Only 3 attendees ventured out in the cold threatening weather this time around. The weather cleared somewhat as we drove the 130km to Gungahlin. A strong cold westerly wind was ever present though.
Overall we covered about 11.5km on the day, stopping many times along the way to take in the scenery or capture more than a few photos.
We started off on the Ground to Sky Walk heading towards the summit of Sammy’s Hill. Two Wedgetail eagles greeted us as we arrived at a lookout near the top. Nearer to the summit, we discovered an echidna being savaged by an ant, luckily the echidna survived to live another day.
From Sammy’s Hill we descended down to Sullivans Creek. This eastern side of the hill gave us shelter from the cold westerly wind. Many roos had the same idea as they darted from one side of the track to the other trying to evade us. We encountered a Pasture Day Moth (Apina callisto) caterpillar excavating a burrow to pupate in (thanks for looking that up Martin). Quite interesting to see the amount of effort this caterpillar was putting into its burrow.
We made our way to Lawlers Track then on to The Woolshed. We came across several Swamp Wallabies with matching ear jewellery in the form of orange tags.
There was a spider lurking near the toilets at The Woolshed, a Red-headed Mouse Spider (Missulena occatoria) was spotted on an open patch of ground on a march to who knows where.
From The Woolshed we followed the Dam Track then Wetlands Walk back to the visitors centre. Too late for coffee…
Some of the birds encountered along the way were Kookaburras, Fairy-wrens, a War Bird, Scarlet Robins, Fairy-wrens, and an Australasian Darter.
We will have to do a return visit to try and spot the elusive quolls that live in the reserve.
A great day out with relatively easy walking on tracks and walkways, there is so much more to explore in Mulligan’s Flat Reserve.
