bobmcgee

A Tale of Two Cities …

Not London and Paris but Warracknabeal and Brim.

They are not as far apart as London and Paris but the rivalry is just as intense and the Brim Silos have really heated it up.

You will find them out in the dry west of Victoria, sheep wheat country. Warracknabeal has a population of about 2 400 people, about half the population are descended from Harry Yambiak and are named Smith, Jones, Scott or Brown. The rest are named Avery. The second greatest moment in the town’s history was the birth of its most famous son, Nick Cave. The greatest moment was when he went to live somewhere else.

The Council thought that the town lacked a little zing so they came up with the notion of some civic art. What an achievement …

It has never been accused of distracting passing drivers.

Twenty kilometres away is the little hamlet of Brim, population about 100 (261 at the last census but falling so fast 100 might be about right). The school closed in 2000, the pub closed in 2013. But when it comes to civic art they know how to do it …

… on a grand scale. Now that it’s completed it is a traffic hazard, the signs are out on the highway, the silos are being so frequently photographed that the image must be wearing away pixel by pixel.

The big story now is who are they? Are they real? The artist is a Queenslander, is that Joe Bjelke-Peterson? The official line is that they should not be seen as individuals but as representatives of the local folk. Fortunately my Warracknabeal correspondent is able to shed a little light on the matter. She has kindly provided the following photos.

From which we learn that the subjects are real and none of them are Joe Bjelke-Peterson.

Even before completion the people in Warracknabeal knew they were being shown up in a big way. Here are some that have driven over there to display their silo envy …

Footnote. If you have never heard of Nick Cave or Joe Bjelke-Peterson there is absolutely nothing to be gained by looking them up.

Another Day in the Desert …

The south west of Victoria has a reasonable rainfall and fertile volcanic soils. Imaginatively named the Western District it is a rich agricultural area. Moving north rainfall diminishes and temperature increases. To the north of the Western District Victoria has its deserts. The sand was donated by South Australia during past ice ages brought by the prevailing westerly winds. These deposits are known as the Lowan sands. The Big Desert is in the middle, to the north is the Sunset Country, to the south the Little Desert. They are dry, they are hot in summer but they are all quite well vegetated. Too well vegetated to be real deserts.

I thought the Big Desert would be a good place to try out the new FJ Cruiser on the sand. Here it is with my trusty Pod Camper on the edge of the desert.

The next day was a hot one. Birds were fairly scarce except for a patch where the Mallee Eucalypts were just bursting with blossom. I took a seat close by and photographed the incoming flock. The White-fronted Honeyeaters came in good numbers …

and the ubiquitous Galah posed nicely …

I had to work a little harder for this one …

This is the Shy Heathwren, Hylacola cauta. There is another species in the same genus, the Chestnut Rumped Heathwren, that is even harder to find. It has been said that the Chestnut-rumped Heathwren makes the Shy Heathwren look like a social butterfly.

A rewarding day, day’s end brought yet another treasure …

The Mighty Murray …

Victoria lies in the south east of the Australian mainland. The colonies around it were given a degree of definition when Victoria was just the Port Phillip District of New South Wales. Tasmania, then van Deiman’s Land was separated from NSW in 1825 and was given virtually all the Bass Strait Islands even most of those that you can see from our most southerly point. Jibbed. (Tassie was renamed in 1856). South Australia happened into existence in 1834. Its eastern boundary was defined as the 141°E meridian (but a curious thing happened).

When Victoria was mooted the formula for its northern boundary was to start on the east coast at Point Howe, draw a line to the source of the nearest tributary of the Murray and then follow the left hand river bank until bumping into the South Australian border that already existed. Easy. So NSW got all the river, jibbed again, a Victorian needs a NSW fishing licence to fish from Victoria’s bank and where is the top of the bank in a flood, or where it has been altered. Wars have been fought over less. Anyway everyone knows that Victoria has none of the river.

And that popular view is wrong, South Australia’s turn to be jibbed. When their eastern border was surveyed between 1846 and 1850 it was set two minutes too far to the west. The mistake was discovered in 1868. Victoria was unwilling to give up the little slice of SA it had received by luck. The case ran for quite a while until the Privy Council ruled in favour of Victoria in 1914. For 10 km of river Victoria is on the left bank and South Australia is on the right and for that 10km the border runs right down the middle of the river. Ten kilometres of half a river is better than none. If you have a Victorian fishing licence you can use it here!

Even though Victorians have very little stake in it, it remains a mighty river 2,508 kilometres (1,558 mi) in length. It is joined by the Darling and together they drain about one seventh of Australia’s total land mass.

There is one little bit of the Murray that is of considerable interest to the Victorian birdwatcher, the Barmah Forest is the only place in Victoria where the Superb Parrot, essentially a denizen of the inland slopes of the Dividing range of NSW, deigns to cross the border. If you want it on your Victorian list you have to go to Barmah. If you will give me a few minutes I will search the internet and see if I can filch a photo of one …

Once again it’s Graham Chapman that I’ve parasitised, I hope he will forgive me, it may help my cause if you visit his splendid site.

I spent a couple of days there just before Christmas. The Superb Parrot eluded me. The Yellow Rosella came to say hello. They are common in the Red Gum forest along the Murray and don’t wander far from there. Officially they are a subspecies of the Crimson Rosella but they rarely interbreed in the wild.

Noisy Friarbirds share the same tastes in habitat. Some are resident but their numbers are boosted by a summer influx across the river.

