Australian Wildlife - Birds, Birds, Birds (and a nice surprise)

BIRDS! BIRDS! BIRDS!  And a nice surprise

There is hardly a single bird in Australia that is also in the US, so virtually every bird you see will be new to you.  Raven and Pelican, yes, but they are Australian ravens and pelicans, so they are different in appearance and sometimes behavior.  And because it is warm and tropical for the most part here, there are birds in abundance.  

Every day clouds of Rainbow Lorikeets blow past us on their way to roost in the palm trees at night.  Their favorite trees are downtown and when they all arrive, the noise is deafening! But as darkness falls, the worm turns, so to speak.  The birds tuck their heads under their wings and peace reigns.  Then the nightclubs open and the thump, thump, thump of music shakes the ground and must surely vibrate the trees full of Lorikeets. 

Sleeping Rainbow Lorikeets 

And the Sulfur-crested Cockatoos have their moments of madness in the evening -- screaming past overhead, sometimes blowing our hair with their wind.

Sulphur-crested Cockatoo screaming

Sulphur-crested Cockatoo quiet

And I do mean screaming.  No sane person who saw these birds in the wild would ever 

think of bringing one into their house to live.  They simply do not grasp the meaning of an inside voice.  The "talk" to each constantly at a level that is positively ear-splitting!  And if you watch them, the first thing they do when they land is to begin shredding whatever they are on -- a tree limb, someone's roof.  To have a tree in your yard that is a favorite of, say, the local 100 of these birds, would not be a good thing.

Nearly every bird here makes some kind of remarkable sound.  Crying puppies?  The Rainbows cooing before sleep.  The plaintive, heart-breaking uh . . . ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh?  
Ravens.  They can put an amazing human quality into their calls.

 Australian Raven

And the beautiful,  haunting call of a loon on a mountain lake?  Currawongs.  While they have a wicked look with their yellow eyes, they are lovely, funny birds and one of our favorites for their personalities.

Currawong

Another favorite, the Superb Fairy Wren.  So, tiny and delicate, they could not weigh much more than a postage stamp. We called them Tinkerbells.   The males stay close to their group of females and flash their beautiful iridescent blue faces at you.

Male Superb Fairy Wren

Female Superb Fairy Wren

We could find something to say about each of them, but then we are birders and you probably aren't, so here are some Bob's pictures.

Australian Pelicans

Satin Fly-catcher

 Noisy Friarbird

 Red Wattlebird

Purple Swamphen

Laughing Kookaburra

Laughing Kookaburra

Pacific Black Duck

Yellow-Tailed Black-Cockatoo

Little Grebe

Grey Butcherbird

Lewin's Honeyeater

Grey Fantail

White-throated Treecreeper



Crimson Rosella

Crimson Rosellas

Wedge-tailed Eagle

Masked Lapwing

Sulphur-crested Skateboarder

Australian White Ibis

Magpie-lark

Eastern White-cheeked Rosella

Crested Pigeon

Little Corella

Little Wattlebird

New Holland Honeyeater

Noisy Miner

Red-browed Firetail Finch

A Lovely Surprise

Bob had tried numerous times to find Dean on the Internet before we got here without success.  Dean was a young man who was a particular favorite of Bob's family when they lived here in the late 80s.  Dean was a talented surfer and became very well-known in the surfing world here.  I suggested he try again from here and sure enough, Bob almost immediately found an article in a surfing publication.  He emailed the author and convinced him that he did actually know "Deano" and he in turn sent Dean's email to Bob.  Dean was living about an hour and a half north in Avalon.  We arranged to meet him at a local restaurant and spent several hours visiting with him.

What a treat to meet this fine man!  In some ways, not changed from the kid with the big smile Bob described to me, but very changed in other ways.  He was young surfer in the 80s and a very good one and it would have been easy for such a young man to spend 30 years just surfing.  But he did not, choosing instead to work hard and become a successful man with a lovely wife, twin sons and a daughter at the center of his life.  He has done very well in business and, as so many Australians do, has traveled widely with his family.  Another high point in our Australian odyssey and one we won't forget.

 

Australia Wildlife - Lizards & Leeches

So, we love the Australians.  But some of the other creatures that inhabit this beautiful country are a bit scary.  I have watched enough Nat Geo and Animal Planet to be sure that there would be a family of deadly funnel webs living in a dark corner of my apartment.  But I have looked and looked and not seen a single insect yet.  Several butterflies.  So, cross off insects.  Time to go hiking.

The Royal National Park

We are about 15 minutes from the entrance to this park.  It's wonderful!  For the first weeks we were here, I think we went nearly every day.  Our favorite place is Wattamolla.

My grandson -- hello, Jakob! -- is extremely interested in lizards.  Might say a bit obsessed.  He wanted me to send him pictures of lizards.  Of course, I didn't want to fail in this, but I never thought there would be much chance.  Until ...

This beautiful fellow just ambled across the parking lot at Wattamolla.  A nearly four-foot long monitor -- called a goanna here.  He didn't skitter off either.  He walked slowly and purposefully.  You could see the power rippling along his body.  I was NOT tempted to pick him up.

The next time we were there ...

An eastern water dragon joined us for a picnic.  He stayed still and submitted to our attention quite placidly.  Maybe half a meter long, he had a larger friend basking across the pond.

 

Then this lovely blue-tongued lizard.  They are common in gardens and people love them here as they eat garden pests and are calm and relatively tame as lizards go.  The blue tongue is a defense mechanism that they use to scare off threats.  We didn’t know that and stayed back so as not to frighten him, so we got only a brief glimpse of his tongue.  But it was really, really BLUE.

 

 

Bob has become very good at this lizard photography and I am the lizard queen grandma.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Rain Forest

 

We asked about snakes before we headed off and they told us there were few reported, but lots of leeches in the wet weather and we should take precautions.  Okay, hiking boots, long pants and duct tape should do it.

 

 

 

 

It was beautiful there, but we couldn't go too far as the creek was pretty deep.  We finished early and decided to stop at the mall on the way home.  My shoe wardrobe was lacking something to wear in Sydney.  You know how it is -- twelve pairs of shoes and not one would suit.  No worries – the mall is on the way home.

 

The tape looked a bit odd, so we peeled it off in the parking lot.  Hmm.  I saw a spot of blood on the top of my foot between the tape and my boot.  Bob found a lot of one sock covered in blood.  And --- eeeoooo! – the little bugger was still clinging to his jeans.  Flick!  The now quite distended leech landed with a plop on the pavement.

 

 

 

We resisted the temptation to strip off right there in full view of all the other shoppers, but a careful examination turned up nothing.  Mine had had a light snack and left.  Bob's was still sitting there -- on the pavement that had been in the sun since morning.  I looked at it -- him, whatever --  as he stretched to get as much of himself off the blistering pavement as he could.  I could almost hear a tiny voice,  "hot!  hot!  hot!"

 

 

Of course, a leech on a rooftop parking garage has no future to speak of.  They may rate fairly high on the ick scale, but they are harmless.  And they are pretty amazing:  in one nip they inject anesthetic, vasodilators, anticoagulant and anti-inflammatories -- a skill doctors cannot claim.  And these are the types that are used in medical treatments.  There is a leech "farm" not far away that ships them all over.

 

I popped him into a little plastic cup I keep in the car for things that I want to collect.  We released him and he won't cause any trouble for a while.  He doesn’t have to eat again for a year.

 

Next, something more attractive -- BIRDS!!!!