Red-necked Wallabies of Mt Rae (near Taralga)

My friend Mark Selmes at Mt Rae regularly sends me wildlife photos taken at his property. This week he has excelled himself with photos of his young male Red-necked Wallabies (Macropus rufogriseus) testing themselves against eachother - (as young male mammals are prone to do).

Then there is a wonderful portrait of the "Old Buck" Red-necked Wallaby, watching and observing the young pretenders to his throne. At this stage, he has no problems, for they are fighting eachother - not him!

***** ****** *****

Mark wrote:
The ultimate winner is just watching the futile attempts of these three. He stands next to the female only yards from me, and defies all attempts from the younger three to get close.
His is the face of experience, a seasoned fighter.
The female is not happy - she often hides in my (now overgrown ) garden with her "little one" at foot, to seek protection and some interesting plants
to eat.

But this morning the males are emboldened and seem to have no fear of me anymore. She runs for the bush, her little one disappearing into the garden shrubs, sitting silent as he has been trained to do.

In the bush the fur is flying as Red-necks run in all directions.

(Click to enlarge - that is loose fur catching the light, not flies.)

Although this is nature and she is not a raised wallaby I've had enough and
chase after them. If she WAS one of MY girls she would not be treated like this! (DJW Note: Mark was once a volunteer for WIRES - hence the demonstrated sense of "bonding".)

Mark continues: I find her hiding in the front of a wombat burrow.

The bigger and older male is fighting the others.
Fight scene AFight scene B

When I run in, they all flee, but the bigger one seems to forget himself and tries to push past me to get at the female, who is crouching in fear.

I let out a yell , and ALL the males flee.

The female comes out and sits silently next to me for 5 mins. She then hops quickly to the garden where her young one immediately appears. They hide in the shrubs for the next hour. Then Mum rests and feeds her little boy. They lie down and stroke each other.Occasionally shapes move on the ridge line - the males are still circling. I
keep an eye on the female and her little one and she sometimes nibbles on
the flowers. Then she dashes for the bush, her little one flying after her.

Here is another photo of the first (young) male sneaking up and spying on the young Mum.
It was quite funny as they all seemed to look at her - I was standing right there - and it was as if i didn't exist.

Gee, talk about one tracked minds!

MARK

DJW Comment.

You can see how Mark loves his animals.

To the "Purists" out there, I say don't worry about Mark's attempted interference in the mating rituals of the Wallabies - Mark is not out in the Mt Rae Forest 24/7 (as the jargon is).

No doubt the survival of the fittest is proceeding apace, despite Mark's protective instincts.

He is getting on with the real task confronting him, protecting the Mt Rae Forest from the local wood cutters who wish to clear the surrounding forests. See these previous posts:

• Images of Mt Rae Forest

• More rare plants from Mt Rae Forest

• Diuris chryseopsis "Common Golden Moth Orchid"
  

Swamp Wallaby and Hawk Moth

Here is a lovely Swamp Wallaby I found enjoying a feed in the long grass up on Mt Murray on Saturday afternoon. This was in the paddock adjacent to Celeste and Steve's studio at Cloud Farm.
It has a lovely warm red colour on on the back of its head and between its ears.This is a wider view to give you a sense of the lush grasses on which it was feeding.I am posting this as my brother brendan sent me an email a few nights ago about Hawk Moths. I replied that I had not seen any this year.

And lo and behold, tonight's batch of moths included this fine specimen.
They always remind me of Art Deco designed toy aeroplanes or even sleek 1930s race cars. It is a very fat Hawk Moth, but I am unable to determine which species it might be. The "Pale Brown Hawk Moth" does not appear to have the facial markings this one shows in the second image.
Here is a close-up view of the head.
The Moth is clinging on to my jacket. The antennae are clearly visible protruding from the top of the head, and the front feet are pointing forward.
I like the two prominent white lines starting at the front of the head and diverging up and over the eyes.
The mousy brown "fur" looks very soft.
I just cannot help admiring Hawk Moths when they turn up here.

Red-necked Wallaby near Stroud, NSW

By contrast to the large Grey Kangaroos I showed you yesterday, here are some of the very pretty, and much smaller Red-necked Wallabies (Macropus Rufogriseus) which I saw last week near Stroud, north of Newcastle.

