* Today, September 1 is the first day of Spring, also Wattle Day. The golden wattle are in blossom in the southern states but here I have captured our version of green and gold (our national colours), featuring wild budgerigars and the winter’s dried, golden grasses. I’ve been feeling a little poetic lately too…and by the way, a ‘chatter’ is what a large flock of budgies is called!
Wattle in the Mt. Lofty Botanic Gardens near Adelaide, South Australia.
The first of our trips to places that were rebuilding after the bush fires was a trip ‘overseas’. More specifically during a trip to Adelaide (1500k/1000miles south of Alice) to visit our daughter, we had a side trip of a twenty-five minute plane ride over water to Kangaroo Island. Most of you will remember the horrible video from last December/January that documented the decimation of the Flinders Chase National park covering the entire western portion of the island. The loss was heart breaking. At the time, Don and I were sad for the loss, but also that we had not been there yet. We thought we’d have to wait for years to be able to see it. But that was before we hatched our plan to travel to the places that wanted visitors to come and help them re-establish tourism and put some money into the economy.
Burnt coastal vegetation on the Western Coast of KI. This vegetation has not yet begun to regenerate. The wind and weather are so harsh it will take a while longer.
We were assured there was still plenty to see on the island by friends who had travelled there only weeks after the fires. They were so right. It was still gut wrenching to drive through kilometres of blackened national forest. But to go now, when things were starting to regrow was also very heartening.
As far as the eye can see–burnt trees, but greenish regrowth is appearing around the bottoms.
The sustainable timber industry had forests of trees that were 95% ruined for use, but a few that were already shooting new growth. Beside this forest were dozens of grass trees. We have never traveled anywhere in Australia where we have seen as many grass trees (Xanthorrhoea australis). Interestingly, where we saw the ones that had been through the fires, they had shot enormous flower spikes, an urgent will to survive! But in areas we traveled that had not had the fires, hardly a flower spike was seen. Mother nature at her best. In some areas there were dozens of grass trees, kilometres of them along the roads even. It was staggering. Grass trees are extremely slow growing but seemingly, rather fire tolerant.
This is a closeup of some eucalyptus regrowth in one of the surviving timber forests.
The grass trees with their flower spikes that have all shot since the fires.
It’s hard to get the perspective of how tall these flower spikes are unless you have a husband next to one! The grass trees grow very slowly. This one could be 75 years old or more!
A grass tree flower spike up close. Before it is finished it will be covered with the little white star shaped flowers.
A small native orchid, shooting leaves and sprouting moss, all evidence of recovery.
Sea lions frolic in their dozens in the waters through this natural arch at the left. Smiling daughter and husband at Remarkable Rocks, far edge of Flinders Chase National Park.
Of course the wildlife did not fare so well. But the rangers assured us they had seen platypus, kangaroo, goannas, wombats and birds returning. As the plants grow and become a greater source of shelter and food, they expect more animals to be seen. The fur seals and sea lions were plentiful, back from their near extinction from hunters a hundred years ago. The ranger at the gate of the national park said ‘Come back and see us in 7-10 years and we will be a different place’. That seems a long time on one hand, but not so much in other ways.
Emu Bay was green and beautiful in the late afternoon.
L to R: view from our rental out to Emu Bay, a beautiful tree called Pacific Blue, on the grounds of Emu Bay Holiday Homes, .Our very quiet welcoming committee of one, asleep on the job!
Each part of the island has a slightly different character. Emu Bay, where we spent the first two nights, is peaceful and green. There were plenty of Kangaroos, though most didn’t show themselves until it was too dark to get photos. However, upon our arrival we had only just gotten out of the car when we looked up to see a Koala, asleep in the gum tree beside the house we had rented. It was only the second wild Koala I’ve seen in the 37 years I’ve lived in Australia. Of course I’ve seen them up close in various sanctuaries around the country, but not in the wild. Much of their habitat is disappearing so they are dwindling in numbers.
Seal bay was all about smiles…except for that one little scary bit…
This fellow was just telling me who was in charge! See up the hill, the greenery is dotted with other seals.
Seal Bay was a fun place, even when I took my eye off the task at hand and had a large male seal decide to have a run at me. The hazards of concentrating on the subject when photographing wildlife!
I thought the ball on the left had a strange resemblance to coronavirus illustrations.
The skeleton of a sponge, so exotic.
