November and December

Finally I found a coloured up male White-winged fairy wren that was willing to cooperate and have his photo taken. Awesome looking birds.

 

 

 

Normally I don't post photos regarding the actual work I do, but these photos should have no sensitivities surrounding them.

I recently made a European heritage site discovery of an early pastoral settlement era sheep holding yard. The yards consist of little more than stacked hardwood barriers to hold sheep at night to protect from dingo's etc. It was a nice find in a very remote area, and probably left unknown for the most of last century. There is also a strong presence of aboriginal artefacts in the area. Built with basic hand tools and a lot of hard man hours in a very harsh environment, it brings home how easy we have it these days, cruising around in air conditioned vehicles. To some it may just look like a pile of sticks, but others will definitely find it more than interesting.

The summer afternoon storms started to occur, and some areas received some good downpours. Although it was very patchy, the areas that got it explode with colour and life. 
Its easy to tell these areas that have had rain, the herbs and grasses sprout a bright green, the locusts are thick, and so are the pratincoles and dotterels that come to eat them. You have to dodge the lizards basking on the road that are fat from insects, and the cow pat's are sloppy to say the least.. 

When I drove this spot last hitch it was a different world to this. Certainly not green plains with ponded water, complete with Black tailed native hens and dancing Brolga's.

 

 

  

Maybe I'm just getting better at spotting them, but I have definitely seen more Inland Dotterels than previous summers. They are very well camouflaged on the plains. When viewed close they have a striking feather pattern. There is a small group of 5 in this photo below.

   

 Even wild camels were filtering out of the desert to take advantage of the localised  afternoon storms.

 

I spent a good part of a day driving through an area of cracking soil and was on the look out for Inland Taipans, but only managed this young, healthy, unwelcoming King Brown.

 

October

The first couple of weeks in October I was out west working. There was no sign of early rain, and things were still very dry.

There was an amazing eclipse while I was out there, and I managed to get a couple of shots of the early stages before it turned a fiery red/orange. Not having a tripod with me, I had to improvise using a pile of larger stones from the gibber plains.

The next morning at a small dam I came across the first Black Falcon I had seen in a little while. The bird was no doubt preying on the large flocks of Zebra finches coming in for a morning drink.

I extended my usual break from work in October by an extra week. My dad, brother and I went out to a friend of mine's grazing property north of Muttaburra. They had never been there and I was keen to show them around. As always the hospitality given to us was fantastic and we had a great time doing all the things most blokes like to do. We timed the trip with the first real heat wave of the summer but that just added to the experience. I was so caught up in all the fun I only managed to pull the camera out a few times.

I thought this nice looking feral billy goat with an impressive coat was worth a photo.

My mate Dave put on his best tour guide voice and gave us a look around a rock escarpment jumping up out of the flat downs country.

As we rounded a bend whilst exploring the eastern face of the escarpment, we came literally face to face with a large stick nest that could have only belonged to Wedge tailed eagles. We were even more surprised to find that there was an eagle in the nest. I would say the large fledgling was more surprised than us, but thankfully the bird appeared quite relaxed and never left the nest platform. The remains of goat kids strewn about the place suggested the bird was well looked after and not in a hurry to leave. He or she looked at us with little more interest than we were funny looking goats roaming the escarpment with the rest of the mob.

 



 

Its not too hard to see why this tree was chosen for a nest location. A room with a view... a favourite shot of mine.

 

  

We quickly moved passed the area conscious of not wanting to frighten the bird away from the nest, or to hold the parenting birds away. I would never knowingly approach an occupied eagles nest so closely, and it was only by honest chance that we stumbled into it when rounding a corner. No photo would be worth causing a young bird to be abandoned, or injured/killed from leaving a nest too early.

 

 

 

 





September

A few shots form the month of September..

With cool nights prevailing this month, reptiles could be found basking in the morning sun.



Including this Crack-dwelling Whipsnake (Demansia rimicola). Though not visible here the underside of these snakes is vibrant to say the least, particularly the tail which was an amazing bright yellow.

  

This was the first of this species I have come across, and the floodgates opened from there with another three appearing over the next few days.

This long but skinny Eastern Brown was doing its finest Inland Taipan impersonation, casually checking soil cracks in the floodplain.

I managed a few snaps of it with a basic point and shoot camera that I had handy.

Lizards also came to life with plenty of Bearded, and Earless dragons getting around

Earless Dragon

The compounding affects of road kill are always evident on the trip to Eromanga.

Many road kill kangaroos etc. are accompanied by a Wedge tailed Eagle (or even two as seen below)

It is not just young birds that don't get out of the way in time, as this very dark adult eagle showed.

However, there is obviously a high density population in this region, that thrive on the incredible amount of carrion strewn along this stretch of road. I have counted 14 Wedgies surrounding a single carcass on this road. At most times of the year travel after dark on this road is almost impossible due to the number of kangaroos. All it takes is one road train to pass through at night, and this area looks like a warzone.

I loved the look of this particularly blonde recently fledged bird.

After looking over thousands of Black-winged Stilts (which have now been changed to 'White-headed Stilt' by the International Ornithological Conference), and Red-necked Avocets.... I finally cracked a Banded Stilt....!

I walked over a small bank and there it was right in front of me, hanging out with a couple of Avocets. It was the only one I could make out over the large water expanse.

August

August was a pretty quiet month with the camera. It was still relatively cold, and at times the country out around work in far south west Queensland seemed almost baron and devoid of life. However if you look hard enough there is always something.

The horse paddock..

Nappa Merrie Station sunset with a Wedge-tailed Eagle nest in the Bloodwood tree pictured 

Fledgling Black-winged Stilt

I can always count on these guys being around. This morning, like many others they perched on top of a tank, waiting for rabbits to come out from underneath the surrounding shipping containers.

Glossy Blacks

On a September morning I headed down out the front for a surf. The surf had been quite good for a number of days I was keen to get some midweek waves with little to no one else out. I chucked the wetsuit on and started running towards the fun empty waves ahead with board under arm.

As I jogged through the last of the Casuarina trees, I heard the distinct harsh screech that I knew could only have come from a black bird with a red tail. Before I looked up I could already hear the beaks of birds clicking as they busily extracted seeds out of the casuarina cones. When I did look up, I was delighted to see that my ears hadn't deceived me, and I was now staring at a small family group of Glossy Black Cockatoos.  To say that I was happy is an understatement, I had seen Glossy Blacks before, but not locally, and these were no more than 2km from my front door. 

These birds are known for being quite relaxed when feeding, but it was still surprising to see them drop down and feed on branches 4 feet above people using the adjacent walking track. I decided it was too good of a chance to pass up, and that I had pretty much filled my wave quota over last couple of days anyway. I made the jog back to the car in a dry wetsuit and drove home to swap the freshly waxed board for my camera.



Mum having a feed. Prominent yellow patches distinguish adult females.

Dad collecting Casuarina seeds

I did cringe a couple of times when I turned to see a fun set roll through, but never regretted my decision to watch and photograph the Glossy's, which are listed as Vulnerable, feed happily.


The fun little empty peak I gave up.