quixel's Journal

After school I walked under and onto the Bridge past Taylors Creek. Over the bridge I crossed the train tracks and walked under that same bridge AGAIN down a suburban road, and new holland honeyeaters, red wattlebirds, magpie-larks, lorikeets and crows were around. I walked parallel, as I listened on Spotify/Shazam, to the train tracks, and Hopper Meadow was on the other side (I still need to get to the huge stand of gum trees there). I even discovered this really old bridge, half hidden by the train, from the 1800s!

After a while of walking I arrived at Pioneer Park. It was nice I loved reading the signs and their were nice swathes of golden Kangaroo Grass. I didn't see many other interesting Victorian Volcanic plains plants (maybe I'll see them in spring when they're in flower; there's supposed to be daisies and the critically endangered spiny rice flower there). However, I did see some lomandra and flax-lillies. It is a bit sad to see the grasslands in bits and pieces like this, but they're still very pretty and diverse. Overall, was very cool, I've been wanting to go there for a while. Branchory Grove Grassland Reserve is a bit further up, I can go there in the spring holidays maybe?? :)

Interesting how when we went to Conglomerate Gully Nature Trail in Sunday (yesterday) planty of things were in bloom. Lets talk about thattt now. Seeing purple coral peas in the wild is cool, they are just as nice as the on ein the garden. I saw 2 kinds of sundews, interesting mosses and fungi. The landscape itself was Dry Sclerophyll forest I think. It was composed of rocky gullies, rock formations like faces and adorably round tussocks or grass. There were old trees with ruby sap crystalized and mistletoes. No orchids though, but spring is arriving. Yeahiahhuahaja

Yesterday I went for a ride along Taylors Creek and it was a pretty day, golden and warm, and saw the usual critters, like moorhens, swamphens, crows, a wagtail and magpies, as well as what might have been a grebe (first time seeing one there) floating quietly on the deeper section of the creek opposite Zebra Park. I went past the section where the council is doing works, past the new bridge under construction, and over the shallowest section creek where the paved path ends. As I crossed, I startled a heron up into the air, and in flew gracefully to the weedy grasses beneath the power lines next to the creek. It joined other herons there too on the grass.

Across the creek on the dirt track where the bushes and grass had been burnt, nearly every step I took sent many grasshoppers fleeing forward. There were heaps of small greyish ones, and beautiful large yellow ones too. There were a few large and gangly ones too, which were less graceful than the others,and was the only one I could photograph after quite awhile of running around. The grasshopper is a Giant Green Slantface, and was very cool. It reminds me of something similar I saw, a beige one, at Dima's years ago, or maybe that was a dream...

While trying to get close to the gorgeous ones with yellow wings, someone on their dirt bike, rode down an inconspicuous path across the plain to the distance. I must go down their soon, to see if I can find anything cool, and try to get to the tall trees beneath the electricity towers.