Googong revisited: Spillways and Spiders

 Today's excursion by ANPS combined a walk and the (after) Christmas party.  We went to the Black Wallaby walking trail near the Googong Dam spillway.  As I led the walk (by accident, not authority) I got to meet a fair number of the local spiders.

I have posted a few weeks back about Googong getting to 100% full and it still is.

However before getting to that, with it being a Plant Society walk here are some images of plants.  I have no idea what a legume such as Dillwynia sericea is doing flowering at this time of year.

It was totally expected that Bursaria spinosa would be in flower.  Following a question from Jean about the focus setting to use I switched to a wide version and got a far better image than I have managed on my usual 'tight' setting.

It was also quite expected that the Eucalyptus Rossii would be dropping its bark to make room for the new growth after the rain.  This was a particularly colourful specimen.

There is a good image of the dam wall at 100% capacity in the linked post so I won't repeat it here: the view was identical.  Swinging round about 70 degrees gave a view up the valley.  This shows the big trees that have grown during the drought which now have very damp feet.

Leaving the dam wall I took a long distance photo of the spillway showing that a small amount of water is still going over.  This can be contrasted with the mass of white water in a snap in the earlier post.(I don't have one of it at full honk during the floods.)

Somewhat later in the stroll we got a good close look at the spillway.

We had crossed the Queanbeyan River to get to the walk.  I think the angle of the shot overstates the height of the dam wall but  I would not have wanted to be in this position during the flood!

As we walked up above the river we got a nice view of the rocks, with a small amount of water gushing through the nooks and crannies.  The dam wall still looks rather ominous!

Here are some spider shots.  They are interestingly designed animals and have become less anonymous after these comments by Stephen of Waterwatch.

"Christmas spiders belong to the genus Gasteracantha (spiny bum!), and the common midnight blue and white one is G. minax, but yours looks too spotty. The beautiful white and black one with the two sets of humps may possibly be a Leucauge species, even L. dromedaria perhaps. Crab spiders were in Araneus once upon a time. These names come from some old books of mine."

 

In the last image note that the spider seems to have shed a leg scurrying down the twig!

There were also a bunch of birds around.  I missed the juvenile Cuckoo being fed by Willie Wagtails but did get these rather charming juvenile Dusky Woodswallows.