ephemeral
Ephemerality (from the Greek word , meaning 'lasting only one day') is the concept of things being transitory, existing only briefly. Academically, the term ephemeral constitutionally describes a diverse assortment of things and experiences, fr ...
Great Western Woodlands
The Great Western Woodlands is located in the southwest of Australia. The woodlands cover almost , a region larger in size than England and Wales. The boundary of the Great Western Woodlands runs from the Nullarbor Plain in the east to the West ...
Western Australia
Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...
located approximately east of the town of Hyden and about east south east of
Perth
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is ...
. The lake is situated within the Lake Cronin Nature Reserve.
Description
The lake is a semi-permanent freshwater lake located in goldfields close to the boundary of the eastern Wheatbelt near to where it meets
Goldfields
Goldfield or Goldfields may refer to:
Places
* Goldfield, Arizona, the former name of Youngberg, Arizona, a populated place in the United States
* Goldfield, Colorado, a community in the United States
* Goldfield, Iowa, a city in the United State ...
. It is one of the largest freshwater lakes in the region. Most lakes in the area are hypersaline but Lake Cronin has typical readings of 185 – 1300 mg/litre total dissolved solids making its water quite fresh. The lake occupies an area of and is recognised as a nationally important wetland as is registered in the ''
Directory of Important Wetlands in Australia A Directory of Important Wetlands in Australia (DIWA) is a list of wetlands of national importance to Australia published by the governmental agency Environment Australia. Intended to augment the list of wetlands of international importance under t ...
''. It is fringed by large areas of woodlands, mallee and shrublands that are more or less undisturbed but surrounded by lands cleared for agriculture, particularly to the west so that any original vegetation has been reduced to small scattered small remnants. The area's climate is semi-arid with hot summer and cool winters, but with reliable winter rainfall providing an estimated average of around . The surrounding landforms are a mixture of breakaways, woodlands, sandplains and salt lakes in valley floors which drain internally. The surrounding hills and ranges are part of a large
greenstone belt
Greenstone belts are zones of variably metamorphosed mafic to ultramafic volcanic sequences with associated sedimentary rocks that occur within Archaean and Proterozoic cratons between granite and gneiss bodies.
The name comes from the green ...
that runs from north to south and also includes isolated
granite
Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...
monoliths.
Conservation area
An area of surrounding the lake was gazetted as a formal Nature Reserve in 1980. It had been formally recognised for conservation since 1975 by the Environmental Protection Authority. The lake's wetland with is surrounded by a
catchment
A drainage basin is an area of land where all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, the ...
area that is almost completely intact and is listed as a nationally important wetland.
Flora
The area surrounding Lake Cronin is particularly diverse with species of vegetation containing 24 vegetation types, including 16 species of plant that have conservation value. The area is composed of sandplain heath communities and low eucalypt woodlands and mallees with species such as '' Acacia asepala'', '' Boronia westringioides'', '' Melaleuca uncinata'', ''
Eremophila serpens
''Eremophila serpens'', commonly known as snake eremophila, is a flowering plant in the figwort family, Scrophulariaceae and is endemic to Western Australia. It is a prostrate, creeping shrub with long, horizontal branches, leaves which often ...
The lake is an important habitat for many species of waterbirds including;
grey teal
The grey teal (''Anas gracilis'') is a dabbling duck found in open wetlands in Australia and New Zealand.
Description
It can be identified due to the presence of a crimson coloured iris in its eyes.Winter, M. (2018). Grey Teal. Wilderness Mag ...
Australian shelduck
The Australian shelduck (''Tadorna tadornoides''), also known as the chestnut-breasted shelduck or mountain duck, is a shelduck, a group of large goose-like ducks part of the bird family Anatidae. The genus name ''Tadorna'' comes from Celtic root ...
s and black-tailed native-hens. The varied fringing vegetation around the lake and wetlands also supports a variety of species including the
striated pardalote
The striated pardalote (''Pardalotus striatus'') is the least colourful and most common of the four pardalote species. Other common names include pickwick, wittachew and chip-chip. It is a very small, short-tailed bird that is more often heard th ...
,
western rosella
The western rosella (''Platycercus icterotis''), or moyadong, is a species of parrot endemic to southwestern Australia. The head and underparts are bright red, and the back is mottled black; a yellow patch at the cheek distinguishes it from oth ...
and
blue-breasted fairy-wren
The blue-breasted fairywren (''Malurus pulcherrimus''), or blue-breasted wren, is a species of passerine bird in the Australasian wren family, Maluridae. It is non-migratory and endemic to southern Western Australia and the Eyre Peninsula in So ...
. In surveys conducted in 1988, 90 species of birds were found in the area.
It is also home to a rich array of frogs with seven species being found here including; the summer breeding ''
Neobatrachus centralis
The Sudell's frog, painted burrowing frog (''Neobatrachus sudellae''), trilling frog or desert trilling frog (formerly ''Neobatrachus centralis'') is a species of burrowing frog common to a large part of southeastern Australia. It is found on ...
Neobatrachus pelobatoides
The humming frog (''Neobatrachus pelobatoides'') is a species of frog in the family Limnodynastidae.
It is Endemism, endemic to Australia. Its natural habitats are temperate forests, temperate shrubland, Mediterranean-type shrubby vegetation, in ...
''. It is also the only known only locality of '' Denisonia atriceps'', the rare elapid snake.
Fifteen species of mammals are also known to inhabit the area, including the
white-tailed dunnart
The white-tailed dunnart (''Sminthopsis granulipes''), also known as the ash-grey dunnart, is a dunnart native to Australia.
Taxonomy
A species first named by Gerard Krefft in 1872, using a specimen obtained at Albany by the local collector G ...
Mitchell's hopping mouse
Mitchell's hopping mouse (''Notomys mitchellii'') also known as the pankot, is the largest extant member of the genus ''Notomys'', weighing between . ''N. mitchellii'' is a bipedal rodent with large back legs, similar to a jerboa or kangaroo rat. ...
and the
western pygmy possum
The western pygmy possum (''Cercartetus concinnus''), also known as the southwestern pygmy possum or the ''mundarda'', is a small marsupial found in Australia. Genetic studies indicate its closest relative is probably the eastern pygmy possum, f ...