Where there's smoke there's fire

Apropos of the smoke haze blog several days ago. They're burning the grassland in the suburbs as well.

A notice in the paper warned that they were going to burn Seaview Park when conditions were right so I wasn't surprised when I drove past this morning and noticed the blackened escarpment. A click on the label 'Seaview Park' below will take you to earlier blogs about this wonderful little patch of natural grassland in the suburb of Belmont in Geelong. All of our grasslands need a regular burn so this one should be very beneficial. Here are the before and after photos - the first one was taken in August 2007. I'm already looking forward to next spring to see what comes up.

Seaview Park wildlife

Not only people find flowers attractive. I went to Seaview Park to visit the flowers and so did the Pomaderris Moth Casbia eccentritis. It seemed that every time I took a step I disturbed a moth. The preconceived idea that moths fly only at night 'flew out the window'. And they're very difficult to see after they land. This one was looking a little 'moth-eaten'.

The tiny Orb-weaver Eriophora biapicata was suspended on its web in the middle of the Acacia paradoxa and blowing about wildly in the wind, suspended head down. This photo is one of those miracles that occasionally happen against the odds. I won't be showing the ten photos I took that were totally blurred!

The beautiful little pale-blue flowers of the New Holland Daisy Vittadinia gracilis were hardly noticeable. And neither was the bug sitting on one of them. The Seed bug (of the Lygaeidae family) posed nicely while I took his photo.

A little flock of Yellow-rumped Thornbills passed through from bush to bush, a male Golden Whistler was calling loudly and a Grey Fantail was having a lot to say. None of these are particularly common in Belmont so it was great to see them paying Seaview Park a visit. All this wildlife, and right here in suburbia. [Thanks Dave, for your help with invertebrate identification.]

An inland coastal cliff

Scotland's primary export is the haggis, a small, fur-covered creature with one leg shorter than the other. I felt rather like a haggis yesterday as I clambered over the 40 degree slope that is Seaview Park.

The limestone escarpment on the south bank of the Barwon River at Geelong is a very small patch of vegetation that survives despite the pressures of suburbia, and the vegetation is a remnant from the time when it was a coastal cliff millions of years ago. It used to be classified as a 'limestone woodland complex' but now it's a 'coastal alkaline scrub'. Either way it's spectacular.

Yesterday a lot of the flora was flowering - Pale Fan-flower Scaevola albida, Kangaroo Grass Themeda triandra, Running Postman Kennedia prostrata, Coast Twin-leaf Zygophyllum billardierei, Common New Holland Daisy Vittadina gracilis, Hedge Wattle Acacia paradoxa and Smooth Rice-flower Pimelea glauca - but from the road below it just looks like a bank of green. The most important plant on the site is the Coast Wirilda Wattle Acacia retinodes var. ulicifolia. It is classed as rare in Victoria and grows well in the park despite occasional threats (the latest was a 'secret' cubbyhouse being built under the trees). The wattle wasn't flowering yesterday but there were buds so I must go back in a few weeks time.The limestone outcrops support a healthy cover of lichens and mosses that I must explore another time also. I'll walk the other way so my legs grow evenly.