Where Canberra birds spend Winter

An excellent nights sleep and up to find the fire had kept going all night and thus warmed the lounge quickly once I got up.  As we are only about 10km in a straight line from coastal rainforest it is thought provoking how cold it can get overnight.  I initially suspected this might be to do with altitude: my research on Google Earth suggested this area (like the place we stayed at Tomewin, which also needed a fire in the evening) is about 300m elevation.  However my GPS, used in situ, suggests 36m which is much more in line with my memory of the vertical relationship between this place and the sea.  Possibly the on-line system is registering somewhere else as Topi?

When we last stayed here we were visited by a Staffordshire Bull Terrier.  Pebble the Ravens: it turned up again on our first morning!  A very affable pooch but as I said before, if things got serious Tammie would, I suspect, be mincemeat (and so would anyone that tried to intervene).  Eventually I persuaded it to disappear from whence it came (which turns out to be a house about 1500m away) and we took Tammie for a walk along Topi road.  A very pleasant stroll recording several additions to the trip list (all common Summer birds in Canberra).  No more signs of the Staffie but a small white hairy beast did come and work its way through the entire sniff-routine with cooperation and participation from herself.

After a few hours creative sitting on the deck reading an excellent book (‘Bad Form” by Simon Brett) I decided to go on a bird prowl and explore the firebreaks being created round the property.  My idea in doing this was to get into some of the areas from which I could hear birdcalls.  Being a twerp, I went out without my camera. 

[A small parenthesis.  Some readers of my efforts have been known to say that orchids are more important than birds.  To quote the late Frankie Howerd: “No, no: don’t laugh at the afflicted!”.   The following may keep them happy.]

After sloshing around a bit in the swamp downstream from the dam the fire break got a tad scenic so a need to follow a contour kicked in.  Almost as soon as I got off the break I realised the forest floor was carpeted in orchid leaves.  And greenhood flowers!  Reverting to an earlier thrust about the length of acceptable and unacceptable words I believe the 6 letter word ‘sodomy’ is acceptable while another 6 letter word, beginning with ‘b’ and meaning the same, is only accepted in special interest groups. So, not wishing to offend anyone I will say ‘Sodomy it!  I don’t have my camera.’  I marked my point of departure from the track with a branch laid across it and headed for the house.  I got there having reminded myself a couple of times how Lawyer Vine got its name.  (Once it gets its hooks into you it never lets go.)

On getting the camera I took off and bush bashed my way back to the track, about 5m from my marker!  A few snaps were taken and I suddenly realised that as well as the greenhoods

there were midge orchid (Acianthus sp) leaves.  And one of them had a flower.  The greenhood has been identified as Pterostylis nutans (thanks Tony Jean and Denis)

I planned to take Francie back to see these but she didn’t fancy battling the lawyer vine so I marked the spot with surveyors tape and wandered back to the house.  We all then went for a walk and found an absolute heap of midge orchids.  Some difficulty followed in getting decent images in this dark forest in mid-Winter but the following are not too bad.  I checked the area again the next day and – to my surprise - everything was as before!

 These have since been identified as Acianthus fornicatus.  Again thanks T, J and D.

To top off a lovely day Frances spotted a Bar-shouldered Dove: an addition to my Topi list albeit the second on this trip.  As a slight counterpoint to these good vibes I should note that invertebrate wars reared their head again today: we saw a leech as we looked at one bunch of orchid rosettes and when I took my boots off I found a red patch (not wine – too early in the day and I am drinking the Chardonnay tonight) on a sock.  As far as I can establish Tam has not participated in this struggle.  That statement is made after I gave her a fair searching when I had to wash her thoroughly following her finding both fox and ‘roo crap to roll in!