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Rita's jottings & sightings

By Rita de Heer

February 08 has been a superb month for butterflies visiting my back yard in Mullumbimby.

With a small lime and cumquat trees allowing me a grandstand view, I have been able to observe the nuptial flight of two blue triangle butterflies, (top photo); an orchard swallowtail’s frenzied egg laying, one at a time all over the cumquat; and at least three species of caterpillars chomping on the lush growth brought on by the rain. One, the glossy black and white young of a fuscous swallowtail of with I still have to see an adult and several orchard swallowtail young. The third, which has in the meantime turned into a chrysalis similar to a lime bush leaf stump, still unidentified.

Yellow migrant butterflies wander through the yard from north to south usually without alighting anywhere. They fly quite erratically so are difficult to catch with the camera. Another, about the same size as the above, is white with black edges, which seems to like to visit the nasturtium but moves too fast to see properly.

A male eggfly butterfly, caught briefly on the washing line, also likes to sit with its wings outstretched, like moths, near the ground on the sweet potato vine leaves. The broad leaf paspalum growing lushly down the back draw dozens of mauve to dusky blue … their wings no bigger than a fat fingertip. The flowers of white root, a naturalised creeper, attract dozens of the small lavender butterflies as well as an elegant day flying spotted moth.

My main sources of information on butterflies are Create More Butterflies by Frank Jordan and Helen Schwenke available from this site’s bookshop, and Bugwise’s Butterfly Shapes and Colours available free in .pdf format from the Australian Museum website http://www.bugwise.net.au.

Seen any interesting native plants lately? Your observations and photos are welcome.rdeheer1@bigpond.com

Treespotting

The hoop pine (Araucaria Cunninghamii) on the corner of Dalley and Whian Streets in Mullumbimby is approx 28 metres in height, splitting into four stems at about 5 metres when I used the "Perspective Method" to measure its height. 

According to K C Sparrow in Surveying & Mapping Simplified (1941) this method most often used by artists. I used it because it was the easiest for me to do by myself. 

1) Stick a blob of white tape to the tree trunk at a known height, say your eye level close up. (Measure that first, from ground level, of course. Mine is 1.65 metres).

2) Walk away until you can see the whole tree [without falling flat on your back to see the top] and still see the blob.

3) With your thumb, mark ground level on a pencil or similar when its end marks the blob, holding the pen at arm's length.

4) Then find out how many times that goes into the height of the tree. In "my" hoop pine's case, 17 times. 

5) 17 x 1.65 = 28.5

As to this particular hoop pine's age, I have no idea and would be interested, in company I am sure with other readers, to hear from anyone in the know.

Huge drifts of seeds around Christmas time, during wind and storm, plus sleeves of bark, a very unusual sight.

Flindersia australis: Along Tincogan Street, between Dalley Street and Brunswick Terrace, Mullumbimby, there are about a dozen crow's ash (Flindersia australis) of varying ages. Does anyone know when these were planted ?

Coolamons: Late November-early December these flowered. I've noticed them here and there, but not known their name. The blossoms are similar to eucalyptus flowers in structure, pink but directly on thick branches as well as at the end of twigs.

There's one on Burringbar Street over the horse trough near Palm Park, almost finished its flowering; one in the Mullum Creek Group's present work site, behind the Mullum high school just beginning; there's quite a tall examplar in the grounds of Durrumbul Hall, to the south west of the building; and lastly I saw a drift of the flowers on Sherry's Bridge, suggesting one there.

Back in Mullum, a tall threesome, their trunks hidden in a bit of a jungle of weeds, in the quadrangle between the High School demountables in the Bowling Club's car park.

Wheel of fire (Stenocarpus siniatus) January 06: The  tree in Whian Street Mullum is this year aflame with flowers. A narrow tree, about 15 metres tall (?), probably older than fifty years, in the elbow of electricity cables due to its growth habit luckily has never yet needed trimming. 

The three wheel of fire (Stenocarpus siniatus) trees February 06: alongside the swimming pool at Mullumbimby, also flowering, together illustrate this species' growth habit.

According to the field book I use (Mangroves to Mountains by the Logan River Society for Growing Australian Plants (SGAP) p194) wheel of fire trees are narrow and can grow to about 30 metres tall. 

All three have a similar sized canopy of leaves and flowers. The difference is in the height of the trunks, the tree nearest Jubilee Avenue the tallest. It is as though they develop an optimum canopy first and then just keep raising it.

Brush cherries (Syzygium australe) March 06: Beside the front entrance of the Mullum Swimming Pool are two and a sour cherry (Syzygium corynanthum) towards the right, all between 5-7 metres tall. (Mangroves to Mountains by the Logan River Society for Growing Australian Plants (SGAP) p 193)

These began flowering early March, when it was still hot. I read somewhere that sour cherries flowering is a sign that autumn is just around the corner.

Sour cherry berries are bright red and shaped like miniature wax jambus. Their taste, too, is so similar I wonder whether these species are related.

