Saturday 16th November 2019. 1150 -1255

No rain. Bright sun from cloudless sky. Intermittent gusts of breeze from south. Track dry.

Thomas and I started at an unusual time after a social morning. The Golden Orb-weaver well lit today in her new web but nothing else on view at Allumbah Pocket. A Saw-shelled Turtle on the rocks near the Memorial Bench and an Eastern Water dragon on the other side of the path. Close by at Snodgrass’s Pool was a Green Ringtail Possum in the trees on the creek bank. This is a common spot to see them but not used for some time and possibly related to a flush of new foliage. On to the Log Jam where several more turtles were in residence. A female Platypus emerged from hiding in the grass to the delight of a visiting family who had watched it vanish. It dived on numerous occasions around the logs and spent considerable time scratching. I believe that Platypus are frequently affected by ticks and this may account for this oft observed behaviour. After about 10 minutes she approached the bank within the Log Jam pool and climbed to her burrow which could not be clearly seen but was at least 3 metres above the water! I learn something new every day! There was another large Turtle on the sloping log upstream of Picnic Peninsula but he always seem quite wary and quickly took to the water. Two groups of three Bush Stone-curlews were again in the vicinity of the isolated tree clumps in the paddock next to the Car Park and an Australasian Figbird is nesting in one of the Bamboo clumps.