Blundell's Creek Road
Today the ANPS Wednesday Walk went to Blundell's Creek Rd in Namadgi NP. This is quite a soft walk since it is 3.4 km (according to our friend Linda's odometer) and there is not a skerrick of uphill in it.
This area was obliterated in the January 2003 bushfires. It is very pleasing how it is regenerating (or has regenerated). While many of the bigger trees have dead tops, there is a lot of epicormic growth and the understorey is developing very well.
As usual with ANPS stuff let me begin with flowers.
This was a form of mint (Mentha diemenica) although the perfume wasn't too obvious to me. But enough of that personal problem.
This is a more than somewhat ordinary image of a Derwentia derwentiana flower. The foliage was quite common but these were the only flowers I found.
Doing a slight shift of kingdoms (to Fungi) I will start with those I am (more)confident of identifying. To begin with here is Russula lenkunya.
The next fungus I will rate as being a member of the genus Coprinellus (or Coprinus, depending on which taxonomist you favour). Looking at Bruce Fuhrer's images I am inclined towards C. disseminatus but the photo on the Sydney Fungal Studies Group site looks a bit paler. Your call.
The next three images are of bracket fungi, growing on fallen or burnt eucalypt trees in this moist gully. The first image surely shows the moistness since the green is due - I am pretty sure - to algal growth. The fruiting body in this and the second image are about 7cm across while in the third image the individual bodies are at most about 1cm. across (but there were, obviously, lots of them)
WRT to animals I will start big and go smaller. As we positioned our car at the bottom of the track to get folk out later we saw a Swamp Wallaby (Wallabia bicolor) on the track. Fortunately it cleared off into the bush, rather than challenging the car.
Birds were relatively few and far between. 14 species were recorded. Highlights were several White-naped Honeyeaters calling in the canopy and Flame and Eastern Yellow Robins down by the track. Slightly back up the evolutionary trail we noted a slew of small skinks ( life is too short to try to ID microlizards moving at warp factor 7).
A couple of insects were kind enough to allow themselves to be photographed. I am not sure about the state of health of this Cabbage White butterfly but it did let itself be snapped..
So did this Paropsis aegrota beetle ( thanks Roger for the ID).
I found it very difficult to get this image: focusing on the whole beast was tricky and my hand was causing the twig to wave around like some thing very wavy!
This area was obliterated in the January 2003 bushfires. It is very pleasing how it is regenerating (or has regenerated). While many of the bigger trees have dead tops, there is a lot of epicormic growth and the understorey is developing very well.
As usual with ANPS stuff let me begin with flowers.
Doing a slight shift of kingdoms (to Fungi) I will start with those I am (more)confident of identifying. To begin with here is Russula lenkunya.
WRT to animals I will start big and go smaller. As we positioned our car at the bottom of the track to get folk out later we saw a Swamp Wallaby (Wallabia bicolor) on the track. Fortunately it cleared off into the bush, rather than challenging the car.
Birds were relatively few and far between. 14 species were recorded. Highlights were several White-naped Honeyeaters calling in the canopy and Flame and Eastern Yellow Robins down by the track. Slightly back up the evolutionary trail we noted a slew of small skinks ( life is too short to try to ID microlizards moving at warp factor 7).
A couple of insects were kind enough to allow themselves to be photographed. I am not sure about the state of health of this Cabbage White butterfly but it did let itself be snapped..
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