The walk on the beach was very windy, but I absolutely love seeing and photographing the treasures that are washed up on the sand.
Lovely fresh foods from Millie Mae’s Pantry, Penneshaw, and American River fish shop. (American River is the place where American seal hunters lived for a period of years, helping to gradually reduce the population of fur seals to near extinction in that area.)
We had some delicious food at some characterful places, including Penneshaw’s The Fat Beagle (best brownie ever!), seafood selection near American River, and breakfast and lunch at Millie Mae’s Pantry (Penneshaw). Though, quite a few places were still closed from winter, and covid, and fire devastation. In each area we visited we found one or two good places to eat. And we self catered a couple of times as well. The local IGA had a good selection of fresh foods.
But one of my most lasting memories was seeing the smile that almost never left our daughter’s face the entire time we were there. It’s been a tough year for some…and a very tough year for others and the environment. Take heart, there is still joy to be had in life and remember at every opportunity the words of Kurt Vonnegut
I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, ‘If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is’.
When you accidentally match your breakfast to the floral centrepiece on the table and the morning light and bird calls accompany. Nice.
This isn’t a piece about a sports team named the Falcons…these Falcons are athletes of a different species, diving and racing up to speeds of 300kph! As you would have noticed from the last post, I’m a bit of a bird nerd. Some of my earliest memories are of my grandmother nursing an injured or fledgling house sparrow back to health. I’m sure she never realised, or would care, that the common house sparrow has come to be known as one of the most adaptable birds in the world, and very clever too! She just loved all creatures.
About a month ago I became aware of a bird project, supported by Birdlife Australia, that is rather extraordinary. It not only supports a population of Peregrin Falcons, but it has enabled the public to come along on the journey. About thirty years ago a group of avid Twitchers and lovers of the Peregrin Falcons realised that it was quite dangerous for the birds to be nesting in the nooks and crannies of the high rise office buildings in the city. (They naturally nest in crevices of rocky ledges.) They raised money and built nesting boxes which they installed in known Falcon nesting places, one of which was located in the high rise building at 367 Collins Street in downtown Melbourne, Australia. Thirty years on the boxes were mostly deteriorated but the birds had regularly used them. So this year Birdlife Australia again raised money to build stronger, metal nesting boxes and hired a crane to help place them.
Mama falcon sitting on the eggs.
One of the long known locations, at 367 Collins Street was also the recipient of a new live stream camera! The live stream emanates from the web address at 367collinsfalcons.com.au and also is on YouTube. When I first started watching it 6 or 7 weeks ago, there were no eggs. Then, in rapid succession the female falcon laid three eggs and began the tedious task of sitting on them. Occasionally the male would come to relieve her so she could hunt for food but she did most of the sitting, so I gather. Personally, I can’t tell the two of them apart yet.
Then, on Friday just before lunch time, the chicks made their entrance into the world. I was surprised to see that Mum still sits on them and think that most of us who have had babies would have liked to sit on them once in a while to quiet them, but the rest of it, I leave to the Falcon world. The tearing up of small prey and feeding to the young ones is most unappealing, and yet, very interesting to watch as first one squawks and then another. She’s such an attentive mum.
Sitting on the chicks certainly shuts them up!
Melbourne weather is mostly cool-ish, ranging to muggy and warm in the summer, and I noticed yesterday as they were having a warm, humid day that rather than sitting on the chicks to keep them warm, she sat on the edge of the nesting box to shade the little darlings. This is very difficult for mum because she is always on alert for other birds or dangers that might harm her brood, and sitting with her back to the sun in order to shade the chicks is very awkward for her. I’ve only ever seen her close her eyes once, and only for a few seconds. I think she must get very tired.
Mama Falcon shading the chicks from the afternoon sun.
The last few days as I have watched the nest cam, I have been taking screen shots, which I share with you in this post. I hope you will go to the live stream and watch this special bit of nature unfolding. You can read more about the Falcons on the site as well.
Feeding time. Notice on the back of the metal nesting box, they have the date stamped when the boxes were installed…August 2020.
