin, a Red-winged weevil. It is a member of the family Belidae and mimics a Lycid Beetle.

You should excuse me repeating myself again, already! The next two images are of some of the hundreds of what I believe to be Diphucephala sp. The first image shows a pair desperately seeking some privacy ..

.. while the second image shows the little-photographed underside of the animal.

Back to the weevils, I believe this next specimen to be Leptopius sp. That genus is described in A Field guide to Insects in Australia as large in number of species, but there seem to be few easily accessed images of most members of the species within the genus.

Dropping back to our vegie garden and other elements of the Coleoptera I have counted 14 spots on one side of this creature which would make it Epilachna vigintioctopunctata (ie the 28 spotted ladybird and a bad plant muncher). It was found on a cucurbit leaf.

The next image was taken higher up in the block. It is, I believe, Calomela maculicollis the Dotted-head Acacia Beetle.

It certainly has a dotted head and is feeding on an Acacia dealbata!

The next image is a bit of a saga of life in the Silver wattle. It appears the tree has got a touch of downy mildew in which a beetle has become trapped. I don't think the ants have turned up in the role of a rescue unit. More like famine relief down in the ant heap.

The beetle may feel inclined to quote Ned Kelly "Such is life". (This was also the title of a book by Joseph Furphy whose surname has become an idiomatic word for tall story - aka bullshit.)

there are a few members of the Lepidoptera around at the moment. This one was resting (I don't think feeding) on a Verbascum, just before I dug it (ie the plant) out.

After some searching I have tentatively identified it as Telecrates melanogaster, even though I cannot see if its abdomen is black. Thanks to the sites of Donald Hobern and Don Herbison-Evans/Stella Crossley for images and text which assisted in that.

I will take a punt on the next two being nymphs of the Common Garden Katydid (Caedecia simplex) lurking in strawberry patches.

This next one I have no idea about. I suspect it is an early instar (ie development stage) of something or another.

This is a fly! I suspect it may be a member of the family Tachinidae, but there are 542 species in the family and on consulting a specialist site about the Diptera they had 840 images for the family. A little too much to search through!

This next one is I believe another shot of a Vine Moth, in this case feeding on a small flower. This species continues to be annoying as it looks so like a butterfly but doesn't match anything in my butterfly book!

I believe this to be an icheumenon wasp. (I will deal out a passing small brickbat to 'Wasp Web' since it is not apparent when responding to a Google hit that it only relates to African wasps and thus of very little use in trying to identify Australian animals.)

I think this is a beetle (Coleoptera) but have included the image because, when clicked on to enlarge, the hairiness of the animal becomes apparent.

Digestible and decorative

2011-12-10T19:14:00.001+11:00

This is becoming a mini-series of flowers and edible stuff. I will begin with the edible stuff.

Actually I should qualify 'edible' with "except for vampires". Frances has raised a good crop of garlic this year and that is the first lot picked and drying for storage. Moving back to the edible to everything range I picked some blackcurrants ..

.. and strawberries.

The amount of strawberries has dropped off quite a lot with the cooler weather we have experienced in the last couple of weeks.

By 12 December red currants and raspberries have also got into the act.

The peas, both 'normal' and snow are producing rather heavily (and causing shade problems for some of our tomatoes.

Linking from the digestible to the decorative I have noticed with pleasure the amount of flowers on some of our olive trees.

As we have several varieties of olive trees there should be some pollination happening. So in a few months time look for a post about processing olives: I suspect it may conclude with it being a lot cheaper to buy them at a deli!

Again on the border of decorative and digestible is this globe artichoke (for which I like the Italian name "Carciofi" ). We have them primarily as flowers and foliage, but they can be eaten.

We have roses ..

.. and lilies of various colours....

and some mixed in with Penstemons and Salvias.

Of course the natives are also getting restless, knowing that the countryside has to go white for Christmas. It is interesting how the details of Kunzea ericoides (aka Burgan) changes as the flowers develop. The first image is a new flower,

while this is a fertilised one.

I don't know the name of this plant but looking at the leaves (and the overall nature of the fruit, it is closely related to strawberry. I haven't given it a taste test!

Getting back into the exotics I noticed today that our Wabbit excluders seem to have been somewhat successful in getting a few specimens to live to flower, which have previously been completely munched. These are two varieties of Astrolomeria.

The next image is of a 'Pink' which I have always thought of as a developmentally-challenged Carnation. I find this image very charming and join Bazza Humphries (and I would encourage you all to follow that link) in deriding Carnies!

