Details to delight

Of course the New England National Park holds more natural treasures than green moss and bearding lichen, entrancing as they are.

Like the wonderfully pleasing design made by the coiled new shoots of the many tree ferns, ready to unwind and reach skywards.

Or the dense and tall banks of delicate Coral Fern, Gleichenia dicarpa.

While looking up into the Antarctic Beech forests was impressive, listening in there was too. Almost mid-day, and yet so many birdsongs…

Peering into the trees, I saw the singer: one lyrebird, loudly and constantly being all birds. I had a brief chance to take this shot before he flew down to the forest floor.

There he seemed to be digging, but it was hard to  see at what, and hard to see him! On several other walks, I heard a lyrebird, and sat  listening for 20 minutes at one spot, but failed to see the singer.

The only time I have ever seen a lyrebird display was in another part of this Park, decades ago.

And while looking down, I was treated to a closer view of an Antarctic Beech (Nothofagus moorei), as the pinkish/coppery colour of the new leaves of this young one caught my eye. It was the only one I saw.

The foot of this very old Beech was mossed and crinkled and caverned, looking every bit as ancient as it must be.

Yet within those gnarly buttresses were mysterious details, like this fungi-roofed cave, home to who knows what creature…

Lichen Land

‘Halt! Who goes there?’

I am sure that was the message from this guardian of the green world I was about to enter in New England National Park.

For ‘green’ is the theme in this high rainfall area, and the mosses, lichens and ferns were carrying it in abundance, in every shade and shape.

Some took turns in flaunting the riches — a jewelled collar, a draping lacy veil.

On the Tea Tree Falls Walk, the small creek was edged with mosses so thick as to resemble swales.

And this is the Tea Tree itself, a Leptospermum sp.in glorious bloom, its tiny flowers in such profusion that the bushes or small trees looked dusted with snow.

I loved the many ways the moss distributed itself, in knobs, bands or splodges, sharing with other small plants like orchids, as decorative as necklaces.

When the lichen hung in such lengths that it was blowing in the wind like green-gold tresses, I knew I was in another world and different creatures were the dominant inhabitants.

Low tide treasures

On a marine rock platform, at the lowest of tides a whole other landscape is revealed, a rich and colourful world teeming with life.

While we usually only see the top sunbaked surface of rocks, here the next layer down is on show – the dense cities of Galeolaria, tube-building worms needing seawater, but safe enough within their hard walls to withstand some exposure.

The bright green forests of Cunjevoi prefer to be underwater, and sometimes you see them ejecting jets of water upwards in the changing tide. Their common name is Sea Squirts; their soft insides  were food for Indigenous folk, and then often used as bait by fishermen, but are now mostly protected.

Some of the sea gardens are tiny, packed into water-holding hollows in a rock, but so full of plants; here I can see ones that we used to call Sea Lettuce and Neptune’s necklace. A jewel box of life.

The plentiful small starfish here are mostly in shades of red and blue, but this particular aqua is not common.

Nor is this orange one that caught my eye; and here I can see at least four more starfish, but they are so well camouflaged or half-buried in sand that there may be more.

Across the shell-encrusted expanse of rock platform, I think I see a bird poking about. Is this my signature solitary bird for today?

Yes! Edging closer, I think it is a White-faced Heron, on its long elegant legs, looking for titbits in the temporarily exposed world as the sea washes in and out.

Much as I am, I guess, but visual, not edible.

Tawny twosome

I have often said that the Tawny Frogmouth is my favourite bird, and my recent post shared my delight that one had been visiting.

But only one.

Yet this week I have had close contact for a whole day with a pair, the aforesaid male, and his partner.

On my way downstairs, I did see the large liquid scat on the deck; noted it was in an unusual place, but didn’t think to look up.

Coming back upstairs, I got a shock to see them sitting on the while railing only half a metre from me… and hardly suitably camouflaged.

The male was his usual inscrutable self, watching me with a slit of an eye open. The males are 20-30% bigger than the female.