Like most people, at the beginning of 2020, we had plans. We had the long planned for trip to the Southern Ocean and South Africa, but as the year unfolded with tragic bushfires here in Australia, we added another plan to our itinerary. We decided to spend our travels over the next year or so going to places in our country that had been ravaged by the fires. With the trip to the Southern Ocean looming and bushfires still raging, we decided to wait until we returned to start making plans to put some money back into the various places that needed it. Little did we know…
Of course by the time we returned in late March the Pandemic was declared and borders were closing faster than a safety gate. Like everyone we followed along as weekly, even daily, changes were announced toward trying to control the spread of COVID-19. So familiar is it to our daily lives that we now have a shorthand language developing. No one says COVID-19 anymore, it’s just ‘covid’… and ’iso’ instead of isolation. But as things here in Australia have eased, we have picked up our plans again to help reinvigorate tourism. Our latest trip was three days and two nights, here in our own Territory.
A couple of months ago when the Northern Territory reopened the parks, but before the borders were reopened, we were encouraged to support the reopening tourist sites and businesses. There were a limited number of vouchers offered to locals as incentives to apply toward local travels. Two other couples, and we, decided a trip to Kings Canyon (no apostrophe in case you are wondering) in Watarrka National Park could be a good place to go before the weather heated up too much. The other two couples had previously visited, but we had not. We have strategically been saving some of our travels in Australia for our dotage, when International travel no longer seemed doable, or appealing. That would be now, on both counts!
Kings Canyon is about 325 kilometres from Alice, around 4 hours driving, depending on which route you take. There aren’t many things to stop for en route, unless you enjoy the subtle desert country as we do. But there are a couple of things, as well as the unique scenery. Unfortunately it remains very, very dry here at the moment, red dust turning green trees to brown. One good rain and it would all be rinsed clean and green again. Even with the dust, I managed to find a number of wild flowers to photograph.
Top L to R: Paper daisies, Desert Rose, mystery flower? Bottom photo is of something called Mulla Mulla or Pussy’s tail
We visited the Henbury Meteorite Reserve as well as a classic old bush style pub called Jim’s Place. The Meteorite craters were more impressive than I expected. You could plainly see where the meteors had hit and disrupted the normal land forms. The ‘larger’ meteors were only the size of a 200 litre fuel drum, but they blasted out enormous craters, one of which grew a small ecosystem of its own because it could hold precious water after the sparse rains.
Amazing how large these craters were, given that a meteor about the size of a 200 litre (55 US gallons) oil drum created them. The high point on the ridge beyond the crater shows what the natural undisturbed terrain looks like, compared to the impact area of the crater, around 4000 years ago.
The main attraction for the trip was, of course, Kings Canyon. It certainly was beautiful, but if you were expecting something like The Grand Canyon in the American southwest, you might be a little disappointed. Still, this one required 500 steps ascending up to the top of the rim and then was a 6 kilometre walk around the rim before coming down again. It takes about 3-4 hours. I made the decision to walk the shorter, less arduous, walk through the bottom of the canyon along the creek. You know I’m not one to shy away from a challenge, but I’d been having some problems with a muscle that affected my walking and would spasm afterward and decided 500 steps up seemed a little out of my reach on this occasion.
Left: Looking toward the top of the Canyon Right: along the creek walk on the canyon floorJust a tiny bit left of centre on the top of the ridge you can see our husbands!
The other two women in the group decided to join me. We had a fun walk and conversation that easily filled a couple of hours. After we had all returned to the accommodation Don began telling me of a very curious encounter the men had as they were finishing the walk. Heading out of the canyon there is a water tap installed above a beautiful, large rock. Since they had been one of the first groups up that morning it didn’t appear anyone had used the water tap and the rock was dry. As they approached, a small Spinifex Pigeon scurrying along the path came up to one of the men’s shadows, circled around a couple of times, then scurried over to the rock, stopped, and stared back at the men. Not getting the hoped for response, the pigeon did it again. After the second time, one of the men ‘got’ the message–the pigeon wanted them to turn on the water so it could have a drink!! I’m always yammering on about how smart birds are and some of the amazing feats they’ve preformed over the years since humans have been recording such things. So Don knew this would interest me. I was also intensely envious. A Spinifex Pigeon has been at the top of my list of birds to see, and perhaps even photograph, for many years. As many times as we have been out bush in the 28 years we’ve lived in Central Australia, I had never seen a Spinifex Pigeon.
Later in the afternoon, Don and I decided to take a little walk around the grounds of the ‘resort’. As we left our room, Julie came running out from their room two doors up and called to her husband who had just driven in, “Jim, hurry, there’s a lizard trying to eat something!” We immediately wheeled around and headed toward their room too. Once on the balcony we looked into the rocks 8 or so metres away and there was a large Perentie, probably 6 feet long, dragging a rabbit down the rocks in preparation to dine al fresco. Jim was brave, approaching to about half the distance between us and the lizard and with his high quality lens got some amazing photos and video. This was a truly unusual thing to see.
