Orchids and Birds at Bullio

Glossy Black-Cockatoos are listed as Vulnerable in NSW.

They love Casuarina seed cones (of which they eat both the small seeds and the woody cone itself). We were tipped off by the owner of the property we were on that "Glossies like to hang out here".

Female Glossy Black-Cockatoo
which is listed as Vulnerable under the
NSW Threatened Species Act

Sure enough within a few minutes we heard their relatively quiet squawks and creaking sounds (much quieter than the Yellow-tailed Black-Cockatoos I am familiar with).

They were sitting quietly in the Casuarina trees, and allowed us to approach fairly close, before dropping out of the Casuarinas and flying to a nearby Eucalypt tree.

The photo above is pretty awful, but it shows the orange red colour of te tail and, if you click to enlarge it, you can just make out a few yellow feathers on the neck.

I will always defend publishing an image of low quality if it shows the relevant diagnostic features.

Sandstone escarpment on the Wombeyan Caves Road
near the Wollondilly Lookout
which is almost directly over this property.
This is just close to the "tunnel" archway
on that road.

We watched a "Wedgie" circle below the cliff-line until it managed to gain enough height to then set off in along steady glide, to cross the Wollondilly Valley. It is lovely to watch these birds behaving so masterfully - in full control of the elements.

Young Wedge-tailed Eagles are mid brown in colour with reddish-brown heads and wings. They become progressively blacker for at least the first ten years of their lives; adults are mostly dark blackish-brown.

Circling below the cliff lines was a young
(note the light colour patches)
Wedge-tailed Eagle

In our guests' backyard they had many garden flowers which attracted the Monarch Butterflies (Danaus plexippus) This is a nice grey-leaved Salvia with blue flowers. These Butterflies are greedy nectar-feeders. They rely upon the Mild Weeds and native vines (and sometimes Figs) as host plants, though for their food for their Caterpillars. The Milk Weed was very common, growing beside the track down the hill to this house. I did not see any on their property, but Monarch Butterflies earn their name Wanderer Butterfly, so a few minutes flying time is no problem for them.

Monarch Butterfly on Salvia flowers.

The reason we were at this property was because Ken, our host, had rung me on Friday, in fulfillment of  a two year old promise to "ring me when the Little Dumpies come into flower".

When he rang me he said he had "hundreds of Little Dumpies" A small group of us came to the property on Sunday to see what Ken had to show us. 
This is what he meant. 
He was not kidding, nor was he exaggerating.

"Little Dumpies" is the popular name for Diplodium truncatum.

A colony of "Little Dumpies"

This is how they get their popular name.

Little Dumpy (Diplodium truncatum)
You can see the mown lawn grass in the background
so you can see how short the flower stem is.

"Parsons Bands Orchid" Eriochilus cucullatus

We also saw a few other Orchid species while walking around this wonderful property.

This charming little Acianthus pusillus was a total surprise for most of us, except for Bruce and Alison (from the Central Coast) who happened to have seen this species in flower when travelling through Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park on their way down here.

These tiny Acianthus flowers were barely the height of a finger. Much smaller than the related Acianthus exsertus we had seen on Saturday. 

But there were more subtle differences in flower shape which Bruce and I worked through by comparing our various photos.

1. The protruding tips of the lateral sepals (underneath the labellum) are more prominent than in Acianthus exsertus
2. The dorsal sepal has this wide section over the column, which then suddenly tapers to a tip.
   Acianthus exsertus is more or less straight the full length of the dorsal sepal.
3. Bruce also pointed out that the bract underneath the flower is at least half the length of the ovary, whereas Acianthus exsertus is a much larger flower and yet the bract is roughly the same size, so proportionately, this one's bract covers more of the ovary.

Acianthus pusillus

Acianthus pusillus

This is a Blunt Greenhood (Diplodium obtusum)

These plants were growing in an open grassed area.

(Diplodium obtusum)

And now for a fungus which I had never seen before.

I kid you not - this fungus is called
"Phallus rubicundus"

This specimen had collapsed already.
My Blogging colleague Martin has posted about 

this fungus quite recently, 

after the rains around Bungendore and Canberra.

Phallus rubicundus

Monarchs of Dunmore

After looking at the "Little Dumpies" yesterday, Kirsten and I went for a little drive to "other places of interest" in the Shellharbour district. We went firstly to Bass Point Reserve, a small patch of Littoral Rainforest, right on the coast. That site is highly disturbed, being favoured by tourists, fishermen, and being adjacent to a large Blue Metal quarry. The roads within the Reserve are quite rough.

After looking around for a few minutes I suggested going to Swamp Road at Dunmore, so I could show Kirsten one of my favourite Fig Trees. In effect this tree has two separate trunks which act together, to feed and support the tree. It is, I believe a Small-leaved Fig, Ficus obliqua.

