Nature Notes: Wattles flowering in Ballarat for spring

We have around 22 species of wattles indigenous to the Ballarat region.

Today's photo shows one with a more restricted range. This is the rough wattle, photographed last weekend at Werona, in the northern part of the Ballarat district.

Check out last week's Nature Notes right here

This wattle is common in the drier bushland there, and very attractive at present. Most plants are one to 1.5 metres tall, and the flowers are a moderately bright yellow.

Rough wattle is known to botanists as Acacia aspera. The second part of the name means rough, for the sandpapery, textured and bristly foliage and stems.

Other distinguishing features include rather narrow phyllodes (leaves) about 30 mm long, and the flower balls either singly or in pairs along the stems. There is one main vein in the centre of the phyllode.

According to a book on local wattles, rough wattle is also found at Eganstown, Korweinguboora and Mt Doran, proving that it grows in places with high and low rainfall. It also grows in the Trawalla Forest. It is not known from the Creswick, Clunes or Enfield forests, so its patchy local distribution is rather puzzling.

The photo was taken on the northern end of the Basalt - Werona Road, where other wattles are also flowering. There are woolly wattle, ploughshare wattle, hedge wattle and more. The woolly wattles at Werona look very different from the woolly wattles south of Ballarat, with different foliage and flower colour.

Our local list of 22 wattle species is a higher total than are found in the whole of Tasmania, where only 20 are known, despite considerable differences in the habitat and climate across that state. We share ten species, including blackwood, silver wattle and prickly moses.

Swallows and martins have become more prominent with recent milder weather. The best known of the three local species is the welcome swallow, which never truly leaves us in winter, but is always in lower numbers over that period. Its numbers have recently increased.

The other two are the fairy martin and the tree martin, both slightly smaller than the welcome swallow, and both with white rumps. They can be very difficult to distinguish from each other in flight.

Perched martins are easier to identify, with the fairy martin having a rusty-red forehead and crown, and the tree martin having a blackish crown and a small rusty tinged forehead patch.

There are a pair of masked lapwings nesting on a very small pontoon in the middle of a small dam. We are wondering if the chicks will be able to swim when they hatch, or is there something we could do to assist them get to shore. E.R., via email.

The lapwing chicks will be able to swim when they are small. They make the journey under the watchful eyes of their parents, who utter encouraging calls from the destination. The reverse happens in the evening, with the chicks swimming back to the safety of their nest.

They will go back to their pontoon home for several nights, before eventually remaining on shore. Perhaps they swim back to the nest for as long as their mother can comfortably brood them at night.

Their swimming probably leaves them susceptible to cold, so warm parental shelter would be necessary while they are still at the downy, unfeathered stage.

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