This is a genuinely "wild" male Red-necked Wallaby which I saw at a property adjacent to "Washpool Creek" (one of many creeks in NSW with that name), near Stroud.
By contrast, these images are of a group of equally wild, but "socialised" Wallabies. These lovely animals have trained my friends Amanda and Steve to cut the grass just outside the fence, and to offer them regular feed.

Here is the buck Red-necked WallabyA Doe, heavy with a joey in her pouch

Another male, keeping his distance

My favourite image of the same doe.
Her joey did poke its head out, briefly.
You can see the entrance to the pouch, visible just under her front paws.
(Click to enlarge)

Life is sweet for these Wallabies.

Douglas Park. Images from Caroline's garden

I am now going back to Caroline's garden, with a few images left over from the other day.
Firstly, here is the Swamp Wallaby again, as seen the other day. Once again, caught in action in Caroline's vegie garden. This time, the target is the cabbage patch.

Here is the result, after it has left.

A Superb Fairy Wren (a.k.a. "Blue Wren"). Malurus cyaneus. This is a male bird, in "eclipse plumage", i.e., a male in non-breeding plumage. The tell-tale clue is the blue tail, and the dark beak and eye. Females have brown tail feathers, brownish beaks and a reddish mark around their eyes.
In the morning light, the leaves of the Pistachio tree were a lovely golden colour, as seen through the window of Caroline's lounge room. I could not resist taking the photo.
I showed an image the other day of a possible Crowea exalata, growing above the Cataract Gorge, in the yard of Caroline's neighbour's property. That plant had shorter leaves than today's plant, and wider-spread flowers.

Here is a better photo taken two weeks previously, of a similar species of plant, at Bombaderry. Although on the South Coast, near Nowra, it was growing in very similar habitat - a sandstone gorge. With a better photo here, I think this may be Crowea saligna. Croweas have 5 petals and a tightly structured cluster of stamens "cohering by their prominently pilose margins, apices spreading during anthesis." (PlantNET).

Rivers SOS meeting above Cataract Gorge, Douglas Park

The Rivers SOS group met at Caroline's place at Douglas Park, for our quarterly meeting, in May 2009.

Here are four images of the group, just getting the meeting under way.
Taken from the back end of the room.

From the top end of the room (with light behind me).
Here is a group photo of the Rivers SOS meeting, taken after our meeting adjourned.
It was good to be joined by a number of Environmental Studies students.
Caroline is very proud of the sign writing.
(Click to read the words)

After dinner (and a very fine dinner it was), we were entertained by two very fine musicians, Mirabai Peart (who has been a member of the Rivers SOS group for some time) and Mahesh Radhakrishnan. They play together in "Tapestries of Sound"

Mahesh sings and plays guitar, and Mirabai is a very fine violin player.

Here Mahesh is playing a Thamboura.After the music, we had an informal party.

Next morning, the resident Swamp Wallaby was up nice and early
tasting the delights of Caroline's vegetable garden.
This Wallaby has suffered some kind of injury, unfortunately.
After breakfast (his and ours) we went out to explore the local area.

We started with a quick look over the Cataract River Gorge.

Here is a zoom shot showing the river flowing below.

After the rain of the week before, there was a good flow happening.While walking back I noticed this plant, which I think is a Crowea exalata.
Then we drove over to the West Cliff Colliery.
I could not believe their "Zero Harm" slogan. Can you?

Then we went to "Marhnyes Hole", below Appin.
This is on the Georges River.

Here, Julie is explaining the damage which occurred after subsidence caused by BHP longwall mines. There has been much "remediation" work in this area. And, after a week of rain, the river was flowing reasonably well. Neville and Amanda are looking on.We hope to meet again, next time, at Stroud, to find out more about the efforts of the locals to save Mammy Johnson's River.
Neville ("Chappy") Williams is from Lake Cowal, in western NSW, where Barrick Gold's mine is destroying the lake, with the support of the NSW Government.

A few more photos of the Bird Orchid.

