While I was having fun on rock yesterday Lisa had managed to polish off the last of the school reports. So waking up to a crisp blue sky, we decided to head out for a walk. Having a sneaky feeling the weather would break at some point during the day, we plumped for a quick trip to Manea Park. Things it had going for it being it was less than half an hour away, it is dog friendly place so the poodles could join us, and it is kinda just round the corner from subway, which Lisa had been yearning for since yesterday:
It is widely accepted that dogs, even when on the lead, result in the physical and temporal displacement of wildlife from their habitat. Furthermore, the scent they leave behind as they mark their territory can continuing to repel wildlife so has lingering impacts. For these reasons we never take our dogs to national parks or areas where dogs are not permitted, but if a place is recognised as dog friendly such as this we do make use of them. The good thing about taking the poodles was that we took a slow pace, as there were so many smells for them to check:
The pace allowed me to keep an eye out. I was expecting to see a myriad of fungi but not too much else, but that was flipped today. For the second time this year I’ve spotted Banded Greenhoods (Pterostylis vittata), this time in huge numbers. However, in the background of the above image there was something different. A solitary Scented Leek Orchid (Prasophyllum sp. ‘early’), yet to fully come into flower but the spikey petal configuration was unmistakeable. Unlike the abundance of Greenhoods I only found this one Scented Leek Orchid:
Soon afterwards I stumbled across a couple of Hare Orchid (Leporella fimbriata), one of the orchids I was hoping to find a month or so back and a species that until today I had not seen. I’ve read these can form colonies of thousands of plants with, like some other orchids such as Red Beaks, relatively few flowering in any one year. However, after fertilization they can continue to flower as late as August or September, so I am a little surprised it has taken me this long to find one. Maybe the relatively drab colours and small flower help to camouflage them:
Once the poodles had worn themselves down a tad from all the sniffing about, they got into a more relaxed and consistent pace and my opportunity to keep an eye out was more limited. You may laugh at that, but checking out all the scents activates their brain and this can use as much energy as a fast paced walk. With noses that can have up to 50 times more scent receptors than ours their sense of smell can be 10 to 100,000 times more sensitive than ours, resulting in a lot of sniffing:
I did however happen to spot the above very pretty Scarlet Waxy Cap (Hygrocybe coccinea). After which I stopped looking, as a sudden chill in the wind signalled it was time to get to the car. Looking up reinforced that thinking, and we made tracks but before heading home we had to stop in at subway, to satisfy Lisa’s hankering. With one week of school remaining, and next term not being a reporting term, we might get out for a walk a bit more often again. And are already considering which dog friendly places to visit, where they can set the pace:
Sandbagged 