Gemologist Rob Hunt smiles at his amateurish attempt at photographing a supermoon rising over Rowes Lagoon, an exceptional wetland near the Federal Highway between Collector and Goulburn.
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As magnificent as expected, whitewashing the landscape below, the moon appeared in his photograph as a blur, while a sign on a shed in the foreground came out crisp and sharp, saying "Beware of the snakes".
That's why Mr Hunt, who has a jewellery shop at Manuka and exports gemstones, treasures Rowes Lagoon. It is full of wildlife including rare birds and numerous endangered plants. Sitting like a shallow bowl in a plateau on top of the Great Dividing Range, the land drains slowly, creating a frog and ibis-filled wetland.
On the western slope above the plateau, centuries-old trees are hollowed out in yellow box and snow gum grassy woodlands. Mr Hunt can stand inside one of them.
A real estate valuer, Mr Hunt knows the worth of rural land around the country, but bought the grazing rights to the lagoon four years ago to make sure it isn't grazed. Fallen tree limbs are left to rot on the ground, and along with the hollow trees are full of bats and birds and tiger snakes. So many tiger snakes, visitors to the lagoon often report either nearly stepping on one, or quietening their horses after seeing one go for cover.
The NSW Office of Environment and Heritage's listing of endangered plants shows the value of Rowes Lagoon among comments on the ground-hugging shrub, Dwarf Kerrawang.
"Dwarf Kerrawang occurs on the Southern Highlands and Southern Tablelands (one plant at Penrose State Forest, one plant at Tallong, a small population near the Corang and about 2000 plants at Rowes Lagoon)."
From the highest point in the woodlands, you can see Fedra olive grove to the west, Cullerin Range Wind Farm to the north and Rowes Lagoon to the east. Over the years botanists and bird watchers have observed threatened species including the swamp harrier, turquoise parrot, scarlet robin and blue-billed duck.
Away from the rest area and rush of highway traffic enough birds can be seen or heard to fill an atlas, including plovers, wood ducks, swallows, ground parrots, cockatoos, rosellas, pardalotes, peewees, willy wagtails and tree creepers.
On a swollen nob at the base of an old tree, Mr Hunt says: "If you sit here still enough and blend in with the tree it is amazing what you see. I've been watching birds of prey, for a while we had a sea eagle on the hill. They nest everywhere. The flowers, when they shoot it's as good as Western Australia."
Three years ago when water almost filled the lagoon, he counted 27 black swan cygnets.
Canberra ornithologists will visit later this month, keeping an eye out for the endangered Australasian Bittern, a thick-necked, heron-like bird. The Rice Growers' Association of Australia and Birdlife Australia are partners in a project to encourage bitterns in the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area. Their project group is aware of three bitterns previously turning up at Rowes Lagoon.
Ecologist and Friends of Grasslands president Sarah Sharp says because it is on a Crown reserve Rowes Lagoon has been leased out over many years, and lightly grazed, with little or no addition of fertiliser, soil disturbance, planting or cropping.
Ms Sharp says this is the likely reason why the diversity is so high. Orchids and other uncommon plants are indicative of the low levels of past disturbance.
