Saturday 04/06/2022

We awake to a crisp winters’ morning at the Chicken Ranch in Varley. After a leisurely breakfast, we break camp and head straight for Dempster Rock to look for orchids. Nothing in bloom found. Disappointed, we move on and stop at a new location for us, in the Lake Hurlstone Nature Reserve.

This location may prove fruitful in later stages of the season, as it has a few different habitats to check out. We did locate some orchids this time as well, so all is good. First up appears to be the Mallee banded greenhood (Pterostylis arbuscula) due to its small size and colouring. Further specimens are found with more stem leaves, taller plants and more flowers, so some may be the Dark banded greenhood (Pterostylis sanguinea). I will post pics of all, so please assist with the identification if you can.

Also found lots of spent White bunny orchids, with a lone one still identifiable as such. This one had a crinkled edged stem leaf, so I initially thought it to be the Crinkled-leafed bunny orchid (Eriochilus dilatatus subsp. undulatus) which flowers during April and May, hence why only spent flowers were found, except for this late flowering one of course. However, using Florabase, the only listed bunny orchid found in both the Shire of Kulin and the Shire of Kondinin is the Blunt-leaved bunny orchid (Eriochilus dilatatus subsp. brevifolius) which flower May and June and only have up to 3 flowers. The leaf is also crinkled-edged so I am happy with this identification. Seems subsp. undulatus has been cancelled in Florabase and the common name of Crinkled-leaved bunny orchid given to subsp. brevifolius. The name game is never ending with native orchids. Also found on the way back to the Triton was a nice specimen of the Dark banded greenhood.

Leaving this new location, we head north to Hyden, where we enjoy an amazing hamburger for lunch. As Richard is running late, we make tracks for Anderson Rocks, our planned destination for this long-weekend.

During the weekend I would climb the rock and record the sounds of the frogs in the FrogID App and then attempt to upload my recordings. I received a reply from the Frog ID App on the 20/07/22 advising they had identified 2 species, so my uploads were successful. The species found were the Bleating Froglet (Crinia pseudinsignifera) and Crawling Toadlet (Pseudophryne guentheri).

Monday 06/06/2022

After a great long-weekend camping with Richard, Sandy and Noel at Anderson Rocks, it is time to travel home. As per usual we do not travel home in a straight line and try our best to take roads yet travelled. So, from Hyden we make our way to Allen Rocks Road, where we stop at an old rubbish dump it seems, as there is so much rubbish lying around. We found some old Gest cooldrink bottles and an old enamel pot to add to our collection. The only orchids found here were some yet to fully open shell orchids.

Next stop was on Dragon Rocks Road in the Dragon Rocks Nature Reserve. This roadside stop turned up some Dark banded greenhoods. Then further south on the Newdgate Road North at another roadside stop we only found some spent Pygmy orchids (Corunastylis fuscoviridis) which are also an early flowering orchid.

Final stop for the day other than to fuel up in Lake King and a toilet break in Munglinup. Arrived back in Esperance around 6.15pm and had dinner at our sons’ house, before heading home to unpack. A great weekend but not so great on the orchid front.