On another gloomy day a Satin Bowerbird paused in the angophora and the resulting photographs also had a certain quality of subtlety to them. A feeding table is below the angophora, that accounts for all the claw marks in the bark, it’s a popular perching spot. All shots were taken hand held without the benefit of an image stabilised lens.





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New Hollands are back in the garden too, we used to have them breeding year round for many years, but then they deserted us until their recent reappearance.

The Crimson Rosellas also like a taste of nectar, but they have a vandalistic habit of snipping off a whole flower spike, sampling a few individual flowers then dropping it to take another. The ground under the shrubs can be littered with flower spikes, we’ve renamed them Criminal Rosellas…..



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Unusually, this male bird just sat in the water for quite some time after splashing before moving up into the foliage above to preen. Click to enlarge.

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The next was taken on Ektachrome, which sadly has not aged gracefully, with a reddish cast to the transparency. After quite some time fiddling with the colour balance I finally hit auto colour in Photoshop and apart from minor adjustments stayed with that. I probably took this photograph from near where my cousin Jim is standing in the first shot.

A graphic illustration of the power of the Avon River after flood rain.

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I was late getting away, and bats were already flying as I made my way along the bush track, showing up in the headlights as they swooped low after insects. Two people were getting into their vehicle when I arrived at the Channel overlook, we said hello, I didn’t ask what they’d been doing and they didn’t ask me what I was up to, although they must have wondered why I was starting to unload stuff in the near darkness. With the light shining it wasn’t long before the first moth arrived, a small Hepialid, a Fraus species different I think to a similar species I’ve seen recently. It landed on the track and that’s where I had to photograph it.

Several much larger Hepialids came in, Oxycanus dirempta if I’m correct, this was a very handsome individual of most attractive colour.

Several geometrids that were quite new to me arrived, of similar shape to species in the Ennominae sub family I’ve been getting recently, but with broad bands on the fore wings. These are the subject of investigation at the moment so I don’t have even a genus name.

Another Geometrid that I recently photographed for the first time turned up here too, and pleasingly settled with its wings spread showing the hind wings, the hind wings can sometimes be important for identification purposes but are often hidden. It is Paralaea polysticha.

With the cooler weather small moths seem to be much less common, but I did get one of the Footmen, Tigrioides alterna, the Alternate Footman.

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The first Yellow-faced Honeyeater we’ve had in quite a while, brings this month’s bird bath count of native species to thirteen.

On a track beside a pine plantation Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos were in numbers, and along the bush tracks on the way home Victoria’s floral emblem, Epacris impressa was putting on a beautiful show, a feature of the bush at this time of year.

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I mentioned a while ago hearing frogs when I was about to make the creek crossing on my way home one night. Well, on the next visit I took the recorder to capture the calls for the purpose of identification. They were still calling, and I’m reasonably sure the species is Pseudophryne semimarmorata, the Southern Toadlet. Pseudophryne dendyi has a similar call, if you’d like to hear both go to the Frogs of Australia site. Click here for my recording, turn your speakers up a little.
The little fellow above is Crinia signifera according to my frog guru.

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I think I was lucky to take the opportunity, when I made the turnoff on to the approach track there was a sign fixed to a tree, “prescribed burning to be carried out” and the trunks of the trees are still black from the last fire…. pity help the bush.
The mothing spot was beautiful when I arrived in the late evening, with the perfumes of the mint bush and other vegetation a delight. It didn’t take long to set up the gear and I settled down in my chair to watch the bats flitting overhead, several micro bats and one much larger.

It took maybe an hour for much to happen but then a big beauty came in, the first of several instantly recognisable as Notodontids. It is Hylaeora eucalypti, commonly known as the Gum Rough-head, the beauty of the moth belies the name.

That was just the start, soon after the first of several White Stemmed Gum Moths, Chelepteryx chelapteryx arrived, a female, and by the time I packed up I had several, females and males on the sheet with the rough-heads. Some landed on the ground, and to avoid stepping on them I carefully picked them up and transferred them to the safety of the sheet.

I did of course get smaller moths in, the most interesting of which was another Notodontid, an Epicoma, so far an un-named species.

The night’s moths can be seen here, I haven’t got around to naming them yet but it will happen.

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