My new place has families of Eastern Water Dragons (Intellagama lesueurii lesueurii).
They mainly sunbake, even in the middle of the road, or perch on raised plantings in the garden.
Liking water, they do swim; I have seen one here jump into a bucket half-full of water– incidentally scaring the daylights out of me!
Often mistaken for a Frill-necked Lizard, they are beautifully patterned, with the most elegant long toes and fingers. Their heads are always up, questing, curious?
Last week a visiting friend, Jane, seemed to have special appeal as the largest Dragon, the male I assume, came up onto the verandah where we were sitting. He was almost under our chairs, pointing his spade-shaped head this way and that.
They are mainly insectivorous, but like all sorts of delicacies as they mature, so maybe he thought we had cake — we didn’t, just coffee.
While unafraid, these Dragons are wary, so I wasn’t game to get up to fetch my camera. But Jane had her phone camera, so took these great pictures.
I am very grateful to have them as my resident wildlife.
Just next to historic Roto House and its café is Port Macquarie’s famed Koala Hospital.
Started in 1973, and now with 200 volunteers, this special facility treats rescued and injured koalas, runs a vet clinic and a conservation breeding program, and offers up close and informative experiences for visitors.
The first time I went was near midday and all I could see were furry balls, fast asleep. Koalas do naturally sleep a lot, to save energy.
Next day I was there at opening time (8.30) and it was quite different. Here helper Geraldine is feeding a medicinal paste to CW, hit by a car, and left with only one eye and brain injury. He will never be able to be released into the wild.
CW was more than eager to take his treatment, and Geraldine wiped his mouth when needed, just like a mother would.
The pens are roomy, with cleverly designed and shaded structures; fresh gum leaves are placed in each every day. About eight food tree varieties, like Swamp Mahogany and Tallowwood, are grown on a separate property.
There are pens for the permanent residents and closed-off, more private pens for those being rehabilitated, to be released back into the wild when ready. With free entry, the Hospital relies totally on donations.
Visitors do get to see how cute and furry are our iconic koalas… and they also get told how at risk they are. From habitat clearing, from disease, from dogs and cars – from our ‘progress’ in fact.
Australia holds the world record for the extinction of mammal species. How shameful is that!?
In 2022 the koala was officially listed as endangered.
How shameful is that!?
John Williamson was so ashamed when he visited the Hospital and realised the koalas’ plight that he wrote and recorded the song, ‘Goodbye Blinky BIll’, which included the lines:
‘I don’t think I could stand the shame, knowing that I could Have saved the world from losing something beautiful and good.’
And yet, despite the enormous bushfire loss of native forests, our governments are still approving the removal of large areas of koala habitat, be it for logging or coal or gas or housing.
As for the Moolarben coalmine expansion near Munghorn Gap Nature Reserve north of Mudgee. Or the Vulcan South mine in QLD.
With coal and gas mining spreading in the NSW N-W, the Independent Planning Commission said, ‘If coal mining and koalas are to co-exist, then a robust strategy for koala conservation is essential.’
Indeed, but that cannot mean the sham get-out-of-jail system of offsets.
Well may koalas turn their backs on us, given we are doing that to their desperate declining situation. It is predicted they may be extinct by 2050 at this rate.
Where are our priorities?
Who will dare say NO to the developers?
Or who will explain to our grandchildren… and to the world;… how we let this happen?
It’s difficult not to be distracted by the wildlife here, even if I don’t leave my desk. At this second floor height what’s going on amongst the trees is ‘in your face’, so to speak.
Like this goanna, who decided to climb up and laze on this branch for about a half hour; not after any nest of baby peewees, just hanging there. When done, it turned around – always a heart-stopping manouevre to watch — and slowly gripped its way down, its tail almost overtaking it.
Odd noises often alert me to activity closer to the ground, as in the various birdbaths. This time it was a repetitive soft bird call, and when I checked, there were two birds I had not seen here. Eastern Whipbirds, I learn, and I had certainly heard the males’ whip crack before.
The female’s call is described as ‘choo-choo’, with which I probably wouldn’t agree, but if they visit again I will listen more closely and come up with a more fitting one. Another book says ‘chuckles and whistles’ — quite an art, summing up bird talk…
A louder racket made me stand and look down into my small back yard where an Eastern Grey Kangaroo had pushed its way in beside the pigwire fence and was trying to return — but clearly couldn’t find or use the same route.
I was worried about him panicking as he pushed fruitlessly at the fence, but he was no fool. Having realised that no part of his body beyond his head would go through the wire squares, he quickly checked out the rest of the yard, then took a running jump and went over the fence.