The Perentie is about halfway up and left of centre, about four metres from Jim.In the centre of the lower third of frame you can see the Perentie with the rabbit…such was my equipment combined with the Perentie’s perfect camouflage, he is very hard to see.
Just when we thought we had reached peak Perentie excitement, what should appear but a Dingo!! It was very keen to share the meal and began to climb down the rocks. The Perentie was equally keen to keep the rabbit to itself. The dingo looked up and saw all of us staring and must have decided things were a little too risky for his liking and he retreated as quickly as he had appeared. The Perentie gulped down a piece of rabbit about twice the size of its head and then disappeared into the rocks. We all agreed one or both would be back to finish the meal.
A hungry dingo wanting his share!
Sure enough about an hour and a half later, both the Perentie and the Dingo reappeared. The Dingo grabbed a hunk of rabbit, stopped to quickly swallow it whole, and the Perentie came back to the remains, but must have been full from its first meal and left again soon thereafter. You can bet money by dark that evening there was no rabbit left.
About twenty minutes before sunset we headed down along the boardwalk to the area where people brought their drinks and nibbles to watch the skies and mountains in the closing light of evening. I had been crouched over some wild flowers near the boardwalk and when I stood up to finish walking to the area under the desert oak tree, I was faced with a wild dingo staring down my husband!! Don was trying to ‘shoo’ the dingo in my direction but the dingo hesitated just long enough for me to get my iphone ready. Suddenly the dingo wheeled around and headed for me. I did get a bit of video but the more amazing photo is the one I almost blindly captured as the dingo trotted within inches of me on its way to wherever dingoes go! With the canyon walks and wildlife, it was a day we would remember for a long time.
L: That’s my husband in the white shirt on the boardwalk. R: That’s not my husband 🙂Boardwalk along the Desert Oaks to the viewing area.What we saw from the viewing area.
The next morning, our driver (and friend) Jim, asked us if there was anything else we wanted to see before we left the area. Still intensely envious of the men’s encounter with the Spinifex Pigeon I laughingly said I would loved to have seen that. As the canyon was about 20 minutes’ drive from the accommodation I didn’t want to inconvenience everyone in pursuing my bird passion. But Jim insisted we should try and who was I to argue??
This time, as we approached, two Spinifex Pigeons came scurrying* out of the scrub and right up to us at the entrance. They raced over to the water fountains that were still dry as it was fairly early in the day. I got my iPhone ready and in position and then quickly pushed the button to allow some water down to the grate. It was like Pigeon magic, they scurried in, out and around like gleeful children in a public fountain in mid-summer.
Spinifex Pigeons at the entrance to Kings Canyon
But the men called me over to the other water tap that drained onto the rock. Once there I again squatted and got the camera settings right and Jim let the water do its magic. In seconds the Spinifex Pigeons purposefully made their way toward the water that settled into the crevices in the large rock. Whoever thought of this idea was a genius. I’m sure the birds think so too! Not only did my elusive Spinifex Pigeon appear, but another bird at the top of my list, the Zebra Finch. I had seen many Zebra Finches over the years, indeed many mornings on my walks I see them and hear their soft chirping sounds. But they are so tiny and skittish I have never been able to photograph them with my iPhone. And. there. they. were. Honestly, inside I was jumping up and down clapping hands and laughing gleefully. But outside, I was squatted and still, until my legs could no longer hold me and I had to brace myself to stand up. I’m never sure I’ve actually got the images I am after until I look at them, so I had no idea if the photos had turned out or not, but watching the action in person was enough in any case.
Zebra Finches are very tiny, would easily fit in the palm of your hand.Spinifex Pigeons are larger than finches, but only about half the size of most pigeons people are familiar with.
Our trip to Kings Canyon was a success on many levels, the company of good friends, the beautiful desert country, the canyon itself, and the animals and flora along the way. Why wouldn’t everyone be anxious to come and see the wonderful land of Oz?
*Note on ‘scurrying’… many birds hop, some waddle, others scratch their way around the ground. Pigeons most definitely ‘scurry’. That is their comical and very endearing mode of covering ground! Watch them sometime, they always scurry.
