and pray that there's intelligent life somewhere out in space
Well, Melbourne, anyway.
And when in Melbourne head to Braeside Park which is host to Freckled and Pink-eared Duck and even some Magpie Geese at the moment. Gentle light before the rain that’s now falling. A chance to lie in the wet grass and shoot contre jour at some Pink-ears.
A walk around Griffiths Island, especially early or late in the day will almost always turn up a few Swamp Wallabies. As long as you don’t go too close they tend to just stand and look at you. Occasionally you might also see an Eastern Grey Kangaroo, they are not so tame. When they’re bounding along Swampies tend to keep their heads low and travel in a horizontal posture. Eastern Greys are more upright.
Despite their name Swamp Wallabies are not regularly found in swamps. An alternative popular name is Black Wallaby but they’re not black. Their scientific name is also a dud Wallabia bicolor since they are rufous, black and cream.
Junior is an Australian Pied Oystercatcher that hatched on Griffiths Island. You can tell this is a youngster by the brownish feather margins and relatively subdued colours on legs, bill and eye ring. He or she was probably one of two or three but there has been no trace of siblings over the last few days. Life is hazardous for young birds. Junior is probing for food for themself but is still very ready to accept food from its parents which are still a bit bigger.
When danger threatens Junior pretends to be a bit of seaweed while Mum and Dad run into the open and pipe up a racket, a distraction display.
Around the corner I came across L9. I last saw L9 three years ago and I’m pleased to see them still going strong. They were in a relationship back then but do not seem to be paired up presently. The Australian Bird and Bat Banding Scheme tell me that L9 was banded on 17th May 2011 and was 3 years or older at the time. (First and second year Oystercatchers can be aged by examination of the pattern of their moult). Banding occurred 288km away. They are now at least 17yrs old.
The migration to our summer feeding ground is complete. What we need now is for summer to follow us.
By my reckoning the distance the van has traveled from camp site to camp site is 8,727km. Add in the running around at the longer stops and the trip meter in the car stands at 12,350km. It took 55 days. The AOR Quantum+ performed well. Some minor maintenance was required and easily accomplished. It is now agisted in a paddock between here and Warnambool. Hopefully it will get some minor workouts during the summer. It has a small wound in its side courtesy of a narrow farm gate which will be fixed when I get around to it.
En route we caught up with good friends and family and visited some places that were novel and some old favorites. I thoroughly enjoy a good road trip and that was a great road trip.
Including the day before we left Broome and two days in Port Fairy I encountered 274 species of bird and the odd mammal and reptile, surprisingly few snakes. Spring in Victoria should soon fix that deficit.
Port Fairy is a coastal town of about 3,400 people. The south coast of mainland Australia was first put to commercial use by whalers and sealers out of Van Dieman’s Land (now Tasmania). James Wishart captain of the sealing ship The Fairy gave the place its name in 1828. John Griffiths established a whaling station on what is now Griffiths Island in 1835. We are staying in an old bluestone mill dating to 1860. It has been renovated since. It’s a two minute walk to Griffiths Island.
The town is packed to the rafters with heritage listed buildings and boasts the oldest pub in Victoria (so do a couple of other places so take that with a grain of salt). The port is suitable for fishing boats. Prior to the foundation of Melbourne and Geelong it was an important point of entry for settlers coming from the old dart.
Warrnambool is about 28km away and a much larger town (33,000 people). That’s where the commercial development went, leaving Fairy to be a quaint picturesque backwater.
When the Rainbow Bee-eaters and Rufous Whistlers head north for the winter so will we. At this stage our intention is to complete the loop around the coast.
Introduced and common it may be but Sturnus vulgaris, the Common Starling is a stunner in fresh breeding plumage.
Mallacoota is a visually splendid, isolated town with a resident population of 1,183 in the last census. It is situated on a lake system and surrounded by the forest of Croajingalong National Park. Summer visitors outnumber the locals, they come to fish, bird watch, hike and for the wild flowers. The town is 25km from the Princes Highway via a narrow winding road through the forest.
In late December 2019 a lightning strike in the national park started a fire about 60km from Mallacoota. There may have been 10,000 people in the town at that time. Strong winds and high temperatures were expected in the next few days. Many people left. There were still about 4,000 people there when the road out was closed on the 30th of December.
The fire reached the town on the 31st destroying some homes and businesses. The firestorm was so fierce and the smoke so dense that the small airport could not be used for evacuation or fire suppression. After the fire had passed the roads in its wake were unusable. The Royal Australian Navy commenced evacuation by sea on the 3rd of January.
That would have been a summer holiday never forgotten.
The forest has recovered well as Australian forests will but there are still charred trunks and many dead branches emerging above the canopy. We saw Grey Kangaroos and Red-necked Wallabies and were serenaded of an evening by a male Koala. Goannas were out and about and the birding was good. We spent five nights there before taking a couple of days to drive from the far east of the state to the far west.
