Orchids and stuff....

Its become a lot harder for me to get a new bird close to home of late and while birding will always remain the number one passion (aside from Simone of course) I have recently started to develop a more than passing interest in native orchids. I have always had a bit of an interest in them - I can generally seperate an orchid from a lily or the like - but it now seems to be evolving into something a little more. Certainly there has been a few times lately where I have left the binoculars at home and spent much of my time staring at the ground... I still bird while doing this, but almost purely by ear, and that is a rather cathartic experience. Its also opened up a whole new field of identification and one that is just a bit challenging, particularly as for a lot of the year an Australian native orchid might be at best a single or double leaf poking out of the forest floor. At the moment my pics are just with a standard 50mm nikon lens hand held but I can see a macro lens in my near future....

Baluk Willam Reserve

This is the reserve that really got me back interested in orchids.... I have spent much of the past 15 years birding around South-east Melbourne and I cant understand why I had never heard of this place before... it was only a random google search that put me onto it. It is a relatively small reserve in Belgrave South that has an amazing 80-90 species of orchid recorded, although a number of these are historical records. Its also not a bad birding place and I have recorded such nice outer suburban birds as Painted Button-quail, Brush Cuckoo and Satin Flycatcher as well as a Powerful Owl feather.... must get back and flash the spotlight around sometime. On my first visit in mid October I found around a dozen species of flowering orchid and on subsequent visits I have now found over twenty. Im looking forward to revisting over the next 12 months as I have also found a variety of "orchid leaves" that are not yet flowering... there is also a good half of the reserve still as yet unexplored.

Just a few "record shots" - ID is my best guess and am happy to be corrected. :-)

Maroonhood

Waxlip Orchid

Purplish Beard Orchid (a bit past its best)

Notched Onion Orchid (best guess)

Large Bird Orchid

Black-tongue Caladenia

Rabbit Ears (ok I cheated with this one.... its from the Brisbane Ranges)

 

 

Plenty more of these to come....