Finishing with more edible stuff, from outside the garden, we have a hat-full of mushrooms!

It is difficult to climb over fences while carrying a load like that in one hand with a small dog tugging on her lead held in the other hand!

The Big 5!

2011-12-08T21:30:00.001+11:00

This is not a post about the Big 5 animals of Africa (Lion Leopard, Buffalo, Rhino and Elephant).

Rather it is about digits and to to blow my own trumpet to announce that this blog passed 10,000 hits around 2 pm on 8 December 2011. That excludes my own accesses to the site, whereas the counter on the posts includes 567 of them!

As far as I can work out, the 10.000th hit was from someone in Ecuador looking at a post about Yellow Daisies. I note that thus far the blog has been visited from 99 countries (although it is difficult to determine exactly how Blogger or Sitemeter determine country of source).

The hit rate is increasing nicely, only taking 50 days to get from 9,000 hits to 10,000. When it reached 10,000 hits there had been about 16,850 page views.

ANPS goes high in the Tinderries

2011-12-07T20:41:00.001+11:00

After being rained out for 3 of the last 4 weeks the ANPS Wednesday Walkers finally got in an outing (if that isn't an oxymoron) today. We went to the Tinderry range, South of Canberra to an area that was basically incinerated in a bushfire almost exactly 2 years ago. We drove back through this area a year ago and it was still a lunar landscape. But we had heard a report from Environment Tours (and an ANPS member who went on that trip) that it was now full of good arrays of flowers.

So we met at the Michelago Station (rarely used but nicely painted by NSW Railways)...

... before heading off to the first site in the form of some grassland above the village.

The first thing to catch my eye was a Blue Devil (Eryngium ovinum).

closely followed by a Swainsona sericia

It is usually against my principles to include images of grass flowers but some of them are quite pleasant in appearance and I am feeling sorry for Austrodanthonia as I have heard that the taxonomists (boo, hiss) have sunk the boot into the genus recently. So here are images of A. laevis

and A. carphoides

A plant of some species which I didn't record (boo, hiss) was hosting an Ecnolagria grandis (Brown Darkling beetle). I am getting quite fascinated by the complex design of these animals.

There were, as usual few birds around at this site. However some Little Raven used a convenient boulder to peer down at us.

As we moved up the road towards the mountains it appeared that there was still a lot of exposed rock.

A lot of it seemed to shine, which we debated if it was because the rock was still wet or if it was minerals in the rocks catching the sunlight. At the time I was espousing the latter view, but by the end of the trip had swung to join the majority in the former position.

Before we got to the second formal stop we paused beside the road as a very good collection of plants had appeared. I failed to get a worthwhile image of the clumps of Derwentia or Stylidium but the following images show

Solanum linearifolium (Kangaroo apple - since like most members of the genus it appears the fruit are full of alkaloids any roos which eat it should be happy, albeit briefly).

the fruits of Dodonaea viscosa demonstrating why the plant has the vernacular name 'hop bush'.

Onwards and upwards, to our usual car parking spot at the high point on the road. After a pause for morning tea we visited the rocky platforms on both sides of the road. The tops of the trees were still bare as a result of the fire but the understorey was regrowing very well.

The flowers of Lomandra longifolia were in profusion

and those of L multiflora proved the taxonomists can get things right occasionally.

On the top of the rocks, looking down on the Murrumbidgee valley, it was apparent that the fire had still been intense. However even here regrowth was occurring. This Pelargonium australe had found a small patch of soil and some moisture to strut its, quite significant, charms.

On the subject of charms, it was good to find Prostanthera phylicifolia.

The commonest plant growing up here was this small lily Thelionema caespitosum, which seemed to be in swathes all over the rock.

This image gives an impression of the situation on top of the rock shelves.

Even here there were insects including this rockhopper (can't call it a grasshopper in that environment). Roger Farrow has advised that it is a male Phaulacridium vittatum the Wingless Grasshopper, not strictly wingless and often fully winged. Its blackish colouration is an adaptation to the blackened environment and occurs during early development of the nymphal stages.

Also rock-hopping were two feral goats whichstuck their heads out of the vegetation to check us out before running away. I suspect that means there are many more. Just below the rocks we found the first orchid of the outing Stegostyla moschata - the musky not-Caladenia.

