There were some leaves in the chamber, also a piece of twine AND a sock!! Clever little Melomys! Thank goodness she didn’t do any major chewing damage, well apart from my sock which doesn’t look quite the same!

No wonder the fan was having trouble operating with all that tangled around it.

Nesting material

One of the laughing frogs (Litoria rothii) wasn’t indulging in such risky behaviour and had camouflaged itself quite well against our house python.  (House python is made of concrete covered wire and twines up a verandah pillar)

In the car-port a white-lipped green tree-frog (Litoria infrafrenata) was hanging onto our vehicle while numerous sedge frogs (Litoria bicolour, Litoria fallax)   called and jumped around the house;  several had to be taken outside again after they found their way inside.

This morning we had a look for the remains of the spider’s meal;  it was dragged up onto one of the rocks surrounding the pool –  a somewhat gruesome sight softened by the flower petal decoration;  exactly as found.

And so the circle of life continues –  frog eggs (probably L. gracilenta) on the water below the frog corpse.

As usual the sound of rain reminded me of just one last job to do before the water levels rise too much and so I spent some of the morning in a muddy puddle  pulling out para grass (Brachiaria mutica).  Allen helped with the tractor and blade pulling out the bulk of the material so it didn’t take long.  After a shower and lots of scrubbing with appropriate sweet-smelling body wash I felt quite virtuous and had a relaxing afternoon enjoying the heavier showers of rain.

There was another shower or two this morning but most of the heavy rain seems to be well south of Cairns.    65mm measured this morning has softened the ground, greened the grass, freshened up the forest and when the sun came out the humidity soared.  Just a typical Daintree December!

Although Waddi trees germinate readily from seed, given good conditions, they are extremely slow growing.  They produce a very dense and durable timber –  fence posts have been found showing little sign of decay after nearly a century! Given the opportunity, they can grow to a height of 18 metres and live for 500 years or more.

The local Pitta Pitta people have had many uses for Waddi tree timber, making weapons, digging sticks and dishes as well as  to transport fire by taking small smouldering pieces from camp to camp.

The following is an excerpt from Ockham’s Razor in March ’09

All the stands are located on the fringes of the Simpson Desert, but they are separated by hundreds of kilometres. No-one really knows why these populations are so truncated. Some theories suggest the stands are relict populations of a once widely dispersed forest that spread across the Simpson Desert. The theory goes that the prevailing winds may have smothered tracts of Waddi Tree forests until only these three localities were left. Another theory is that burning may have reduced the population to its current size, because there’s evidence the trees are fire sensitive. More recently, human incursion into the desert over the past 150 years or so, has also had an impact. Pastoralists, for instance, used Waddi Tree wood to make buildings and fences, sizeable trees in the desert must have seemed a bounty to their eyes. Cattle grazing and introduced species such as camel and rabbit have also had an impact.

Waddi trees have now been listed as a protected species on the Register of National Estate.

The road from Boulia to Bedourie is mostly sealed, easy travelling although there are not a lot of stand-out features along the way.   We did find a picnic shelter by the side of the road in the Boulia Shire but as we’d had lunch we drove on.  About 1 km later we crossed into the Diamantina Shire and saw a sign to a lookout on the opposite side of the road.  We decided to drive up, and it was up, quite a steep incline to the Vaughan Johnson Lookout where several large notice boards welcomed us to the Diamantina Shire.   (which we had temporarily left travelling via Boulia).  We then found that we were looking down on the Boulia picnic stop situated on its gentle rise with the road in the foreground.

The Vaughan Johnson lookout is larger and has several noticeboards with information on the history of roads in the Diamantina Shire and the close relationship the shire has with Hastings Deering (manufacturer of Caterpillar earthmoving equipment).

And this is the view.

References:  Jacqueline Hodder, PhD candidate from the University of Melbourne talking to Robyn Williams on Ockham’s Razor in 2009.

Australian Govt. Dept. of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities

Graham’s pond was also hosting approximately  fifty Spoonbills but they are more nervous than the few that have been here for a while and took off for a more secluded area on the property.  One Glossy Ibis, a new entry for the Wild Wings bird list is keeping the ducks company.

This photo only captures a portion of the tree with flowers  in various stages along the main and smaller lateral branches up to a height of approximately 10 metres.   As well as many blossom bats (possibly Northern Blossom Bats but we haven’t a positive ID), there are moths and beetles attending the flowers at night.  The flowers open from mid afternoon to late evening with most pollen being shed before midnight and all flower parts excepting the pistil fall to the ground.

We walked under a tree and shone our headlamps upwards to watch the diminutive blossom bats flitting in and out, hardly seeming to stop on the flowers.  Blossom bats make a ‘kissing’ sound and when I imitated them I would have them swooping really close so I could feel the air movement from their wings on my head.  In the photo above you can see large drops of nectar spilling out – no wonder the bat has buried itself  in a flower!

Allen didn’t realize he had caught one in flight until he looked at the photos on the computer screen.  We are fascinated by the tiny muscular ‘arms’ – the bats don’t waste any time when they are feeding, a brief moment on a flower and they are on the move again.