The trunk of this tree is not "split" as such, but rather started as a seed which germinated off the ground, on another tree, and then it sent its roots down to the ground.

That first set of roots, once they reached the ground, they coalesced, forming into a solid trunk (at left of the tree). From the angle of this first "trunk" it seems most likely that the original supporting tree was collapsing under the weight of its own canopy, plus the weight of the Fig Tree.

Then as the Fig grew further, it sent down a second set of adventitious roots, which also coalesced, acting as "prop roots" in this case, eventually becoming the main trunk of the tree (on the right hand side).

While we were there admiring this magnificent, but quirky Fig Tree, we noticed a number of very bright Monarch (or Wanderer) Butterflies flying around.

Monarch or Wanderer Butterfly flying past

 We noticed several pairs of Wanderer Butterflies mating.
Mostly they sat very still.

Mating pair of Wanderer Butterflies on a Peppercorn Tree

Pardon the blurry image, but these mating Butterflies
both opened their wings briefly

momentarily revealing their upper wing colours.
I only got one slightly out of focus shot

before they resumed their closed wing position.

Fortunately Kirsten was there to take a decent photo
and this is it.
It shows only four legs

Most adult Butterflies in the
Nymphalidae family appear to have only have four legs.
In fact they have an extreme reduction in the front set of legs.

Kirsten's photo of the mating pair of Wanderer Butterflies.
As with most Butterfly species, the underwing colour
is much paler than the upperwing, which is usually only seen
when the Butterfly is flying.

Milkweeds and Monarchs

This afternoon, as I was leaving Carrington Falls Reserve (part of the Budderoo National Park) I noticed an unfamiliar white flower growing beside the road.

Gomphocarpus fruticosus Narrow-leaved Cotton Bush

Naturally I stopped to have a closer look. I realised from the shape of the flowers that it was probably in the Milkweed group. That was easily verified by tearing a single leaf. White sticky sap emerged immediately.

Gomphocarpus fruticosus Narrow-leaved Cotton Bush

I recognised that this plant, whatever it might be (and I did not know for sure, at this stage) was both a terrible weed and the preferred host plant for caterpillar of the the Monarch Butterfly. Sure enough, you can see a caterpillar of that species of Butterfly feeding on the plant, just underneath this head of white flowers. It has striking yellow and black bands across its body. It is just visible in the lower section of that image.

Gomphocarpus fruticosus Narrow-leaved Cotton Bush

Seed Capsule forming, It gives the plant its name of "Swan Plant"

I ought have recognised this plant immediately, for my Mother, having been a keen Floral Art enthusiast, often used the seed pods of the Swan Plant in her flower arrangements. But that was in Melbourne, when I was a child. When we lived in Canberra, that plant was not available, as the climate is too cold for it to grow there.
The seeds earn the plant the other name of Narrow-leaved Cotton Bush, for they have a structure attached to the hard seed which is made up of silky filaments, which allow the seed to be carried freely on the wind. And that is how it manages to be such a weedy plant. The plant is also toxic to stock, which makes it a pest for agriculturalists and livestock farmers.

The black and yellow colours of this caterpillar are distinctive.

Black and yellow seem to be universal warning colours in Nature.

Add to that the two pairs of dangerous looking (but harmless)

black "tentacles" which the caterpillar waves around

and I was persuaded not to interfere with it.

Those warning signals seem to keep birds away.

Caterpillar of Monarch Butterfly - Danaus plexippus

This caterpillar is the larval stage of what is arguably the most famous Butterfly in the world - the Monarch Butterfly. The Caterpillar feeds on various plants (including this one) that have a poisonous milky sap. The Caterpillar appears to retain the poisons in its body making it unpalatable to predators. The Monarch Butterfly's orange colour is a warning for predators to stay away, as the chemicals they got (as caterpillars) from feeding on milkweed plants makes the butterflies poisonous. Source Don Herbison-Evans website
This plant is in the family Apocynaceae, many of which produce strong chemicals, some of which are used medicinally, Many plants in this family are toxic to animals, including humans


The Butterfly of this caterpillar is famous for its migrations in North America. You can click to see a clip from a BBC documentary about that migration here.

The Caterpillar of the Monarch Butterfly "develops two pairs of black tentacles protruding from its back: a long pair on its mesothorax, and a shorter pair on its eighth abdominal segment. These tentacles are soft and in no way dangerous." Source Don Herbison-Evans website.

Caterpillar of Monarch Butterfly - Danaus plexippus

Caterpillar of Monarch Butterfly - Danaus plexippus

I met a friend while I was photographing the flowers and these Caterpillars, and I explained to her that I found myself with a moral dilemma. I wanted to destroy the plant because it is a Weed, (and particularly because it is growing within a National Park), but I did not want to kill the Caterpillars. We talked about this and we agreed to take off all flowers from the plant, and to destroy the several seed pods which were just developing, by crushing them on the road. The seeds were not nearly enough developed to be viable.