As is traditional on these trips the next stop was at the meteorological station, which appeared to have escaped damage from the fires. The open area around the station was a sea of yellow including a good collection of Diuris monticola, the Highland Golden Moths.

Across the road a huge boulder stood amongst the burnt out trees ...

while a patch of Calotis scabiosifolia var. integrifolia was attracting a member of the Hymenoptera.

The final stop was Round Hill Trail which we descended to try to locate the famous "Mystery Pea". It is thought this is some form of Oxylobium but it has thus far defeated the efforts of the group to identify it. (It appears that this may be out of date as the t@xo***ists have been amusing themselves in this part of the web of life and now suggest Podolobium is a better name.) The plant - basically there has only ever been one - has in the past survived a tree falling on it and now has survived an intense bushfire.

As a bonus for visiting this site we found a large greenhood orchid which expert advice has since confirmed is Pterostylis falcata ...

and some bird orchids, probably Simpliglottis valida.

On the way back to the cars I was shown an array of huge Diuris sulphurea ...

... and a single Gastrodia sesamoides (the other species of potato orchids didn't seem to fit the habitat evident at this spot).

A great finish to a top day (apart from the drive back which was very pleasant, especially finding that the Queanbeyan River was only just over the ford enabling an uneventful crossing).

Insects of December

2011-12-06T19:52:00.001+11:00

Although the start of Summer has been rather cool there are some interesting insects beginning to appear around our property. My encounters of them on 6 December began when preparing to deal with cherry slugs on our pear trees.

This very unattractive item is the larva of a small sawfly. It is a recidivist muncher of the leaves of stone fruit, and the only way of dealing with it appears to be to throw ash over the tree. While preparing to hurl the ash I noticed a few interesting arthropods lurking on the netting over the trees.

The first two images are almost certainly within the family Diptera while the third is possibly a 'true bug' of the subfamily Heteroptera.

I next visited our grape vines where a number of caterpillars were encountered, and consigned to the ground rather than the leaves they were chewing.

Astonishingly, while attempting to track down an adult moth through the Nature of Robertson blog I came across the ID of this caterpllar as Phalaenoides glycinae, the Grapevine moth. I am reasonably sure, from looking at Donald Hobern's site that this is the adult, found about 200m from our vines on 8 December.

I have pursued these insects for long distances and this is the first time I have found one to land. It may be that this reflected the low temperatures.

A quick tour of the bed outside our sun room produced a couple of interesting shaped insects.

The first image is not of high quality, mainly because the object of attention was both very small and very active. However this does give an impression of the colours of the insect. based on the colours (especially the metallic blue-green area between the eyes) I tend to identify this as Rutilia simlplex.

My final image is one of the most stunning insects I have seen. Unfortunately, as usual I cannot identify it with certainty but the family Chloropidae looks interesting. Finding a specialist Diptera website was a bonus.

After snapping the moth (see above) on 8 December I found a few other interesting arthropods on leaves of our grapevines.

From its general appearance I happy to say this is a member of the Diptera. I am inclined to take a punt on it being a Black soldier fly, Hermetia illucens. They appear to be basically good guys since they destroy house flies.

This is a cockroach Ellipsidion australe.

This is a Shield bug Poecilometis patruelis. Thank you Zborowski and Storey and Brisbane insects for enabling the ID!

To prove that I am not leg-ist here is a spider. Given the number of insects around on the vines, it is not surprising that a spider should also be there! I think this is Oxyopes elegans: the Elegant Lynx spider

I have also found a leaf beetle. According to Brisbane Insects and Life Unseen is seems to be Paropsisterna variicollis.

We now descend into the more typical realm of "Que?". The first two images are, I am sure, members of the family Hymenoptera but whether they are ants or some other family within wasps is a currently open question. The presence of wings suggests that they are wasps, but the two 'joints' between thorax and abdomen suggests ants. I had hoped the dark spot in the wings (see second image) would help, but no luck. Overall I am inclined to 'other wasp'.

The next, interesting looking, chap was very hard to identify any further than insect! Denis has commented that it isn't a lacewing (my initial guess) but the Pachygronthinae - suggested as an alternative - are according to CSIRO found on monocots rather than a dicot..

I have concluded that this ladybird is Harmonia conformis the common spotted ladybird. This is one of the good guys (ie an aphid muncher).

This post is getting a bit big. For more December insects (and other Arthropods if any dign to make an appearance) see the 2nd post.

