Rain "sort of" imitates Godot

In Samuel Beckett's play "Waiting for Godot" Godot never actually arrives.  The forecast rain for East Gippsland did a  pretty good audition for the role today.  While it was cool overnight (about 10^oC) and we scored 3mm yesterday evening the daylight part of the day was rather pleasant.

We set off on the morning walk quite early "to avoid the rain".  This got some nice photos of flowers.  The first is Hakea laurina (Pincushion Hakea, for obvious reasons) ...

 .. and the second is the fruits on a Eucalypt, but I have no idea of the species.

 Similarly this is some member of the Fabaceae but I can't even get into the genus on this.

 A Callistemon (deity knows what the taxonomists call it now) growing in the garden.

 This is definitely a Banksia, flowering just above the lawn.

Before getting to the lawn lets stick with the morning walk and a photo, using my better camera, of Goat Island.  No Cattle Egrets in the morning (although a couple were there in the afternoon) but a slew of pelicans.

 Here is the lawn after a couple of passes with the mower on the Eastern side.  I got in quickly as rain was forecast today and showers for the rest of the week.

 Here it is after many passes all over.

I had thought it had grown a lot, and was still damp after last nights rain, so had the blades up a bit but to my surprise didn't come close to filling the trailer.  I shall have a second go on Thursday to really discipline it.

We then went for another walk to Betka River.  Not a great deal in flower except for Epacris impressa, mainly this pink form.

 An unknown (and uncommon) Acacia offered a more subdued contribution  ...

 .. while a few Banksia bushes had flowers.

 A couple of fungi were noted (and efforts to ID them will follow).

This next lot appear to be Omphalotus nidiformis which is biolumiscent, as shown in this excellent blogpost  by Carol Probets.  Will have to be visited after dark next trip.

 The weirdest thing was on Betka Beach where the River was closed in.  On the sea side of the dune there was a band of seaweed full of these small fish.

 Judging by the spine on their head I think they are some species of Leatherjacket.  However the area they covered was about 300m long by and average of 5m wide and at least 20 fish per square metre. By my arithmetic that gives 30,000 former fish!!  I have no idea what has gone on.

The aim of this next image was to show the dark clouds coming up from the West behind the rock at about 11:30am.  (They seemed a lot darker than they appear here.)

 Looking East the clouds were quite scattered and much lighter.

 A few more clouds were out to sea.

 By 3pm it still hadn't started to rain so I went down to see what the Flying Foxes were up to.  Basically making a stink and a lot of noise.

 There are two bats in this tangle- I have no idea if they were making love or war.

 This threesome were definitely more on the warfare side of the equation.

 The more bats the more fighting!

 A wing stretch.

 I took this image for the detail of the claw, but liked the haging head so left it in.

My guess is that there is at least 1,000 bats in the colony at present but I have no idea what they are feeding on.  We did see some Angophora in flower as we drove from Genoa but there doesn't seem to be any around here.

Unlike Godot the rain has arrived, starting about 1815 and now (2030) honking down with strong wind and thunder.  It stopped about 2100, having delivered 17mm.