Having been made aware of some uncommon dragonflies in the Cement Creek area
(on the way up Mt Donna Buang) I decided to visit and walk up the track from near the Rainforest Gallery.
This is one of my favouties places, a dense beech forest with tall eucalypts and moss-draped smaller trees.
I was greeted with the call of the Lyrebird echoing through the gully and, 10m from where I parked the car,
a dragonfly perched beside the track with beautiful blue eyes.
It was a Austroaeschna multipunctata (Multi-spotted Darner) and there are a couple of photos below.
Seeing and photographing something straight away was amazing and I took this as a positive omen.
The track is steep and rocky in places and fern fronds and spider webs need to be brushed aside.
After climbing a few hundred metres along the track there was a clearing around the creek,
which the water itself seemed to try and avoid as it flooded the track here.
I thought this would make a good spot for observing some dragonflies, and I wasn't mistaken.
All the other dragonfly photos were taken at this location.
There were quite a few water skinks around the clearing too,
one of which I befriended and fed some mosquitos (but it was not interested in the leeches I flicked it).
Also along the track I was amazed at the variety of fungus already out.
I took lots of photos, though many already seemed past their prime.
In the afternoon there were wasps flying in to sip from the water,
though they were difficult to photograph.