Sightings of this Brushtailed Wallaby at Dangar Falls campground near Armidale was the best part of that visit. As elsewhere, the Falls themselves were suffering from the drought.
But at my final Gorge camp, at Apsley Falls near Walcha, there was an audible and visible waterfall. Perhaps because nearer to the coast, so more rain?
Plus there was another Brushtailed Wallaby!
The view of the Gorge was tainted forever for me when I read that from the 1830s increasing settler numbers caused much grief to the indigenous people. I know, that happened everywhere; but here a party of settlers on horseback chased a group of Aboriginal people to the edge of that cliff… and over, to their deaths.
After that, the plunging steep sides filled me with horror and I had to turn back to the land above the Gorge, to the relatively healthy creek that feeds those falls.
And to allow the bush to soothe and surprise me again.
Unlike at Bimblebox, termite mounds are not common in this country, but especially in this vivid colour, so unlike the soil here generally.
The slim sinuous white gums kept catching my eye. Snow Gums are found here; is that what these glowing beauties are?
With distant snow-capped Alps in my mind’s memory, I have just revisited a few of my most often visited local nature spots.
I found no Alps, but mythical cloud mountains over a pewter sea. The ephemeral will have to do.
Sun-splashed, that sea butts as restlessly as ever against the rugged cliffs that guard the Camden Haven.
The bush above the cliffs is equally buffeted by the sea winds, so grow low, and bend to survive. It is nothing like the bright verdant forests of Northern Italy, but I have been thirsting for this greyish-brownish-green, quite ‘verde’ enough for me. After all, as Kermit almost said, ‘it’s not simple being green’.
I marvel anew at the uniquely grotesque beauty and bounty of the banksia trees.
Being almost Spring, there are many small patches of colour already amongst the greys of the fallen trees. Flowers like the pink Boronia, many yellows, whites like the perfumed Pittosporum, the bright lime winged seed cases of Dodonea, or the striking berries of the Blueberry Ash.
In one dry but sheltered swamp this big paperbark tree had a large section of bark hanging by a thread, spinning in the breeze like a top, or a banner saying, ‘Look at me’!
Of course there were wattles to greet me, as there were on my other favourite walk, to the beach near me, where two sorts thrive.
The beach itself was disappointingly but familiarly abused, scored by dozens of 4WD tyre tracks. I watched the air bubbles after each wave receded, and wondered what small creatures were taking refuge beneath the sand. No tiny ghost crab would be game to stick its head up here…
On the dry higher sand where grass is holding it all together, there were fewer tracks — although there should be none — and just an occasional spot of colour like this succulent, where another plant struggled to get going.
As I walked back, I felt truly home when this lone kangaroo stopped to watch me.
Now that I do not live in the bush, I celebrate what wildlife deigns to visit me.
Returning from a few weeks’ absence I found this spider’s intricate creation on the inside of my screened room. Like a delicate webby waterfall, it had been spun to extend from the top of the netting to froth over my sill’s shell collection. I am unsure what insects it was meant to catch, given it is inside, but perhaps it was created also for fun, because the spider had free rein… ‘while the cat’s away…’
From my desk I see many birds in the trees opposite, but I have never seen this colourful bird there.
Silently and swiftly, a Sacred Kingfisher flashed into my view, stayed for only a few minutes… and left.
For a bird with such a widespread distribution, I am surprised how few times I have seen one.
Here, once before only, on a post by the river.
‘Thanks for coming by’, I think, grateful it stayed long enough for me to grab a photo, glad I keep the camera handy…
This being Easter, the Park is busily full of caravans and tents, people and vehicles, kids and dogs.
It is more than enough to give a young wallaby, on emerging suddenly from the bushes, cause to stop and consider whether it is a good idea to continue.
This one propped, considered the unusual throng for only a few seconds, then turned and bolted back into the quiet safety of the bushland behind it.
I see very few wallabies here and have never yet seen a young one on its own, so I hope it found its mother waiting for it… and got the scolding it warranted.
I knew there were Tawny Frogmouths in the bush beside me, but hardly expected one to come calling on me.
Yet one night, as I descended the stairs and the sensor light in my carport came on, there it was. On my van’s awning canister.
My favourite bird then gave me the benefit of its profile of bristly ‘whiskers’.
The other visitors came on a wet day, levering themselves along, looking about but only between grazing. Not too wary.
I miss my macropods of the Mountain, so seeing these two Eastern Grey Kangaroos was a treat.
One came very close to my deck and as we locked eyes I thanked him for visiting my patch, reminding me of the real world where animals are represented by more than dogs!