All these photos can be enlarged by clicking on them and it is particularly worthwhile in this case to see the detail of the tongue in action.

This rather attractive (as yet unidentified) moth was also taking advantage of the plentiful nectar  - and the next morning native bees were landing on the carpet of spent flowers lying under the tree, apparently gathering pollen.  So while we look forward,with cautious optimism (having had past disappointments), to a bountiful crop of this glorious King of Fruits many other creatures have benefited from the flowers already.

Reference:  ”Tropical Tree Fruits for Australia” Queensland Department of Primary Industries 1984

Allen was in charge of the camera – the photos taken through the welding shield  had a rather eerie green tinge  so I’m pleased he managed some without!

This is about as dark as it became but that was enough to excite the children in front of us, one of whom had dressed in his Spiderman outfit for the occasion. The parents of these children were enjoying champagne  and some others further along the beach looked like they had been readying themselves on a variety of substances since the night before! However, there was plenty of space for everyone and it was very peaceful.

In spite of grey clouds obscuring the sun we did manage some good glimpses at various stages of the eclipse although it did not become as dark as I remember it during the total eclipse in Melbourne in the mid 70′s.
On that occasion I was the one enjoying the champagne along with many others at a rather good afternoon party.
There are many ways to experience a solar eclipse.

and the source of the rotting flesh smell.  Amorphophallus paeoniifolius, known as Stink Lily or Elephant foot yam is in the Aroid family (Araceae) and is found from India to New Guinea and in the far northern parts of Queensland.  Apparently the flower not only exudes this  unusual aroma but also gives off heat –  this information was given to us a few days later by some botanist friends when the flower had passed its peak.

The flowers are on a spadix which is under the bulbous knob, just visible in the bottom right-hand  corner of this photo.  They are pollinated by carrion flies and beetles and although flies were certainly attracted, in this case pollination does not appear to have taken place.

July 6th Two days later – the spadix has pushed up a bit further and it is possible to see the male and female flowers.  The bulbous top has lost its sheen and looks slightly shriveled - and the flies seem to have lost interest.  The smell only lasts a few hours so although it is extraordinarily pervasive it is only short-lived.  The bulbous top looks its best for about 24 hours while the spathe continues to look decorative for  several days but today Nov 12th the entire flower remains are shriveled and brown.

Close-up views of the flowers on the spadix

Amorphophallus paeoniifolius has Peony-like foliage as described by the species name.  The single leaf is borne on a mottled stem after the flower has died.  The production of the leaf uses most of the starch stored in the corm – the plant produces a new corm after the leaf has wilted and died.

The corms of some varieties are edible and grown as food crops in several Asian countries.  I am not about to dig our one plant up and consume the corm, we grow Taro in our vegetable patch which is a much better addition to vegetable curries.

The name itself is so evocative, the landscape is vast, varied and contains many treasures.  To see it after several good seasons when so many shrubs and herbaceous plants were flowering was simply wonderful and we have many precious memories.

The lime-green flower below is in the foreground of the dune above.  The plant is, as yet, unidentified by us and any assistance will be gratefully received. Thank you Duncan and Denis for your assistance.

Crotalaria cunninghamii

When we’d finished setting up camp on our first afternoon we heard Woodswallows;  they came down to nectar feed on the Creek Wilga (Eremophila bignoniiflora) and then took to the sky again, hundreds of them in a mixed flock of Black-faced, White-browed, Dusky and Masked.  A fabulous sight in the late afternoon light.  And while we were scanning the Creek Wilga with our binoculars Allen suddenly spotted a Painted Honeyeater which obligingly gave us the opportunity for some good long looks….just as well as we didn’t see any more.

We spent hours wandering the dunes admiring the flowers, we recognized some plant families and some genera, we looked at insects and spotted tracks in the sand until we couldn’t absorb anymore.
Silver Oak (Grevillea  parallela) was just starting to flower.  It was one of the larger dune species, the majority being small herbaceous plants.

And of course there were the Mitchell grasses with the Curly Mitchell grass being one of the most common – here growing on the edge of a huge clay pan.

Red kangaroos are such a well known symbol of the outback and we never tired of seeing them quietly enjoying their country in a national park rather than being splattered across a highway.  This track was part of the Warracoota Circuit, an 87 km drive through a variety of habitats

We scanned the Gibber for the Gibberbird unsuccessfully but we loved seeing  Crimson Chats flitting about in front of us, Orange Chats with one ‘guard’ always perched high on a shrub keeping look out while the others foraged.   The white-backed Swallow reminded us of a formal dinner suit, such a clean contrast between black and white – we saw one bird in flight on two occasions in the same area.
Horsfield’s Bushlark was a new one for us and we had a good look while the bird was ‘hiding’ by keeping relatively still and relying on its camouflage.

It is difficult to convey the contrasting beauty of flowering shrubs in the  Diamantina landscape of sand, fine silt and gibber but I’ll include a few more flower photos because I just love looking at them.

Pterocaulon sphacelatum- Fruit Salad plant

Hovea

Trichodesma zeylanica – Camel Bush