A few more photos of the Bird Orchid which I took with Chris from the Australasian Native Orchid Society (Illawarra Branch) today. Chris came down from Helensburgh to see these plants, and Colin and Mischa are going to come from Melbourne soon, too, to see both lots of plants.
Chris and I first went to see the Pterostylis hildae (Rainforest Greenhood) on Macquarie Pass. I was pleased to note that there are many buds still coming on. I did look at some other Chiloglottis leaves down there, but one which I had been following (with very large leaves) had been nibbled off, as its bud developed. Bugger. How can a Wallaby know to pick out the particular Orchid bud which is likely to be of special interest, as the one to eat? It ain't fair!

The good news was that when Chris and I moved across to the Budderoo Plateau, we found a Bird Orchid flower which was just a bud last week. Great.

Wollongong Bird Orchid, Simpliglottis chlorantha (Chiloglottis chlorantha)

At least this one was out in the open, not underneath a low-growing Banksia bush like last week's plant. You can see the oval-shaped leaves, the short stem, and the relatively large flower, compared to other members of the Chiloglottis group.

Labellum - cropped.

One group I am looking forward to photographing is this pair of buds, which conveniently look as if the flowers will be facing eachother. That should be a nice image when these buds open.
Then we went to look at and sniff the aroma of the Leucopogons. While doing that, we found a whole heap more of the Bird Orchids. So I left them for another day's photographing.

Bits and Pieces

Kindly wish me happy 700th posting, please. Thanks for following along for the ride. If it were not for the feedback from the readers, this would not be worth doing.

Last week I took Lena for one of her occasional visits to Mr Darcy. In fact I was visiting my friends Lyndon and Maria, but don't tell Lena that.

The grass was almost unbelievably bright green in the morning light. But the colour is real. Lena loves a romp around on this field of neatly trimmed grass, and checking out the sniffs from the resident Goat, the local Wombats and Wallabies, and occasional Rabbits.
Mr Darcy is very ornamental, statuesque one could say. He is suitably handsome, as any Jane Austen fan would agree. Colin Firth fans - eat your hearts out!
The dogs, Lena and her friend Mr Darcy were not shy. They never are.

And from the sublime to the mundane, I noticed a small, dull, but beautifully shaped fungus growing from a dry piece of wood, at Lyndon and Maria's house. A perfect parasol shape.
Underneath this little brown parasol is a startlingly beautiful structure of widely spaced gills. These gills are interesting in that they alternate between complete gills (going from the stem to the cap), and short, incomplete gills. The gills are also relatively widely spaced, compared to the more familiar "field mushrooms" which many people consume regularly, purchased from Greengrocers (or supermarkets - if you have forgotten that "Greengrocers" still exist).

I have not been able to track down what this fungus is, but it bears some resemblances to this Mycena stipata (from an European website).

Any advice would be welcomed, folks.

And, as with everything I like to do in this Blog, there is a tiny surprise waiting for you. Yes a minute insect (or an "arthropod" if you prefer). I have no idea what class, or order of creature this tiny creature is. I wondered if it might be a "proturan". I do not know. I certainly would welcome any advice from fellow bloggers. If you scroll back up to the image two above, you may now notice this creature, wandering around inside the gills of the fungus, on the top left side.
All I can make out for sure is that it has several dark grey protrusions which I assume are antennae, (on the far right hand side) and what appears to be two pairs of legs towards the front of the body, and other tiny feet, or other structures, but I cannot count how many pairs of legs this little creature has. As often happens, I was not even aware that this creature was present, until I developed the photograph. I might have checked its fine details with a 10x magnifying glass, otherwise.

Distressingly, an extended search of the Internet tonight brought little joy in trying to work out what "insects" (for want of a better word) live within fungi. I have seen these creatures before (several times), but I cannot not track down what they are. The fungi people concentrate on the types of fungi, but it seems that they seldom stray into discussing whatever creatures live on and within fungi. Apart from "Springtails", (Collembola), I have found little mention of creatures which feed on fungi. But they appear not to have a larval stage, and adults have a different body shape to this, with 6 body segments. This creature seems to have more segments than that.

As I have indicated, any help would be welcomed in identifying (above), and also the type of fungus the tiny little creature for which this little fungus is its entire "world".