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Fish and Waterbugs at Balyang

September 23, 2016 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

On this trip to Balyang I had one purpose. The water levels had gone down and I wanted to check out the channel to see if a short finned eel was visible.

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It wasn’t. However, as someone quickly realized, water was draining from Balyang back into the river. A lot of freshwater fish were flowing back – which is fascinating for a fish obsessed kid.

We were originally meant be down there for an hour or so. We ended up spending 2 1/2 hours looking for fish. 😛 Fish!

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The above is possibly a wild goldfish but it is difficult to tell from the photo. Being a bird nerd, it can be hard to know what details to capture while trying to encourage Seth to get the fish back into the water. Also possibly a young native.

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This is an adult smelt. There are 3 species in our region. I thought it could have been a galaxias… shows I have no idea.

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This is a pygmy perch – either a yarra or a southern. I would have thought the yarra one would have stayed in the Yarra but it turns out in hangs out in the Barwon, along with other areas in Southern Vic. According to this website, Unlike other members of the genus, the Yarra Pygmy Perch has a pre-orbital bone that is not completely covered by skin, exposing its serrated lower edge (Kuiter & Allen 1986).

Could that be what I’ve photographed in the below to photos? I took them as I didn’t know what it was, was wondering if it was its genitals.

All this learning better benefit me someday 😛

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I don’t even know what the above growth is. Seth picked it up. 🙂 I have so much to put up on Bowerbird and other online ID websites.

Waterbugs

I have no idea what any of the below bugs are. I’m leaning towards the later being Diplonychus eques but I’m not knowledgeable enough, nor really patient enough, to ID them. I now have the waterbug app AND the ebook on my kindle to speed up identification.

The first bug – a segmented larvae of some description – was there in REALLY large numbers. I don’t know if it is in response to the floods or whether I just don’t pay enough attention at Balyang. Regardless… I know I’m going to never stop learning!

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The Boardwalk

I’d been wanting to check out the boardwalk for a couple of days to check out just how much the floods had impacted on the areas. I may have encouraged someone to go there, instead of looking for fish, by reminding him about how many skinks we’ve found there in the past.

I’m glad I waited because it was SO muddy. Even on some parts of the boardwalk! I slipped and fell over once. I didn’t see any frogs even though the water was pretty high. It was so high though that it made it easy to find skinks.

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As you can see below, it is SO muddy! I wonder if this means more bugs underneath the logs as it recedes, or more bugs in the water as the available water shrinks. As I’ve said above, so much to learn and not enough time to do it all 😛 Do I read a couple of books about waterways? I know it would help down the track with uni, as I would specifically want to study that, but I need to stop pushing myself to know everything. Are any other naturalists like this?

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I’m curious to know whether the plant life is impacted by the floods. Will research!

Filed Under: Barwon River, Geelong

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