I camped right on the bank. A pair of Azure Kingfishers were feeding three youngsters. They soon became fairly comfortable around me. It would not have been safe to leave sardines on the table.

A few minutes walk away I came upon this guy.

Victoria Police …

… persecuting everyone?

Silo …

Drove over to Brim this afternoon to have a look at the silo …

Brim is a small town with a population of about 100 standing in the sheep – wheat country of western Victoria. The art work by Brisbane artist Guido van Helten was finished just a few days ago. Amazing what you can do with some brown paint, redundant silos and a boom lift.

Not far from Paradise …

In summary of the recent trip. The Prado and I covered 8,820 km (5,512 miles). The binoculars were turned on some 271 species of bird, one of which they had never seen before. They were also trained on some of Australia’s quite unusual mammals including both Tree Kangaroos, Platypus and Spectacled Hare Wallaby.

Getting home to the drab and mundane, the humdrum, the ordinary might be a challenge, if a word of that were true. But it’s not, I have Platypus in the creek at the bottom of my back paddock, this guy was waiting for me a few metres from my front door …

This one was out on my driveway enjoying the summer sun …

I live not far from Paradise and I can get there by bus.

Industry …

Since my house was built a number of extensions have been made, and not all by the owner. I have been watching a very busy lady make a few over recent days. Here she is.

She starts by building a mud tunnel. She has several on the go. The next step is to find a nice juicy spider which she paralyses. It looks as though it weighs as much as she does.

Several spiders are deposited in the tunnel. She then lays an egg in there and seals up the entrance. Here’s an adjacent pair of tunnels so recently sealed that the mud is still wet in one.

She goes on adding to this until she has a cluster two deep and four or five down. Then the whole thing is encased in a final render.

When the egg hatches the larva feasts on the paralysed spiders, a gruesome fate for the spider but one that neatly bypasses the need for refrigeration to keep it fresh.

My tentative diagnosis for this creature is Sceliphron laetum, the Mud Dauber Wasp. Apparently they pack a powerful sting but rarely attack. They are found throughout Australia and New Guinea.

Fort Grey to Menindee …

In one day we travelled the ground that Sturt had needed more than six months to cover, travelled further than William Wright’s resupply mission had in three months.

We took time out to poke around the rocks outside Tibooburra where we found this Euro guarding his patch …

… and then headed south through the mining town of Broken Hill. Clearly a town whose street planners could not imagine anyone traveling beyond it. Every road in seems to peter out in a maze. Then down the Silver City Highway. We drove past the turning to Mutawintji where Becker had sketched the waterhole. Burke had taken a dislike to Becker and had done his damnedest to cause him to give up but Becker stayed on and sketched until his strength and then his life was lost.

William Wright left his initials here. He was scapegoated in the enquiry that followed the Burke and Wills debacle. There were good reasons for the delay in setting off on the resupply effort but the effort itself was undistinguished. It’s hard to feel much sorrow for a man who would do this …

We spent the night on the banks of the Darling in Kinchega National Park, we visited the homestead where William Wright was once the manager, we went to Lake Cawndilla where Sturt and his men, including the indomitable Stuart camped. We drove through Menindee where Burke, Wills and company had drunk at Thomas Paine’s hotel.

And the next day we drove back to Victoria.

The First …

A new calendar game starts.

You are in the game on January first. To stay in the game you have to add at least one species of bird to your year list for each day elapsed. A big day on the first makes you safe for a while. If you fall behind the days elapsed you are out. The last one to go out is the winner or by reaching 366 (it’s a leap year) there could be any number of winners.

My total last year was 386. An insignificant achievement when compared to Sean Dooley’s 703 in 2004. Sean wrote a book about that year called The Big Twitch. I get an acknowledgement in the book, not, I suspect, because of my enormous assistance but rather so I would buy the book. It worked.

This morning I was out of the house at 6 am. It was 24°C (75°F) already and would become hot and windy. It’s been a dry old time. One of the local hot spots is, by coincidence, Dooley’s Road. It backs on to the Maryborough (Victoria) sewage treatment plant and has some much abused remnant vegetation and I visited the sewage ponds as well. Plus some local box ironbark forest. I chalked up 50 species including Crested Shriketit, Little Eagle and the elusive Freckled Duck. No point staying out after noon. Safe until mid February. The Crested Shriketit has a viscous little hook on the end of its bill that it uses to tear away bark to get at the insects underneath …

Playing the game with mammals wouldn’t get me through January but I did see Eastern Grey Kangaroo and Swamp Wallaby. Many prefer the name Black Wallaby for the Swampie on the grounds that it has no preference for swamps which is very true, but nor is it black. The scientific name is Wallabia bicolor, the two coloured wallaby. Also untrue, it’s dark brown with rufous around the ears and a whitish stripe on the face, the tip of the tail is often white. The poor creature stands in need of an appropriate name.

By all means join the game. Wherever you are in the world. Post your tally in the comments, I look forward to hearing from you.

Time for me to get back to the thrilling account of my trip through the desert …

Happy New Year …

2015 rolls to a close. A memorable year for many good and all too many bad reasons.

Thank you to all of you that take the time to read my posts. Visits came from 69 countries, outside of Australia the US then Belgium figured large. I hope many of you will visit our country in person. If I can help just ask.

A special thanks to those who wrote comments, in particular Mukul Chand who always says nice things about my photography.

I wish you all a happy and prosperous new year.