A tour of the environment in the Brindabellas

2011-12-05T05:56:00.001+11:00

On 4 December Frances and I joined a tour to the Brindabella Ranges run by Ian Fraser of Environment Tours. The basic route for the trip was to head over the Murrumbidgee River (still a very good flow after recent rains) and up the Mt Franklin Road to Mt Ginnini : essentially following a ridge which forms the Western border of the ACT.

Our aims for the trip were to:

enjoy some of the plants of the ranges;
acquire some useful knowledge about the plants and animals of the area; and
see or hear a Cicadabird.

The third objective was pretty much a personal one for me, since my ACT list was deficient in this species. Cutting to the chase, it still is.

I have decided that rather than presenting the comments and images in some thematic form (eg grouping all flowers together) I will do a chronological report. This is primarily because many of the images have both plants and insects in them. While explaining my intentions, I will also comment that:

I hope to improve the identification of many of the insects but have decided to get the basic structure of the post done (in case the hope is not reflected in outcome).
Where material appears in blue below it is a particularly egregious deviation from the plan and can be skipped without losing the plot. Indeed, skipping such rants may increase understanding of the narrative!

The useful information from Ian began well before the Brindabellas with discussion of the origin of the name "St John's Wort" as applied to the nasty weed currently colouring most of the ACT yellow. (It was used to scare away evil spirits by hanging a bunch of it above a front door on St John's Day - June 24.)

After a brief comfort stop at the Bulls Head dunny our first "proper" stop was at the track which heads to the summit of Mt Franklin. We only covered the first 300m but saw plenty of interesting things.

The first 'pea' was Oxylobium elliptica. I will note in passing that I have been intrigued why the family colloquially referred to as 'peas' is formally called Fabaceae (ie the beans family) rather than - as in the past - Leguminoseae (which would seem to refer to the Latin name for 'pea'). Ian explained that the standard is that a family takes the name of the first, in a chronological sense, named genus within it. Faba - the Broad Bean - got in first! (In addition the garden pea is botanically Pisum sativum!)

The next image is of a very colourfully bodied moth. Were it not for the shape of the antennae I would call this a butterfly (which are of course simply a form of moth). My initial attempts to identify this have been fruitless (and in fact, nameless)! However I have now been advised by an expert that is is within the range of variation of Spilosoma curvata the Crimson Tiger Moth.

We then got to the first of the Grevilleas: G. lanigera.

An insect - I suspect a flying ant, certainly a member of the Hymenoptera - on a Brachyscome spathulata.

A very colourful grasshopper (which I have been totally unable to find anyhere on the net) on a Podolepis robusta(?). The careful observer will also note an ant - one of approximately 73.5 billion in the area - sneaking up the RHS of the flower!

This is the new shelter on the site of the old Mt Franklin Chalet, which was destroyed in the 2003 bushfires. The twisted bit of metal in front of this stately pleasure dome is the remains of a tank stand. While it is undoubtedly a Good Thing that something has been erected, one wonders how many staff years of Rangers could have been funded by the cost of this? The whinnying sound you might hear is that of a hobby horse being let loose.

About the only flowering heath I saw on the trip was this clump of Monotoca scoparia. Obviously the other heaths have done their procreative thing and moved on to storing energy for next Spring.

The flower here is a Pimelia and my guess is P. ligustrina. Although I rarely use vernacular names I find this one "Kosciuszko Rose" to be very evocative. The insect appears to be a Pintail Beetle (family Mordellidae) and at this stage I can get no further than that.

Here we have a Stellaria pungens (the star-like flower) growing in front of one of many carpets of Tetratheca ericifolia.

This hoverfly (I will take a punt at subfamily Syrphinae) was feeding on Leucochrysum albicans.

We then piled back into the bus and went to the end of the road at Mount Ginnini to have our lunch. At this point we were serenaded by the generator powering the air traffic device at that point. As someone who occasionally flies places I cannot object to this device!

The mist which had been hovering in the ACT all morning seemed to be rolling in while we dined. I thik this gave a nice mysterious look to the surroundings.

The mist did not deter the Flame Robins from being very active in the area. This one was polite enough to pose for a snap, showing how the orange-red 'flames go up to its throat rather than hovering mid-breast as does the red of the Scarlet Robin. A list of all birds seen on the trip is at the end of this post.

I believe this beetle to be a scarab, and my usual reference website has something very similar listed as Diphucephala sp. The host plant is a battered Ranunculus.

