Wanna Wanna Wanna Walk ... Now!

The first "Wanna" in the title was inspired by a young child in Terry Pratchetts  tome "The Wee Free Men".  The child's dialogue is limited to phrases such as " Wanna sweetie.  Wanna Sweetie now!".   Perhaps the phrase "young child" could be replaced by "spoilt brat"?

So one could express the title of this post as " I wish to go for a walk in Wanna Wanna Nature Reserve, even though the ANPS outing has been called due to rain". 

Whatever I really wanted to go to see if I could find some orchids,  This desire was strengthened when our friend Jean called in to Stony Creek NR (very close to Wanna Wanna) and found several colonies of Diplodium truncatum.  So I put on some wet weather kit and toddled off,

This is a Google Earth image of the Reserve, with my approximate route marked in yellow.  North is pretty much at the top of the image.  The Reserve appears to be about 750m E-W and 400m N-S (amounting to about 30Ha.
This first image shows the general habitat through the Reserve.  In a few places, and more generally along the Northern boundary, there are Joycea pallida tussocks with other species growing through them, but this is fairly typical of most of the Reserve
The good stuff started almost as soon as I was over the gate and into the access path.  Lots of Eriochilus cuculatus - Parson's Bands.  Unfortunately this was the only orchid species I was able to find today: a challenge for the ANPS when they get there.

At about the same time I was aware of the call of a Scarlet Robin plus another buzzy call.  It then turned out that the buzzy call was a response by another male Scarlet Robin to the typical call.  In fact there were 3 male Robins - presumably undertaking some sort of territorial dispute over Winter quarters.

Moving through the Reserve I noticed a few plants in flower.  Many were closed over, presumably as an outcome of the rain but quite a few Brachysome rigidula  were on display.
 In many places fallen eucalypt blossom was on the ground .  These were still attached but the tree itself was 'unwell' as another larger one had fallen on it.
 There were a lot of fungi throughout the reserve.  Many were the Russula rosea which has been springing up all over the place and others were a common brown agaric with yellow gills which I cannot identify,  (Having heard a mycologist speaking on the radio since I got home I am no longer unhappy about my poor fungal ID skills.  He said that guesstimates of the total number of fungal species range from 1.5 million to 5 million, and only some 92,000 (2 - 6%) have been formally described.)

Here are some of the more interesting ones.  The first two are possibly Clavaria sp.

 Possibly Podoscypha petalodes.
 Possibly Russula lenkunya.
 With the amount of rain we have this month (218mm and counting) it is not surprising there was a whole lotta fruiting going on in the moss and lichen department.
 I was beginning to wonder if the insects had all voted with their wings.  Then several mosquito-like animals began trying to feed on me.  Life got a bit better when I spotted this Lycid beetle.
 Then a very attractive moth posed nicely, but has thus far resisted my efforts to identify it!  I thank Denis for his comment naming it as a 'Forester moth' and I really can't get any further that it seeming to be in the family ZYGAENIDAE subfamily tribe: Artonini.  That tribe has 9 genera and I can't work things out that far, let alone to species.
 

 Of course, while in the Reserve I visited the mullock heap and obtained these two photos of mineralised rocks.



Comments

Denis Wilson said…
Hi Martin
Sorry you missed out on the Dumpies.
You might find them if you get to go back there next week. They love to grow out of tufts of grasses - just to make it hard for us to find them.
The Moth is a Forester Moth.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tindo2/6272289540/
I can't go beyond that.
Nice fungi, and thanks for those statistics on the %age of undescribed species.
Denis

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