With a potential height of approx 30 metres and possibly a difficult size so close to a building and overhead wires, I suspect that that sour cherry tree is a ring-in, mistaken at its seedling stage for its very similar cousin brush cherry, potential height of 15 metres.

Melaleuca April 06: In amongst all the road works and especially at the Brunswick/Ocean Shores roundabout young paperbarks are flowering.

A species of melaleuca for which I have no additional reference. I say young because the ones I saw were saplings no thicker than 5 - 7 cm diameter.

Does anyone have a view of a regular paperbark swamp, with flowering adults?

Bangalow palms July 06: In many places around the catchment, bangalow are putting out their flower stems.

Unfortunately this Foambark tree recently lopped to continue to fit under wires in the Azalia Street Bridge reserve -for want of a better name - part of the Mullum Creek group's site.

Last time it rained seriously, a foambark in my street gave off a considerable amount of foamy water which stood in puddles under the tree for about an hour after the rain stopped.

Nov 06: I believe the intersection between more rain at the right time and numerous trees in the various Landcare plantings reaching flowering age i.e about seven years have resulted in this Spring's amazing, and continuing display. 

Approaching the Mullum end of the Federation, for example, on the right hand side, was a young tree in all its glory only a few weeks ago, which I believe is a Maiden's Blush (Sloanea australis). Alas, I was there too late with my camera.

Macarangas (Macaranga tanarius) too, are putting on a lush display. This specimen in the Petria Thomas 2000 Olympic Landcare Park behind the Mullum swimming pool. Whether these are male or female flowers I have yet no idea.

Plant spottings

November 05: The various clumps of Lomandra (L. longifolia) around town, eg in front of Meadow's Clinic, Mullum, are flowering and attaining a good size. They don't have a good name with some gardeners, due to looking "messy". Some people trim them. I'd be interested to find out what animals live in and on the clumps. At the present, end of the month, berries have formed, which are still dark green.

September 05: went orchid spotting at Minyon Falls as a guest of Toni and Brian Spruce, members of John Moyes' U3A Native Orchid group. 

We learned to identify Dendrobium Kingianum flowers and various crosses thereof, as well as see them in the wild. In one place we saw the D. Kingianum flowering alongside Thelymitra Aristata, a species new to me. 

Although Minyon Falls is, of course, not part of the Brunswick River catchment, they are both Big Scrub ecologies and as such have vegetations in common. This led me to wonder whether anyone has seen these orchids growing locally. 

Unfortunately there are a lot of "hunters and collectors" out there who will let nothing and no one stand in their way of owning; which frequently leads to plants being stolen from their natural habitats. 

So if you would like to tell us about your orchids make sure you include nothing with which their abode can be identified while at the same time photos of orchids in situ are most welcome. 

November 06: At the Lower Mullum Creek site we have the Birdwing Butterfly Vines (Pararistolochia praevenosa) flowering.

Animal sightings

July, 2005: a couple of Australian Hobbys (falcons) visited my yard: a Hobby child still learning to fly, landed wings outspread on the foliage of the mandarin tree, while its mother sat in a nearby tree encouraging it. I've never seen Hobbys so close to town. An amazing first. I am still looking out for the nest, which I think must be in one of the taller trees around, perhaps the camphor laurel behind Jeff's Tyre Shop, Mullum. 

September 05: Birds are the flavour of the year for me. Coming home late one night I discovered the use of a dead tree fern trunk beside the house. A large owl sat hoo hoo-ing. Going on that I think it must have been a Powerful Owl, though I am no expert ... 

A couple of days into September one night, that sound again. Exactly like the 'deep, resonant, double hoot' the Simpson & Day bird book describes.

Coming from the backyard this time. The moon bright enough to see where I was going, foot by foot. A lump of something sat on the rain gauge. A pair of owl spectacles on a fluffed out pale bird just barely see-able. This second one didn't seem that big. A juvenile? 

December 05: The daily visit to my yard by a currawong stopped when I stopped (for other reasons) giving my dog a daily bone. Meaning, perhaps now the little birds that used to come can return.

January 06: Early in the month two water (?) dragons moved into the rear of the backyard. The big one made short work of the eggs one of my hens was sitting on.

The lizard suns itself in the mandarin tree, I can see just its tail hanging down. The other one is more skittish.

After the rain, a snake in the rockery. I have only seen about fifteen centimetres of that so far, of a section near the tail. Tree or brown.

Tim Lowe, in his book The New Nature, said browns do well in the urban woodland we are nurturing. 

February 06: Every morning, at dawn and dusk, a band of 6-10 galahs comes to the street to feed on the hoop pine seeds that litter the ground. These seeds rained down one windy day back in January. The street was brown with them and still there are enough to make it worth the birds' efforts to come.

Magpies are in the yard whenever the dog is not. They hunt the grasshoppers of which there were a plague this year. These birds live in that hoop pine I keep raving about, a good place to check up on surrounding back yards.

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