The next species was quite common at this highest point (about 1800m). It is Derwentia perfoliata.

Euphrasia collina was quite common, throughout the trip, in rather dense little tufts of plants.

It is time for some geology. This is a rather nice granite boulder showing the start of the natural progression to soil with the help of moss, lichen and some particularly bold grass. Either that or, for fans of Patricia Wrightson (surely everyone is?), a nargun having a bad hair day.

We now come to the worst photograph put on the internet this year. However I did want to record the presence of Macleay's Swallowtail (Graphium macleayanus) on this trip. We saw it at two sites - Mt Franklin and near Mt Aggie. In neither case was it unduly keen on being photographed. However hopefully the green colour and swallow -tail can be picked out with the help of the red arrows.

Subsequently (14 December) ANPS visited Mt Franklin and Frances took this photograph of the Swallowtail which actually lets the viewer see the insect!.

At about this point we got a nice view of some distant mountains and some people suggested anatomical names for the peak in the far centre of this shot. No-one knew what it was really called!

A small amount of scree scrambling got this snap of Cardamine paucijuga ...

.. and this one of Pratia pedunculata.

The main reason we stopped here was to photograph another Grevillea, G. diminuta. A suggestion was made that it should have been the Territory flower as it is only found along this ridge, most of it within the ACT. The official Territory flower - a "bluebell" is found throughout the high country down to Victoria. However it was suggested the bluebell is easier to use as an icon. In my view this plant does look rather similar to a rather weather-beaten Waratah, which would also disqualify it as linking the Territory to closely to NSW!

Somewhat closer to Bulls Head we stopped for the third Grevillea, G. oxyantha.

This small purple 'pea' was identified as Cullen microcephalum, based on the shape of its leaves (which unfortunately didn't make it into this image).

Here we have a Craspedia variabilis with another Pintail Beetle (family Mordellidae) checking it over.

Now, not unusually for this blog, I must confess to making a complete chump of myself on this one. I was asked to ID this greenhood and once I got a good look at it was delighted to do so as it grows on our property. Noting the t-shaped appendage to the labellum I confidently called it as Hymenochilus cycnocephalus the "Swan Greenhood". I will now get the blue ink flowing to refer to Mark Twain's aphorism that "its not what you don't know that hurts you, but what you know that ain't so". Fortunately Ian was able to very gently point out that the species nominated by me is only found lower down. This one is H. crassicaulis the "Alpine Swan Greenhood" found from 1100 -1800 MASL!

Overall, a rather excellent day.

List of birds seen.
Not a long list but any day with 3 Cuckoo species and Flame Robins isn't bad. I am sure every tree down Warks Road held at least 3 Cicadabirds making rude gestures with their primaries as I looked out the other side of the bus! The list is in the order I wrote them down rather than any of the continually changing formats beloved by the taxonomists.
Flame Robin; Pied Currawong; Superb Lyrebird; Spotted Pardalote; White-browed Scrubwren; Fan-tailed Cuckoo; Pallid Cuckoo; Little Raven; Australian Pipit; Yellow-faced Honeyeater; White-throated Treecreeper; Brush Cuckoo; Grey Fantail; Red Wattlebird; Superb Fairy Wren; Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike.

Addendum
On the ANPS visit they found, and Frances photographed, this Anemone Stinkhorn (Aseroe rubra).

Owling on Plains Road

2011-12-03T05:55:00.001+11:00

As well as a horde of Brown Falcons, my friend Garry has reported recently seeing up to 4 Eastern Barn Owls on Plains Rd, Hoskinstown.

I am not much of a night-person these days but recalled the owls around my ancestral home in Essex used to hunt at dusk: thus I took myself down to the plain at 8:15 on Tuesday. Unfortunately this coincided with the commencement of a monsoon-like storm so:

I couldn't see far beyond the car; and
any sensible owl was going to be huddled somewhere sheltered.

The end result of that trip was using some petrol and seeing no owls.

Wednesday had even worse weather so I didn't bother trying. On Thursday at about 8:30 the rain had stopped and I went off again. The first thing was to discover that the Molonglo River had a good flow and was about 15cm deep across the road. Easily traversed in the Subaru but I did feel nervous about whether the level was rising or falling so just did one patrol and off home having seen no owls. (Garry went out about an hour later and was able to find a bird and his son got a photograph.)