While he is dressed in tones of grey, his partner is wonderfully patterned in shades of brown, perfect for the paperbarks near here.

At first they were facing in opposite directions in their stiff ‘I am a broken branch’ angled poses.

At one point he opened his big golden eyes wide, as if to say, ‘Don’t think I’m not watching you!’

As the day wore on and I’d had to pass by them many times, the female turned to face the same way. I felt bad for disturbing them, while assuring them they were safe there.

They were both keeping a narrow eye on me; she moved much closer to him.

These birds mate for life, which can mean 15-20 years, and share all the domestic tasks: nest building, egg incubating, chick rearing etc.

They were gone next morning but since then I have several times seen the female occupying the spot between deck and roof where the male had often spent the day before. It was as if he’d brought her here to show her that good dry spot, and also that I was to be trusted.

I can only hope they make their nest somewhere in sight.

Post-fire beauty

Walking along a fire trail in Crowdy Bay National Park, I was stunned by the beauty of these Hakea bushes.

Gracefully arching, daintily flowering, they are Hakea teretifolia, also unhappily called Needlebush. The leaves are very spiky, but still…

In the long flat stretch of what seems like heath, the Hakeas stand out, etched in pastel strokes. This whole area was severely burnt out several years ago, so such a resurgence is a delight to see.

I had been directed to come here because of the abundance of these Bottlebrush Grass Trees, Xanthorrhoea macronema. The trunk of this variety is underground, and I’d thought it amazing when I saw a single specimen last year, as it was new to me.

Like the Hakea, another creamy white flowering native plant. There were only a few in bloom, but I could see hundreds of spent brown flower spikes across the reedy flat. These plants are stimulated by fire.

In the distance I spotted a few bright solo Christmas Bells.  Perhaps more will appear later in the season.

As the track reached forest and slight rises, the tall gums showed how they had survived the fire, with the many life-saving epicormic shoot clusters, now dead, no longer necessary, still evident.

And on my way back, a swift surprise flashed through the trees by the track; too swift for a good photo, but bird-lovers have identified it as a Brown Cuckoo Dove, Macropygia phasianella. I had thought it a dove by its head, but the long tail threw me. 

Such shared knowledge is much appreciated, and here I have learnt several new things on one walk.

Secret show-off

Delighted by this glamorous display, I first thought it was a new bird. Then I recognised the face: it was the Buff Banded Rail  (Galliralus phillippenis) that I often see scurrying across the patch of grass below my window.

As it lowered its backlit wings a little, I could see I was right, but why was it holding those usually hidden wings out like that? I have since found it’s sunbathing, but at the time I wondered if it might fly.

I have never seen it do anything but scurry, flicking its tail up and down.

Apparently Rails can fly, if weakly.

When it turned sideways, I was dazzled by those strikingly patterned wings, now glimpsed from above. I thought of pheasants.

My bird books all comment on it as being secretive, sneaky, or skulking. I am now adding ‘secret show-off’ to those epithets. As it returned to its less dramatic daily dress and demeanour, this Rail certainly looked like it was checking that nobody saw its display; it could not know I was watching from on high…

Of froth and fury

On a recent coastal walk, I met a wild sea with white whipped waves, a long damp beach with receded evidence of a very high tide, and a strand composed of murky froth.

The blobby yellowish-grey froth always puzzles me, as it looks quite disgustingly un-natural, polluted. It was especially revolting this day as it wobbled slightly in the wind.

But sea foam is actually a natural phenomenon — find out more here

What does not move are the rocks — extraordinarily varied in colour and composition, layered and exposed to different degrees.

Yet again, I wish I had a geologically-savvy friend with me to explain these  odd pairings of materials, worn down differently and left in strange sculptural poses.

Some are more consistently like a pebblecreter’s dream, millions of small pebbles held together for another eternity.

How long ago did time and wild storms send them tumbling from the cliffs above, to begin their weathering, their sculpting, from the fury of wind and rain?

