River and creek.
Mar 27th, 2009 by Duncan
It didn’t look all that promising as I drove out to Bellbird Corner, birding wise that is, overcast with a hint of rain, but if it had rained I would have very happily turned round and gone home. It was dead calm too, and I don’t think I saw a bird as I walked along the tracks heading towards the picnic area, not looking good. When I went for the mail In the morning, I’d seen a 4WD ute with an electro fishing boat in tow parked near the post office. The sign writing on the side of the boat told me it belonged to a company that did fish surveys, and what did I see and hear when I rounded a bend in the river, yes, the boat with two occupants on board doing their thing.
When I reached the clearing they were close enough to say g’day, and although I would have liked to quiz them I kept moving, hoping to catch up on the way back. Across the bridge on to the new track along the Newry Creek, imaginatively named The Creek Walk, and things took a turn for the better. The 18 mm of rain we had recently had sent a small flow down the creek, and White-browed Scrub Wrens were working along the muddy banks, too distant and dim unfortunately for a good picture. A Yellow-faced Honeyeater was bathing in the clear water, and Grey Fantails were in numbers. Confiding too, one in particular was flitting around within a metre of my head, and when it landed a bit over a metre away I didn’t think the zoom would focus, but it surprised me.
I stood there for quite a while hoping for better opportunities with the scrubbers, but had to be content with fantail pictures.
The last time I was there I saw a lot of Silvereyes feeding in the Tree Violet shrubs, and they were still on the job, I had no luck with the camera as they worked through the prickly foliage, so I walked on hoping for a better chance on the way back. And so it turned out, there were quite a few in a big shrub, plus several and a Yellow-faced Honeyeater feeding on something on the ground. The Silvereyes were sporting the rich buff flanks of the Tasmanian birds, and they were still very difficult to draw a bead on, this was the best shot I managed.
I was interested to see what they were feeding on low down, and on checking after they’d flown on, found that they and the Yellow-face were eating the tiny fruit of the Nodding Saltbush, Einadia (formerly Rhagodia) nutans, which by the way was a new addition to the native flora list of the reserve. It has obviously always been in this part of the reserve, due to the fact that it hasn’t been regularly grazed, but this was the first time I’d noticed it, thanks to the birds. This saltbush is also the food plant for the larvae of the Chequered Blue butterfly, one I’ve never seen. I’ll have to have a closer look at all those Grass Blues that flit around, I may have overlooked the CB in the past.
Back at the clearing I was in luck, the boat was pulled into the little beach with water pump trouble, and I yarned with the two for ten minutes. They had a bin of European Carp, of course, and when I asked what native fish they’d seen they told me Short-finned Eel, Flat-headed Gudgeon, and Grayling. Sixty years ago I used to catch very nice Tupong and Blackfish in the river, but they hadn’t located either yet, the turbidity of the water may have been working against them they thought. Let’s hope that those once common native fish haven’t been eliminated by the degradation of the river since I was a lad.
Click all to enlarge.