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| Night attack! |
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| Bush-tailed Possum on the prowl |
It’s a rainy Saturday morning here in Brisbane; rained hard all night. I thought it might be fun to post some random shots of wildlife encountered on our adventures in Queensland so far. First, a disclaimer: All shots are taken with a portable camera or even cellphone. I apologize if some aren’t up to National Geo standards; but believe me, if it’s a close-up, I was VERY close indeed…!
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| A large Goanna sunning, 3-4 ft length |
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| Pair of Bush Stone Curlew, a tough shot to get… |
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| Rainbow Lorikeet, raucous and uncommonly beautiful |
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| Boys crabbing- watch the toes! |
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Cool irridescent Beetles..
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| Ditto…. |
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| A tiny Gekko |
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| Brush-tailed Possum |
Sometimes the landscape can make it hard to place exactly where you could be. Ignoring the Eucalypt forest, memories of hill country Texas, western Montana, Maui and the Big Island of Hawaii, or mid-coast California come to mind. I guess it’s human nature to try to catagorize a new experience by referencing the familiar. But then a kangaroo will hop by and that strange sense of the exotic is stirred, and you could only be standing out in the Australian bush. Here are a few iconic Australian locals..
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| Look at the middle ‘roo, he’s waving–” G’day…!” |
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| Laughing Kookaburra, voice of the bush. Actually, it’s the world’s largest Kingfisher. |
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| Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos, hard to appreciate, but these birds are 2 1/2 feet tall; wild and uncommon |
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| A Pademelon, a muskrat-sized, mountain rainforest dwelling marsupial. Hops like a Kangaroo…Secretive and hard to photograph. |
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| Superb Lyrebird, front half… |
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| and back half…. A very lucky close encounter… |
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| A large, angry pufferfish; coutesy of Luke and Aidan |
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| Goanna, 3-4 feet |
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| Wild Australian King Parrot |
Deep within Lamington N.P. there is a rare opportunity to feed wild parrots by hand. It’s a tradition that’s been going on since the 1930’s at O’Reilly’s Rainforest Reserve, an in-holding that predates the park’s founding by decades. Parrots, though numerous here, live high up in the tree canopy and fly rapidly. Easy to hear, very hard to get a good glimpse in the foliage. So, it’s an amazing experience to have these beautiful wild birds fly down from the tree tops and alight on your arm if only for a few fleeting minutes.
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| Stephanie and Aidan with a Crimson Rosella |
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| Claire with both a Crimson Rosella and a King Parrot |
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| Twin Beaks! |
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| Wild times with wild friends…. |
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| Birding in the bush at Binna Burra, Lamington N.P. |
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| On the lookout for the next critter…. |
