Ben Cruachan – natural history

In the garden we have a plant of the correa formerly known as var. nummulariifolia, but apparently now called var. insularis. According to Wikipedia it is restricted to islands of the Furneaux group in Bass Strait, and our plant came from the late Bill Cane. For quite a number of years it has hardly flowered at all due to the drought conditions we have been experiencing, but with a little winter rain this year it has put out a flush of beautiful pale green flowers.

Regular readers will know that I put out a little seed for the king parrots, crimson and eastern rosellas, and common bronzewings that visit the garden. I have also noted that they don’t become dependent on the handout, eating some and then moving on to feed on naturally occuring food sources. Unhappily an adolescent criminal rosella decided that our correa was a component of that food source, and I looked out of the window to see it nipping off the flowers one by one for the taste of nectar in the base. By the time I moved it on there weren’t many left, and the ground beneath the plant was carpeted with flowers. We’d noticed previously that something had been busy pruning the Snowy River Wattle, and the crims would have to be the chief suspects there too, purely out of mischief as they would have derived no sustenance therefrom. The correa pruning vandal is on the left eating free seed, no gratitude at all…..

Click all to enlarge.

Wrens can be most frustrating to photograph, keeping constantly on the move, and blue males more than most being always on the lookout. A brief visit to Lake Guyatt produced the following picture, a flock was foraging beside the carpark, and this male was photographed from the car while it was checking things out from a fence rail.

The lake area generally was very quiet birdwise apart from wrens that were in good numbers, a small party of yellow thornbills were the only other bush birds evident. Waterbirds were restricted to a few black swans, chestnut teal, swamphens and moorhens. The latter species is one of my favourites, and I’m always trying to get a picture that is that little bit better.

Click to enlarge.