I’ve already done a post on the Prickly Moses, but wanted to post a picture of one that I came across today while looking at clubmosses.
Another Prickly Moses
All posts by Joe Lipson
Beard-heath
Leucopogon amplexicaulis
“A small weak shrub to 1m tall with distinctive leaves” NPOS p.108
Will had “B.O.B” the classroom mascot for the weekend so we decided to take him down to the river to throw some stones! It had been raining for pretty much the whole previous week and the ground was soggy, and being the winter solstice it was dim and cold.
I spotted this small plant growing on a damp sandstone ledge near where of Allan Small creek meets Middle Harbour river. As usual I couldn’t identify it but figured the distinctive hairy leaves would give me a good chance of being able to look it up.
I’m pretty confident it’s a Leucopogon amplexicaulis, commonly known as Beard-heath. Beard heath is a small plant, up to 1m in height, made up of sparse scrambling stems with leaves attached directly. The leaves are 30 – 90mm long, heart shaped and have a distinctive “beard” of white hairs around their margins.
Flowing time is spring and winter, the specimen pictured was just beginning to flower. Fruiting is September to December and apparently it’s edible, I’ll be sampling some when it’s ready!
Resources and references
Fan-tailed cuckoo
Cacomantis flabelliformis
After the big storms a few weeks ago we had another wet weekend. It didn’t stop us from getting outside though, the two boys agreed to brave the leeches for a walk down to the river to see the flood damage and see what birds we could spot.
The creeks were running high but still crossable, it was clear from the debris and flow patterns how high the water had been.
Bird wise it was pretty quiet, but near the river just past Murrumba waterfall a Fan-tailed cuckoo flew overhead from one tree to another. Yet again I couldn’t identify it until I got back and studied the photo, hopefully I’ll get it next time.
Fan-tailed cuckoo’s are a common bird found all down the east coast of Australia, south and all the way through to southern west Australia. They are also found on other nearby Pacific islands of New Caledonia, New Guinea, Fiji, New Zealand.
They are a medium sized bird with a slate grey head, wings and back, it’s breast is a lighter grey, tail is horizontally striped with black and white. A clear identifier of the Fan-tailed cuckoo is the yellow ring around its eyes.
Cuckoos have an interesting and brutal way of child rearing. The cuckoo mother lays it’s eggs in the nests of other species of birds. It ejects one of the existing eggs then leaves. The cuckoo eggs often hatch first and the chick then proceeds to push the other eggs out of the nest. The presumably unsuspecting host bird then raises the cuckoo chick as it’s own! What a bastard!
Notes and Sources
Expedition up Rocky Creek
I wrote an earlier post on a spot at the tidal limit of middle harbour creek called Bungaroo where Governor Phillip and an exploration party camped on April 16th 1788.
It appears John ( who inspired my original post ) is still hard at work trying to uncover old records and get some official recognition for Bungaroo. As part of his research John said he’s now considering that the Bungaroo site of Governor Phillip’s April 16th camp may have been at the tidal limit of Rocky Creek rather than Middle Harbour Creek.
It sounded plausible, and a good excuse to head up Rocky Creek again for a closer look!
To get there I headed north on the trail that follows the west bank of Middle Harbour River. Upon hitting Rocky Creek the trail heads west to where the creek can be crossed on foot near the tidal limit. When I got there the tide was low, the fresh water was cascading into the salt just below the crossing. At this point I left the trail and kept heading up Rocky Creek. About 100m further upstream the creek deepened to the point where I could not see the bottom, then a little way past this was a lip in the rock ( about 50cm high ) where the fresh water cascaded down. I’ll have to go back to confirm but I reckon this could be the point where fresh water meets salt when the tide is high. With the cascading fresh water meeting the salt at a deep pool this looks like a plausible alternate location of Governor Phillip’s Bungaroo camp.
I found some documents on the Manly Council site relating to Governor Phillips expedition and his April 16th camp.
They report that low tide on April 16th 1788 was at 11:16am, which would make high tide at around 5pm. The same documents recount Surgeon White’s ( one of the expedition members ) notes as saying they reached the tidal limit where fresh meets salt at 4pm, close to high tide.
“About four o’clock in the afternoon we came to a steep valley, where the flowing of the tide ceased, and a fresh-water stream commenced. Here, in the most desert, wild and solitary seclusion that the imagination can form any idea of, we took up our abode for the night; dressed our provisions, washed our shirts and stocking, and turned our inconvenient situation to the best advantage in our power.”
Surgeon White, April 16th, 1788.
So it looks like they did arrive at the spot near to high tide, I will have to return at high tide to observe where fresh water meets salt. Of course not all high tides are equal, and we’re looking back to a time where mean sea levels were around 20cm lower than they are now.
