Tag: native

Mystery plant – Clematis aristata

I came across some unknown plants during my working bee on the 17th of Aug, 2024. One was a vine which the facebook NSW plant identification group identified as Clematis aristata.

It does appear to match even though the documentation online for it is not extensive.

Here is the entry on the plantNET site: https://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Clematis~aristata

It does appear to be endemic to the area so I made the right call in leaving it alone. I’ll be interested to see it blooming come spring.

A flying Scrub Turkey at Dick’s Creek

Scrub turkeys (otherwise known as Brush or Bush Turkeys) always seem to show up when we visit natural areas frequented by people. However, at the Dick’s creek Landcare site they are a rare sight, so we were very excited to see one flying up through the trees a few days ago. Normally they tend to walk rather than fly but it occurs to me that is probably because National Parks and the like do not allow dogs. This turkey could not rely on the absence of dogs and other nasty predators so it obviously decided the trees were the place to be.

I was able to take some photos of it while it did some calls (which I had never heard before). Here is a snippet of the video I took:

I imagine it was driven to explore up the creek for the sake of finding a partner. I hope it does find a partner and we get to see little scrub turkeys in the future.