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
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
Climate data update
The sea level, rainfall and temperature climate pages have been updated with the latest data from the BOM. As per usual temperature and rainfall are almost up to date but sea level is more than a year behind with the latest reading from December 2013. Why is this?
Always interesting to see how the most recent weather extremes stack up against the last century or so of readings. This most recent summer that felt so hot was nothing special if you look back only 15 years or so, but the longer term trend is clear for sea level and temperature. But not rainfall.
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