So on Friday, just on dusk I headed yet again for the Plain aiming to meet Garry at the start of Plains R

We piled into Garry's vehicle and set off. After about 1 kilometre an owl flew from one of the hawthorns and I was able to follow its flight across the paddocks with the spotlight. Switching back to the tree it had flown from we thought there was another owl still sitting there.

No such luck, 'only' a rather young-looking Brown Falcon: probably wondering why the sun had risen so early.

At about 2.5km we turned and patrolled back, avoiding the other punters who were rude enough to use the road. Then we got lucky and an owl posed nicely for me to take some photos.

Of course, as soon as Garry got out of the truck to get his share of the action, the bird ghosted away and despite a bit more searching was not seen again.

So I headed for home (after the usual time my head has hit the pillow)

driving very carefully to avoid the wildlife. I saw a fluffy Brush-tailed Possum on Widgiewa Rd but it didn't hang around for a photo. Then as I crossed the Creek on our property found some larger entities grazing. Fortunately they kept out of my way.

November Updates (and a new blog)

2011-12-01T10:00:00.000+11:00

Guess what! This is a post linking to the posts I have updated during the month of November.

Some additional images have been added to the initial Frogmouth record and a table of dates added to the branching post.
The newly acquired irises have flowered and images added.
Some comments and a couple more images have been added to the Sun orchid post.
More gardening nature study comments have been added.
An insect has been identified from the first 6-mile post
Comments on strawberries have been added to the mellow fruitfulness.
My sighting of a Black Falcon has been added.

Rather than a link to a post I am using this comment to record a tasting of Finish beers, brought in by some visiting friends from that country. The first brand was Kuoho and it was an excellent brew, described as dark lager and tasting like a light bodied stout. Secondly was Kievari - also dark and malty. Both excellent.

I will also use this post to announce that I have started a new blog recording the birds seen in my local area. This can be accessed through this post which summarise the rationale for the blog. Otherwise the monthly posts (back to 2007) have been created so that they are more or less in chronological order with newest at the top.

Vegetation decorative and edible: plus invertebrates

2011-11-29T17:12:00.001+11:00

We seem to be getting rain at pretty much the right time to get the garden happening this year. (Also getting the brambles and briars happening, but that is another story.) This afternoon we did some stuff in the garden and I took a few images that may be of interest - especially for those in the North who maybe finding colour and daylight a bit hard to come by.

These flowers come from a large bed on the Eastern side of our house, which Frances has pretty much created from scratch.

The first 2 images are of Penstemons.

These foxgloves appear to self regenerated from last year's flowers which is good.

After many attempts we have some Acanthus flowerig: and very attractive they are as well!

We have a row of Globe Artichokes along the bottom of the bed, partly for appearance, but they are on the menu for tonight.

In addition to these 'pure exotics' we have some nice Australian Natives - possibly not from anywhere close to here - blooming.

This is a mini-melaleuca

and a small leptospermum

In the purely edible department the strawberries continue to go gang-busters. I didn't pick yesterday so got about 2.5kgs this morning.

The broad beans are also going extremely well. There is probably one more pick like this before we remove them.

There were a few invertebrates around. As with last year I intend to take images of the ones which interest due to their colouration or structure.

The first was an Icheumenon wasp that visited our kitchen window this morning. Neither Brisbane insects nor Life Unseen are strong on the Latin for this family and I think it is the second Banded Pupa wasp on the former site. It is clearly a female - no male would be seen in public with an ovipositor like that!

While picking the strawberries I have noticed these tiny (perhaps 20mm) grasshoppers most days. Brisbane Insects is silent about 'hoppers which like strawberries!

Looking over at our vines I found lots of flowers and several of these caterpillars wandering about with their biting parts. Although visually attractive, there were several less of them after I passed by.

On returning indoors this spider was found wandering around on the floor.

More research is needed to ID it.

The natural order is Chaos?

2011-11-28T20:09:00.001+11:00

At an early point in Chaos by James Glieck he mentions the chaotic effects of turbulence. When I looked down into Whiskers Creek this morning I reflected how the foam pattern called to mind some of the images generated by chaos algorithms. The foam is the residue of the very strong run off from the catchment of the Creek scoring at least 50mm of rain over the preceding 2 days.

This is emphasised by a close up of the pattern in the top centre of the pool.

Taking another stab at it I got an image of some flowers of Joycea pallida, against a clear blue sky.

