Ben Cruachan – natural history

It’s always good to get into a bit of new country, and that’s what I did yesterday. Peter and I went to an eleven square kilometre flora reserve he wanted to check out a bit more thoroughly for his next club outing. Over the years I’d passed it dozens of times and only called in briefly once, always seemed to have something more important to attend to. We couldn’t have picked a worse day for it, heavy overcast with intermittent drizzling rain, not what you’d call ideal birding weather. I have a feeling that I’m likely to be drummed out of the regiment, whenever I get into some new bush my attention is invariably on the vegetation, not on the birds. As we drove along the perimeter track my brain was ticking off the eucalypt species, White Stringy, Mealy Stringy, But But, Manna Gum, Swamp Gum, Yellow Box, and beautiful fine foliaged Narrow-leaved Peppermint. However, Peter’s mind was on the job, and when he saw some movement we pulled up and pointed the bins up into the murk. The treetops were moving with small birds, but it was extremely difficult to see what they were, except for Varied Sittellas which were our first tick. Then after straining our eyes for a bit longer we started to get a handle on the others, they were not thornbills as I initially thought, but Pardalotes, mainly Spotted. I have never seen such numbers in the treetops before, although some years ago Coral and I saw a mixed flock of over fifty spotted and striated working over an area of ground in the Rushworth State Forest. That was an extraordinary sighting, and this was also something right out of the ordinary, we noticed quite a bit of interaction between individuals.
The ants must be expecting heavy rain, let’s hope they’re right, they’d been busy building up the entrances to their holes, some nearly six inches high, and one had us really intrigued. In the saucer shaped depression on the top there was a neat deposit of fox scats, how did they get there? It’s hard to believe that a fox could have dropped them there without damaging the mound, and surely it’s not possible that the ants gradually lifted them up as they worked, a bit of a puzzle. What do you think?

Our next stop was at the Monkey Creek crossing, where we walked up the creek to the open bush on the far side to see once again, Spotted Pardalotes, wherever we looked. White-naped Honeyeaters too, dozens of them, birds going everywhere. We briefly watched one pard checking out a knot hole in a tree, a perfect nest site for next Spring. I don’t know how many pardalotes we saw at the two sites, but it must have been many dozen.
Further along the track I asked Peter to pull up while I checked a magnificent big tree on the fence line, there was a low branch in the paddock next door so I hopped over to have a look for buds and fruit. Now, all my life I’ve read of manna, and I must have seen a million Manna Gums, but I’d never seen manna and had just about given it up as a bad job. I looked into the foliage and what did I see? Yes, manna, and the ground beneath was dotted with pea sized lumps. I called Peter over, and after making sure what we were eating we both sampled it, a creamy sweetness with a hint of coconut flavour.

While I was occupied with these diversions Peter was adding to the bird list which was growing steadily, a bit easier by now as the drizzle had stopped. Close to lunch time we’d nearly reached the end of the track, and stopped to check out the bush along the fence of the private property. I mentioned that we ought to be looking out for orchid leaves, and within five seconds eagle eye said, “like these”, or words to that effect. Acianthus leaves, hundreds of them in a large colony, with some in flower. They were larger than the ones we’d found at Candlewood, and it’s a fairly good bet that they are Acianthus exsertus. Extremely hard to photograph in the dim light under the trees, but after putting a piece of burnt wood behind one stalk the cameras managed to focus and we got pictures. Click for a larger image.


After lunch on the far side of the reserve we unsuccessfully tried to find an alternative return track, so went back the way we’d come, ticking our first raptor for the day, a Wedge-tailed Eagle. By the time we left the reserve the bird list stood at 28 species, not bad for such a difficult day, and wouldn’t you know it? The sun finally came out. I should have gone into the reserve years ago, it’s a great area, just shows what a bit of new blood can do. We made the obligatory stop at Lake Guyatt on the way home for some pictures of gulls and swans, here’s one to finish off. Click for a larger image.