Ben Cruachan – natural history

After the walk back to the vehicle from the hut we backtracked and continued on to the Moroka Horseyards, there were quite a few campers in residence, so we drove to the end of the track and broke out our lunch packs. They didn’t take long to get through, and then we were walking down river to the crossing and Morgan’s Gully beyond. Every time we’ve been there we’ve seen Satin Flycatchers, and they didn’t disappoint us this time, Peter spotted a pair right at their traditional breeding site. The gully is not far downstream from the bridge which was in a sorry state of disrepair, and we were soon there. Swamp Tigertails were patrolling everywhere and I got more photos, including a pair in the wheel position. The sphagnum swamp was draining nicely via rivulets, and these paused on their way to the river in pools several metres across. And over those pools flew damselflies, but it was a glint of red that caught our eyes, a tiny red and black dragonfly was also patrolling. It was so small it was hard to keep track of, but eventually persistence paid off and we had pictures. A look in the camera monitor jogged my memory, and I realised we had the Australian Pigmyfly which I’d been reading about the night before.

The Alpine Flatwing was the next find, a sober grey damsel, but then we saw an even smaller glint of red. This was a tiny wisp, green thorax, reddish abdomen with a blue tip, and if we thought the pigmyfly was hard to follow, this one was almost impossible. I lost it completely at the first pool, but then Peter called from the next to say there were some there. Hard though they were to see, they were even harder to photograph, being virtually invisible in the camera viewfinder, but a tandem pair was easier and I succeeded.

This species is the Aurora Bluetail, barely an inch long, and it was the fifth new species for me on the day. I thought I may have had another with a tiny metallic green damsel, but it turned out to be a female of the same species. While I was busy photographing, Peter found a small garden of the beautiful Fairy’s Aprons, the bladderwort, Utricularia dichotoma, and not far away we found a colony of leek orchids with flowering stems rising out of the tannin stained water. That night I tried to identify the species without success, an email to my orchid guru James brought the response that it was probably a form of Prasophyllum alpestre, the Mauve Leek Orchid. A magic place indeed. By this time it was mid afternoon, time to make tracks, so after negotiating the wrecked bridge again, and pausing for photographic attempts at the flycatchers, we were back in the vehicle heading for the road home and a search for Fisch’s Greenhood. The first stand of Woollybutt brought us to a halt, but we had no luck, then we drove up on to a saddle and stopped again. The going was much easier there, and after five minutes we found what we were looking for on a gently sloping grassed area under the trees, not Fisch’s, but Pterostylis decurva, the Summer Greenhood, one of the most elegant of the greenhoods.

You’d think we’d seen enough on what had been a wonderful day, but no, Peter, in jest, ordered a lyrebird, and halfway home, after we’d followed a cantankerous emu along the road for a kilometre or so, a male lyrebird with full tail streaming behind crossed the road in front of us. What a finale we thought, but then a short distance further on, a beautiful Wonga Pigeon finally closed the book on a day to remember. By the way, if you are wondering about the title, there’s an explanation and more here.