Perhaps this is not exactly an example of a chaotic system at work but the way the stems, flower heads and awns all point off in different directions made me think along these lines. Certainly trying to catch an image like this in gusty winds appeared to invlove the vernacular view of chaos!

Some thoughts on running

2011-11-27T12:55:00.001+11:00

I have occasionally commented in this blog about my running activities. As I haven't troubled folk much in the last few days I thought I would offer a few musings on that topic today.

A frequently asked question is why people run. In my case it is twofold:

It helps keep my weight down (so I can continue to enjoy wine and beer); and
I find it relaxing (particularly when point 1 has been successful).

Over Winter point 1 had not been successful and as a result I had not been getting off my butt and out the door for a run as much as I should. So in October I decided that I needed a target or two to assist these processes.

The main target was to be the Melbourne Marathon 2012. This is to be held a few days after my 65th birthday so offers a good chance of getting my name on the ACT Vets Athletics " best marathon times" list for that age group.

However, to enjoy that event required that the alien life-form which had taken residence behind my belt buckle needed to be evicted. Once that was achieved I could then start to look at getting fit. My view was that the main cause of my profile resembling a snake which has swallowed a modest sized pig was snacking, mainly on peanuts and muesli bars. Thus they were banished from my diet while intake of fresh fruit and water was increased. Also increased was my amount of work around the garden (not only expends calories but also is relatively remote from the snacks).

Thus far, over about 6 weeks, that seems to have shed about 3.5kgs which is not a bad start. As an alternate, but highly correlated, performance indicator my belt seems to have stretched a bit so my strides are in danger of falling.

Today I got some evidence that my running is getting back to where it should be. It was the final Vets Handicap race for the year, on a course on which I came second last year. It was a 2-lap race totalling 7kms, and I didn't feel I was going too well on the first lap. However with just over 1km to go an official told me I was in 16th place and I could see a bunch of early starters just ahead. There was a risk that the speed fiends starting after me would swamp me but in the end only 4 did, while I overhauled about 12 folk to come in 8th, just missing on a medal. My friend Roger came 4th (he was one of the swampers) and has won the year long series!

Interestingly, my time for the event was 1:24 slower than last year on the same course but the weather this year was a lot better. I managed to get under 5:30 per kilometre for several of those on offer which was better than I have managed in the recent past.

Earwig Wars

2011-11-25T17:04:00.001+11:00

NOTE: this body of this post was composed by Rob, a friend who is a keen gardener, rather than myself. However I thought the content and tone of the post were quite suitable for my blog (he doesn't run one himself, possibly because he spends most of his waking hours pursuing earwigs) and he has given permission for me to copy his work.

As a result any references in the rest of this post to "my garden" or in the first person refers to Rob's garden and/or other activities rather than my own!

For the last few years the productivity in my garden has dropped off quite a bit – initially due to drought and water restrictions, but last year when water was plentiful I had terrible trouble with plants, especially seedlings being eaten. I assumed that it was slugs and snails and took appropriate action, but with only limited results. Things that I grew from seed would get wiped out overnight – entire rows of carrots demolished for example or broccoli seedlings chewed back to ground level. Larger plants (either survivors or larger seedlings) might get a bit munched, but survived OK. I concluded that it wasn’t snails doing the damage and started to form my suspicions about earwigs and slaters.

When I was in Adelaide in the middle of the year, Shaun my brother in law told me that he had once had an earwig infestation and gave me a method to combat it. This involved leaving pieces of corrugated cardboard in the garden under which the earwigs would shelter and you could then catch and destroy them. This again only produced limited success and quite a bit of cardboard in the garden.

When we went to Malaysia in October I had just germinated 2 rows of carrots, a row of beetroot, 4 zucchinis and 6 cucumbers. When we returned, my veggie garden consisted of 1 carrot – not 1 row, but 1 carrot. Everything else had been eaten. I wasn’t happy and having confirmed via Shaun that earwigs were probably the problem resorted to Dr Google and commenced a war. I have now tried a variety of methods which I detail below

1.       Shauns’s method
2.       Spray plants with a soapy water solution
3.       Earwig trap - a tin of oil and soy sauce buried at ground level
4.       Newspaper rolled up which attracts them (variation on Shaun’s method)
5.       Pyrethrum
6.       Cleaning up leaf litter and finding nests
7.       Earwigs are nocturnal so going out with a torch and squishing them with your fingers

All of these methods have been tried. I decided it would be interesting to keep track of which method was more successful by counting successful ‘kills’. Of course some methods it is hard to tell – the soapy water might be effective, but it didn’t produce and carcasses. Also some methods are done in combination – pyrethrum sprayed into a crack in a retaining wall flushed out quite a number who were then squished. Also I don’t know if they would die from pyrethrum contact – they certainly didn’t like it much.

