The common hovea is one of the earliest-flowering local wildflowers.
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While its appearance does not indicate that spring is here, it does foretell periods of sunnier weather and milder temperatures soon returning. Hovea is a small, 8-12cm, mauve-coloured member of the pea family.
Purple coral-pea has also started flowering. Its flowers are a much richer purple, and its leaves are much larger. It is a climber or a rambler.
The pure white flowers of scented sundew are also flowering attractively now.
This is another early wildflower, always welcome as a sign that spring is on the way. Its bright white perfumed flowers rise only 10-20mm above their sticky leaved, ground-level rosettes.
It is one of several species of sundews occurring in the Ballarat district. All are carnivorous, catching small insects.
Wattles of various sorts are also brightening the late-winter bushland: myrtle wattle, hop wattle, woolly wattle, ploughshare wattle, silver wattle and golden wattle, with the blackwood just starting to come into bloom.
AGILE ANTECHINUS
Larger than a mouse and smaller than a rat - this is the size of a small native marsupial that's known as the agile antechinus.
One was accidentally caught in a rat trap at Invermay last month. Its larger size immediately identifies it from a mouse, but it can sometimes be more difficult to identify from a rat.
There are two main features: a more pointed face, and a tail that is no longer than its combined head-body length.
The tail is also hairier, with numerous short soft hairs, ending with longer darker hairs at the tip.
A household rat (black rat) is larger, with a sparser-haired scaly tail that is longer than its body. Its nose is blunter, not noticeably pointed.
The agile antechinus is probably moderately common in bush country in the Ballarat district, but it is not often seen because it is mostly nocturnal.
It spends the day sheltering in holes in trees, but feeds mostly on the ground at night, hunting for beetles, spiders, cockroaches and similar invertebrates.
Some daytime hunting may occur in winter when food is scarce.
It is frequently found by researchers undertaking studies of mammals. Forested places with thick ground cover and fallen logs are its preferred habitat.
The colour of the mouse, rat and antechinus is typically very similar.
The common local pest rat is officially known as the black rat, but it is more often a dull fawn-brown colour rather than black.
Another name sometimes used is ship rat, but that name is also unhelpful for identification purposes.
NATURE QUERIES ANSWERED
Is the rainbow lorikeet on the bird list for Lake Burrumbeet? I saw two in the caravan park earlier this month.
W.M., Burrumbeet.
The rainbow lorikeet is indeed a new bird for Lake Burrumbeet.
It brings that list to 169 species, and is the 11th member of the parrot and cockatoo group to be included.
Rainbow lorikeets have been gradually increasing closer to Ballarat for several years now, so their arrival at Lake Burrumbeet is not surprising.
They can be expected almost anywhere in the Ballarat district these days, although they are still centred mainly on the city and suburbs.
Not surprisingly, the rainbow lorikeet has been added to many local birdlists in the last 10-15 years.
Other parrots on the Lake Burrumbeet list are red-rumped parrot, blue-winged parrot, musk lorikeet, eastern rosella and crimson rosella, with cockatoos being sulphur-crested, yellow-tailed black, little corella, long-billed corella and galah.
- Questions and photos are welcome. Email to rthomas@vic.australis.com.au, or send to Roger Thomas at The Courier, PO Box 21, Ballarat, 3353.