Such thoughts certainly put our puny human lifespans in perspective…

Temporary Tawny

My favourite bird is the Tawny Frogmouth, that master of camouflage. But I don’t think  that the space between a roof and a deck is quite what his plumage was meant to blend into.

This one looked fat and healthy, smug even, as they can. It (he?) ignored me in the tradition of  ‘I’m just a bit of broken tree branch.’ 

I would say hello every day but never received an acknowledgement… let alone a reply.

I hadn’t heard one, but knew one was about, as every morning there were fresh droppings in my carport.

A year ago, I had surprised one there, sitting on the awning holder of my campervan, so I had been assuming it to be the cause of the droppings.

So I was delighted to see it take up visible residence for one week, and hoped that it was the same Tawny, grown bigger. And I was very sorry when it moved on.

Distance and details

Sometimes you fluke being present at an ephemeral moment in Nature. Like this sea mist hanging low over the horizon, allowing me to see the path of the sunlight on the ocean, but not the sun itself.

Or this cloud sheet, mirrored in the sea and dividing the view into grey and blue day.

 A few weeks ago I showed you the beautiful white flowers of Clerodendrum floribundum. Now those flowers are on their way to showing why this small tree is called Lolly Bush, with their calyxes turning themselves outwards, now pink, soon to be red. The green centres will be black.

Another tree where the striking flowers are turning into equally striking seeds is the Banksia. I had never struck those lippy Banksia Men before they turned dark brown and nostalgically scary.

But just look at the glowing orangey-red velvet of the seed pod protrusions now!

No wonder I am likely to trip and take a fall on my walks; I have to keep looking into the distance and to each side, as well as down at my feet.

Bamboozling bird behaviour

Given the chaotic state of the world, it should not have surprised me to hear and see this… but it did.

A weird and unchanging sort of scream made me look out to see a kookaburra holding down another kookaburra, seemingly with its beak. I couldn’t tell if there were two or three birds involved.

It was undoubtedly aggressive, I thought; but then I remembered that in a lot of animal mating behaviour looks more aggressive than loving.

This went on for about five minutes, but when the top bird released its grip, they both flew off, leaving me baffled.

Can anyone shed light on such an event?

I don’t know where these local Sacred Ibis nest, but this one seemed to be bearing a stick for the building of such a nest as it flew between the trees. It landed on one of the bird baths, which are all way too small for it. But how would it drink with a stick in its beak?

The bird seemed to consider this problem for a time, then it let the stick drop, bent its long neck and laid its too-long beak sideways in the water. Is that how it usually drank?!

 I felt guilty that I hadn’t provided a big enough bird bath…

The other puzzle has been this little brown bird that often scuttles across my ‘backyard’, hiding in lantana-bush nearby, then dashing across the grass.

I am told it is a Buff Banded Rail, and sometimes I see two of them.

I am delighted to know what my shy scurrier is at last.

Coastal offerings

Early mornings often catch the river near Dunbogan in its mirror-like state, with the seaside banks still dark but Dooragan lit up by the sun.

If it’s been a gently receding tide, the sandy shore shows how many residents have come up for air since.

At Kattang Nature Reserve, on the clifftops, the showy yet virginal flowers of this small Clerodendrum floribundum tree flaunt their long stamens like antennae. Such flowers ought to be enough, but the fruit that follows is also stunning: black with fleshy red open collars or calyxes. No wonder it is also called Lolly Bush.

The Tuckeroo  (Cupaniopsis anacardiodes) trees are fruiting now, although the ribbed balls are not yet the bright yellow they will become. Many birds like to eat the red seeds inside these.

Common to the point of being over-abundant there, what I assume is the Coastal Tea Tree (Leptospermum laevigatum?) is displaying beautiful arching branches of its simple white flowers.

And my final treat from that walk at Kattang is this twisted and lichened trunk, almost reptilian. I always want to ask such unusual trees for their history: how and why did you grow like this?