Stop the presses right. Hah, well I still think this is pretty cool. The last time the cycad sprouted new leaves was almost 4 years ago. Cycads are ancient plants that in some ways resemble palms or tree ferns. They have tough evergreen leaves that grow in a fan like arrangement from a single central trunk. Cycads are slow growing and can live for a long time, up to 1000 years. They are thought to have been much more widespread in the ancient past 100’s of millions of years ago, today they are still found around the world in tropical and subtropical climates. The new shoots emerge at the top of the plant like a ring of spears from the central ball of coralloid roots. They grow very rapidly, up to 20cm per day for the first week after they emerge. As the spears emerge the leaves are each individually coiled up tight in intricate spirals. At first the leaves are very soft and flexible, and the undersides are covered with a film of fine hair/fur. Once they unroll the hair is lost and the leaves become stiff and hard.

Theseus modestus

It took 4 years for me to finally work out what my “Unknown Bug” is! Finding the Cotton Harlequin Bug was what lead me to it. I recognized that they look quite similar in structure and shape. This gave me some more terms to search for ( shield bug ) and I finally got a match! So it’s with belated pride I’d like to introduce to you, the “Gum Tree Shield Bug” otherwise known as a “Stink Bug”!

Tectocoris diophthalmus

A few weeks ago we visited friends in their new highrise apartment in town. It was an awesome place, typical modern apartments, all fitted out with parking and facilities including a great indoor pool that we had a lot of fun in with the kids. They were on the 30th floor ( I think ) very high up anyway. It was the last place I would have expected to see some interesting wildlife but while Jess and I were out on the balcony scaring ourselves with the height ( ok, mostly me being scared  ) I spotted a strikingly coloured bug crawling on the tiles. I gave it to Jess, we both marveled at it and took some photos. I’ve found it hard to identify bugs in the past and didn’t expect to be able to work out what this one is, but by luck someone had found exactly the same creature and sent in a photo to the North Shore Times where it was identified by the Australian Museum as a “Cotton Harlequin Bug”!

Fuligo septica

I found this is the back yard early in the morning  after rain the previous day. I guessed it was some type of fungus, turns out to be a species of plasmoidal slime mold called Fuligo septica, commonly known as scrambled egg slime or dogs vomit slime mold!

Dogs vomit slime mould. Slime molds are just a collection of amoeba yet they can move and coperate as if they are a single organism with awareness and intent.

Ptilonorhynchus violaceus

The family spent the long weekend at Wombeyan Caves.  They are a group of a few hundred limestone caves set in the Wombeyan Karst Conservation Reserve located about 70Km west of Mittagong. It’s a remote location, there’s a lot of wildlife in the area, we saw a few  different species of kangaroo and a lot of birds. On of them was the Satin Bowerbird. I noticed one loitering around under the camp table during the day, one of our friends we were with identified it. As usual a new one for me. The one near the table was a male, all black with a brilliant blue sheen. I’d noticed a group of dusky green birds cavorting around in the early morning, it turns out they were the females.

Telopia speciosissima

“A magnificent flower long valued for its exceptional beauty” NPOS p. 104

Everyone knows the waratah, it’s big, voluminous and deep red in colour, it can’t be missed or mistaken for anything else. The Waratah is the state flower of NSW and narrowly missed out on being chosen as Australia’s national flower. Golden Wattle only became the official national flower in 1988!

The botanist R.T. Baker was a vocal advocate of the waratah arguing that it alone was unique to Australia, whereas, “in the wattle, Australia has not a monopoly like the waratah, for Africa has over one hundred native wattles, and it also occurs in America, East and West Indies and the Islands.”

We’re just coming out of what felt like a freezing cold winter, it seemed like it was bitter and dark for so long. But when it comes to accuracy human skin and brain cells are really terrible at remembering and comparing the weather. Lucky for us we have the data!

Cold and wet at the Mt Tomah botanical gardens

The BOM have updated their long term climate data again. This time we’re in for a treat, we have updates to temperature, sea level and rainfall. Looking at the maximum and minimum monthly temperature averages we have indeed had some cold months. The July average minimum of 8C is the coldest since 2002 when it was 7.9C, and looking back 30 years only 1995 was colder. The mean maximum for July was cool but many years have been cooler over the past 30 years. 2013 and 2014 were quite warm by comparison though, maybe that’s why it felt cold this year. As we’ve only got up to July we can’t compare moving averages yet. For sea levels the short term averages actually show a drop in 2014. The 5yr and above moving averages still show an unmistakable upward trend. Rainfall averages are up, I don’t recall it being particularly wet though, so much for memory.

For fathers day day this year the family took a trip back to Muogamarra Nature Reserve. Muogamarra is located about an hour north of Sydney just off the old Pacific highway past Cowan. Visiting is a bit of a treat as the reserve is only open to the public for 6 weeks per year. It’s closed at other times to protect sensitive natural and cultural heritage areas. It rained a bit on the way up but by the time we got there it had cleared. much better than last year. We opted to do the point loop trail. Even though we’d done it before it was the best suited for the time we had. Also one of the Nation Parks and Wildlife ladies said that the wildflowers were especially stunning this year and could not be missed! The point loop is an easy 2km loop with a lookout over the Hawkesbury half  way along. The flowers didn’t disappoint, there were seas of yellow bush peas and pink wax flowers. Also a stunning Waratah by the side of the trail, a much better specimen than the one we saw last year.

Perga dorsalis

First up it’s not a caterpillar, it totally looks like one but it’s not! It took a bit of searching to find it’s actually a Steel Blue Sawfly Larvae. Sawflys are large flying insects that are closely related to wasps. Caterpillars on the other hand are the larvae of butterflies and moths. The Steel Blue Sawfly Larvae is commonly known as a “spitfire” or “spitfire caterpillar”.

A sawfly larvae, AKA spitfire, on my hand. Just after the photo it had a big “spit” of yucky yellow fluid onto my hand