Too soon to Park the Ark?

The rain has come back!  Relatively gentle, but still above the drizzle level.  Most of the rivers to the South seem to be falling

Despite the expected continued precipitation we set off for a longer walk to Arrawarra Creek.  This was very pleasant most of the time since it was quite warm (which is what we had hoped for, coming North).  There was very little of reportable interest apart from seeing a large pig-dog looking beast snuffling in a driveway.  As the human occupants of the driveway emerged pitching rocks at the invader I assumed it wasn’t their dog.  The lady of that house explained that it seemed to be coming after their dogs.  Frances commented that at least we can pick our dog up.

On the topic of dogs, a house more or less opposite the rock-chuckers has a mutt that usually barks at Tammy.  They have a sign on the gate “Don’t worry about the dog, Beware of the Owner”.  This causes me to recall a sign we saw on Capri: “Çave Canem: ancora il Padrone” accompanied by a picture of a smoking Colt 45!

Getting back from this 8km slog we had some lunch and decided to go and investigate the situation at Red Rocks.  There were two aspects to this: (a) check out the tornado damage; and (b) assess the Beach Stone-Curlew situation.  The former was quite evident, although the damaged house which featured on the TV news the previous evening, while damaged didn’t look as badly done over as the bowling club - which had lost half its roof – or the netball courts – which had lost their fence and I suspect the bench shelter. 

As with our last visit to the area the Beach Stone-curlews were totally non-evident.  Neither were the Brolgas which feature on the community sign!  However I did add 3 species to the trip list (not counting the small waders which we could only see in silhouette on the sun-glare ridden mud.)

After another pause for refreshment, the weather had come really good so I took myself off for a wander around the heath opposite the house, hoping to scare up a Southern Emu-wren.  That didn’t happen but I did get a few images of interesting flowers.

 

I got a fair snap of a White-cheeked Honeyeater and a flypast by a Brahminy Kite.

A very positive bit of action was the erection of this sign.

The penalty would seem to be sufficient to deter folk from evil acts (one hopes that the Council - or NPWS- have some staff to react to tip-offs)!  As most of the houses backing on to the park have no back fences I assume the residents enjoy the access to the 'wild'.  Certainly one lady was taking great pleasure in feeding scraps to 'her' Kookaburras.

This final shot by Jupiter Pluvius scored 61.4mm.  The total for the 5 day event was 498.8mm: somewhat more than Carwoola recorded in the whole of 2009!