Mount Direction Excursion July 2012 
Michael Driessen 
I thoroughly enjoyed the TFNC excursion to Mount 
Direction, especially sharing it with a group of 
good-humoured field nats who can find interest and 
delight in bones, birds, bugs under rocks and logs, 
fungi, trees, orchids and mammal poo; just to name 
a few. All this when the temperature never rose 
above 10°C and considerably colder when wind chill 
is taken into account (I should know, I foolishly 
wore shorts). Seventeen field nats met at the car 
park at Risdon Brook Dam at 9.30 and set off 
clockwise round the reserve and across the dam. 
The group ready for the climb. Photo: Michael Driessen 
Native hens scurried across the road and a sulphur 
crested cockatoo screeched high up in a gum tree. 
On the grassed areas around the car park was an 
abundance of pademelon and rabbit scats. Robin 
gates spotted a little grebe on the reservoir. 
After about 500m we turned off the reservoir track 
and headed up the Mt Direction track. Bandicoot 
diggings were abundant. We walked through a 
lovely grassy eucalypt woodland (E. viminolis and E. 
pulchella), the columns of silver trunks gleamed in 
the weak winter sunlight. 
Trunk of Eucalyptus pulchella. Photo: Simon Grove 
Several Bennett's wallaby were disturbed from their 
morning slumber and were duly recorded digitally 
on numerous cameras. 
Bennett's Wallabies. Photo: James Wood 
I was most pleased that Kevin Bonham found for 
me a comb-legged harvestman, Triaenobunus 
pectinatus, under a log covered with a yellow fungi. 
Harvestmen are my new passion, alas it was to be 
the only one for the day. Scarlet robin, green rosella 
and forest raven were recorded. 
As the track became steeper we could hear many 
small birds in the tree tops. They were black¬ 
headed honeyeaters that were distressed by the 
presence of a kookaburra. James Wood pointed out 
an Ozothamnus scutellifolius - a bush with green 
dots for leaves; under close inspection the dots are 
shield-shaped hence the specific name 
'scutellifolius ' (latin scuttellum (shield)). 
Ozothamnus scutellifolius. Photo: James Wood 
There were a large number of dead eucalypt trees 
which Geoff Fenton suggested were killed by the 
drought a few years ago when he last did the walk. 
Tasmanian Field Naturalists Club 
Page 4 
BULLETIN 348 Oct 2012 