The body count summary is

1.       Shaun’s method – 4 deaths
2.       Soapy water – 0 (but perhaps might help keep them away – I did spray half a row of beetroot & they have fared better than the other half (might taste soapy though?))
3.       Trap – 0 a complete waste of time
4.       Newspaper - 1 death
5.       Pyrethrum – 0 confirmed, but certainly useful
6.       Clean up. I have found 5 ‘nests’ in compost, leaf litter and retaining walls. With the use of pyrethrum & squishing this has resulted in 634 deaths
7.       Nocturnal squishing 1564 squished between my fingers

A total of 1933 earwigs have been eliminated.

Unfortunately method 7, while very effective does involve grovelling around outside in the dark and also gives me sore back from leaning over the plants . Method 6 is also quite effective, but of course you have to find the nests. I now find myself looking at the garden in a whole new light. ’If I was an earwig, would I want to live there?’

Most of the time when you spot an earwig it is a sitting duck, but every now and then, one is too quick for me (quite often actually, especially if it is after dinner) and escapes. They are quite adept at just hiding in the soil or mulch. A few times they have managed to get me with their nippers – it doesn’t really hurt but was enough of a shock that the first 3 times I dropped them (now I just squish harder). I wonder if via a form of natural selection I am building a race of super earwigs that will taunt me in years to come.

So what lessons do you take from this. Firstly, if you garden is getting munched overnight it may be earwigs. Take a wander around your garden at night and see who is eating what. Even if you don’t find anything, it will give the neighbours something to talk about. The second lesson take out of this is that you really shouldn’t pee me off.

Exciting birds on the Hoskinstown Plain

2011-11-24T14:55:00.001+11:00

The Hoskinstown Plain is an area of frost hollow along the course of the Molonglo River. It is overlooked by the property from which the large flock of Black-shouldered Kites were reported.

A couple of the property owners on the Plain itself are keen birders and report exciting sightings to me from time to time. The last couple of months have been extremely productive.

One property on the Plain has also been visited each year recently by Superb Parrots. They seem to turn up to dine on the fruit of Acacia dealbata. As I haven't been able to coincide with the birds yet this year, here is a photograph taken by my friend Kim (who is a far better photographer than myself).

The keen eyed viewer will note the Acacia pod in the bird's beak!

The irruption of Barn Owls reported from urban and peri-urban Canberrra also spread to the Plain. There were a couple of reports of single Barn Owls at various spots and two road-killed birds were handed over to the CSIRO collection of corpses. Last evening two Barn Owls were seen by my friend Garry, perching in a hawthorn tree- of which there are a large number alongside the road and further resaerch will be done to get a photograph of them later.

Garry also reported a Black Falcon hunting over his paddocks together with a number of Brown Falcons. As this would be a lifer for me I took myself off PDQ.

I was barely out of our gate when I noticed a White-necked Heron feeding in a neighbour's dam. It was pretty much at extreme range for my camera (about 100m) but an interesting photograph to record these birds presence in Carwoola after absence for a couple of years.

On getting to the Plain I found a large number of Brown Falcons- at least 9 - hunting over the paddocks, mainly by hovering and diving.

Also hunting in much the same area were 4 Nankeen Kestrels. As I drove back through the paddocks one Brown Falcon was kind enough to pose for some photographs.

One of the Brown Falcons hunting in the area was a lot darker than this one, but still dark brown not black. (The Black Falcon was described as being as black as a crow and aggressive to the crows.) So I guess I dipped out.

(A couple of days later I was on my push bike passing one of Garry's paddocks when I noticed him getting excited n the grassland. It turned out he was talking to my wife on his phone telling her the Black falcon was overhead. She said that I was riding down there: he saw me and after a short while we looked up and there was a Black falcon flying overhead. Woooo, and also Hooooo! A lifer!)

However the goodies were not yet finished. Another White-necked Heron flew over the car and then started to search the adjacent paddock for food.

My view is that this is a non-breeding bird (while the one photographed earlier was in breeding plumage).

As a footnote to comments about the White-necked Herons, shortly after arriving home two of them overflew our garden calling loudly was they were attacked by Pied Currawong.