Ben Cruachan – natural history

After two days of hard labour clearing out all the shrubs that died during the drought, it was time for a day off so it was off to the edge of the recently burnt country for a look around. We’d had a report that Flame Robins had appeared, welcome news as they could have been badly affected by the fires up top, but as we drove through the open country before entering the bush we saw none, they may have already moved on further towards the coast where they winter. We started our walk along the narrow track to the sound of Grey Butcherbirds warbling in the distance, there were certainly plenty of them around, but other species were not all that plentiful. Nevertheless our list gradually grew, and then we arrived at the creek where I found the pair of Powerful Owls a few weeks ago. After taking a GPS fix for survey use, we checked the oliveberry trees where I saw them but they weren’t at home, however we picked up some pellets for analysis by RB who’s studying them at the moment. Nice sightings as we headed back were a pair of Golden Whistlers and a male Rose Robin, and by the time we reached the vehicle the count was 19 species.
It was 1 PM, time for lunch, so passing by severely burnt bush we drove to the river at Basin Flat. The track had been used as a break for backburning, and happily the bush running down to the river was untouched, with the beautiful tall Manna Gums at the picnic spot looking absolutely magnificent. We had lunch in their shade with Blue Wrens feeding to within a metre of our feet, the cameras were in the car of course, but we just sat quietly and enjoyed their company, they are the most delightful little birds.
Basin Flat slopes gently down to wide sand and gravel beaches beside the south flowing Avon, lush with stands of water loving teatrees, paperbarks, and bottlebrushes, at their best now being free of flood damage for quite some time. In contrast, the other bank slopes steeply up to the ridge-top, iron-red rock ledges and stunted vegetation baked by eons of fierce summer sun.

A wander upstream with birds in mind was in order, but when we reached the water’s edge our plans changed, dragonflies and damselflies of several different species were patrolling the river. Two dragonflies in particular caught our eye, a blue one, and a bright red one, individuals of the latter were working busily dipping their rear ends in the water as they moved along. I’ve had a singular lack of success photographing these creatures, never being able to get close enough for acceptable pictures, but as we watched we saw that they had favourite rocks they landed on for a rest. This confirmed a tip I got from Snail’s excellent blog some time ago, namely that they have “territories” and if you hang about you’ll eventually get lucky. Well, we did just that, and at last I got some nice pictures of the two that caught our eye, the Blue Skimmer, and the Scarlet Percher.

Hopefully I got the identifications right, luckily I found a great Victorian website with lots of photos. Click for larger pictures. We could have spent a lot more time along the river, but duty called for Peter and we headed for home, not without getting two more interesting sightings, a Rufous Fantail just above the picnic area, and on the edge of the bush. the biggest flock of Eastern Rosellas I’ve ever seen. Must have a day off more often.