This is my (temporary) new way of expressing temperature. In Mallacoota, Vic it’s 5am and 8°C. In Broome, WA, it’s 26°C, Of course it’s only 2am there and the humidity is 77%. So for a Broomite in exile it feels like -18°B. Which is better – snuggled under the doona frightened to come out or lying on top in a lather of sweat?
For those of you who live not far north of the Gulf formerly known as Mexico that’s 46°F, 79°F and feels like -33°B. For those in Canada I apologise for being such a woos. Heading into a winter like yours and living next to the Rufous Doofus it takes a lot of courage to be a Canadian.
Yesterday’s weather (before the very impressive thunder storm) photographed by Gayle McGee …
Meanwhile the long lens has been getting a workout. The Pelicans here are well educated creatures that gather where fishermen gut their catch. They too are feeding chicks.
The Victorian far east, a great spot for the bird watcher for several reasons. There is a great diversity of habitats, beach, a lake system, rivers, swamps, tall damp forest, dry forest, coastal heath. And it’s the last throw of the dice for the east coast. For anyone who keeps a Victorian state list this is the place to find birds that are common in New South Wales but don’t make it far round the corner, Figbird, White-headed Pigeon, Koel, Spangled Drongo all come to mind. The same is true for things botanical such as Bloodwoods. If only it wasn’t so bloody cold!
Spring comes late this close to the south pole and the wild flowers are doing great.
The locals are hardy, I have even seen people swimming. In Broome I tend to keep out of the sea for fear of stingers and crocodiles. Down here it’s more for fear of body parts dropping off.
But it’s beautiful. The scenery is breathtaking.
The birds know it’s spring as evidenced by these Welcome Swallows.
Dismissed in a single post. Is this the result of the old Sydney Melbourne rivalry? We made just two camp stops, Port Macquarrie and Shellharbour, each for two nights. We breezed past the Border Ranges, Alberts Lyrebird, the gorgeous Regent Bowerbird and the almost impossible Rufous Scrub-bird. Towed the van through Sydney’s nightmare traffic without any attempt at the Rockwarbler and the Eastern Bristlebird.
The journey south has slowly renewed our acquaintance with birds that will be commonplace during our stay in Victoria, Superb Fairywren, Red Wattlebird, Blackbird, Starling and New Holland Honeyeater. We haven’t caught up with Kelp or Pacific Gulls yet but it won’t be long.
We crossed the Victorian border yesterday afternoon. We are camped at Mallacoota, our last stop on the east coast. The coast turns the corner here and heads west. This means a number of east coast birds will be dropping out when we travel on.
Progress southwards has been slow over the last week or so. The reason is simple Queensland has the highest rate of intra-Australian immigration of all the Australian states. This is where some of our friends have resettled and we even have a few that were born here. We have been looked after royally by them. My last full day in the state this trip was spent minding the dog while Gayle visited a friend that she made on her first day at kinder.
Queensland is the second largest state and the third most populous. Surface area 1,723,030 square kilometres (665,270 sq mi), population 5.5 million which is roughly 3 people per square kilometre – if you spread them out evenly you’d have trouble finding them. But they are not spread out evenly. Three quarters live in the southeast mainly Brisbane, most of the rest live up the coast in the narrow strip east of the Great Dividing Range. The only town of more than 20,000 in the vast plains west of the Divide is Mount Isa.
Brisbane is the State Capital, it’s tucked away in the bottom right hand corner. The tropic of Capricorn crosses the state about 370 km further north. We entered the State in the far north west via Hell’s Gate which is 2,259km by road by the direct route, not the way we did it. We will leave via Tweed Heads. Just 103km south of Brisbane and we’re in New South Wales. Queensland is very asymmetric!
It also has a great diversity of flora and fauna and a great range of habitats. The wet tropics are very wet, the far west is usually very dry and the Gulf of Carpentaria is both alternately. The State bird list (according to eBird) stands at 667 species. Bear in mind some of those are accidentals not residents or regular visitors. I’ve seen 249 of the usual suspects this year. The closure of Mount Lewis put a dent in my expectations and if you really want to clean up you must spend time up at the tip and in Iron Range, Cape York.
We left the wet tropics a fortnight ago and since then have racked up 145 species. The map shows where the binoculars got a work out.
I’m putting the final touches to this post in Port Macquarrie, NSW. Gayle has family here. I drove through pouring rain. It was just 15°C on arrival. That was in daytime, I can’t remember an overnight low as cold as that in Broom’s winter. But there’s no such thing as bad weather it’s just bad clothing. Shame that’s all I’ve got. I may lose a finger or two. Even the birds are laughing at me.
bobmcgee 