Canberra

Days 3 - 6

It was wonderful to spend several days with my Aunt in Canberra and also catch up with some cousins and some of their family. This was the main reason for including Canberra in our travel itinerary. I also managed to spend an afternoon with a rugby associate over lunch and a visit to his workplace in the heartbeat of the capital.

However, this post is more about the journey and my re-aquaintence with the camera. So Canberra provided some excellent opportunities for scenery as well as my beloved birds. I have labelled the photos below. Just a glimpse of a relaxing few days during which the weather was very kind with beautiful clear days, not too windy and not too cold.

It is worthy of note, in hindsight, just how the landscape transformed from around Goulburn on from the verdant hills and plains we had driven through to very dry thirsty land. Such a continent of contrasts we have - and compared to Canberra, it was a lot drier still as we continued south and east - as you will see.

A posted pee-wee

A ground view of Government House

An aboretum wedge-tail eagle nest sculpture

Government House from the National Arboretum

Arboretum crow with banana left-overs (found in bushes)

National Arboretum panorama north towards city centre & Lake Burley Griffin

Countryside panorama Lambrigg's Lookout on Tidbinbilla Rd scenic route south of Canberra

Sheep grazing next to Lambrigg's Lookout

Little corellas against a forbidding (but empty) morning sky

Canberra "Xmas" tree just before May 3 election!!

Curious magpie

Eastern spinebill

Red wattlebird

Two crested pigeons

Yet to be firmly identified (typical Canberra rsident 😊) 
- yellow-rumped thornbill

A road trip to Kangaroo Island (May 2025)

GETTING TO CANBERRA (Days 1 - 3)

It has been a while since I have posted on here. We have endured a LOT of rain in recent times and along with some health hassles (nothing major) life has been rather sedentry and very local for far too long! We decided it was time to take another trip, similar in length to our successful visit to Tasmania reported in earlier posts.

This time to visit daughters, partners and grand-children in Adelaide & Port Augusta since it is several years since we have visited, another casualty of COVID.

We allowed ourselves 28 May through to around the June long w/e. Deciding to explore along the way, we arranged to spend a few nights in Canberra to catch up my aunty who we have not seen for several years; a few nights near Bendigo; a few nights in Mildura before reaching Adelaide. Two weeks there broken by a week on Kangaroo Island and then heading back via Broken Hill.

So this will be the first of posts showing highlights along the way. I was looking forward to getting back into touch with birdlife, my hobby having been largely neglected for a couplse of years now. We will see, hopefully along with some different landscape than we are used to - one of the main reasons for the route chosen. Deb has not been very far west before ... so this was a first for her.

First day our destination was Uralla, via the Ebor - Armidale road from South Grafton after calling on my Aunty Val for a catch-up after her recent ninety birthday celebrations with mum & dad and a cuppa.

First photos to share then, are of the upper falls at Ebor, and then the larger drop lower falls. Plenty of water flowing after the recent rains - indeed, despite a clear drive, the drizzle started as we started our walk. What a great job they have done with the picnic area, viewing platforms and walkways for this location. 

Next is a series of shots around Uralla on a spectacular sunny morning showing off a glimpse of the autumn hues and one little bird (a fairy wren) peeking from deep in the branches as I took a walk around some of the streets.

In what was to become a regular feature of our drives, a coffee stop was taken not too far into the morning drive. Our second day saw that stop in Bendemeer. A treat just off the highway was the garden at the coffee shop - a wonderful complement to the coffee and food on a clear sunny morning, Even managed to snare a sulphur-crested cockatoo with its crest open way up on a dead branch. The bees were loving the gorgeous flowers too.

Later in the day, driving through the Bylong Valley, the weather closed in a bit and we had some more showers. As these next few photos show, though, the delights were still present with quite a clear rainbow, a field full of sulphur-crested cockatoos (with two galahs if you look caefully) and a stunning landscape with the black cows grazing a very green paddock with the brooding blue hills and dark sky in the backgound. Nature is spectacular!

Leap year along the wall

I have not been out and about as much as I would like for some time due to some lingering health issues around some inflammation that the medicos seem to be having difficulty tracking down. However, recently I decided I just needed to go for a walk along the Ballina north wall just to see how I went, and I took my camera along too.

As you will see below, some regulars were sighted along one of my favourite spots for birding, if not quite the variety sometimes spotted. It was good to get a decent walk in too 😉.

As a precaution to see how I fared on my first longer walk for a while I headed out to the end of the wall first up. On the way out I snaffled this crested tern in full glide, looking very sleek against the blue sky with some cotton wool cloud dusting the top of the frame.

Returning to the sea rescue tower you could hear the whistle of the osprey and looking up there was an adult and two young ones perched on the radio antennae arms. The adult was steadying itself from a gust of wind, and the young ones were just showing their steadiness and ruffled feathers in the wind. This augered well for some later action ...

It was good to have the camera out again and these early sightings provided a little extra spring in my step so I decided to head back along the wall to see how the legs held up. Along the way on the river side there were some willing participants posing for some individual and group photos, showing off a few different characteristics - the darter having a bit to say, and later enjoying a really good neck scratch; a pair of black cormorants showing off their bright crystal blue eyes and finely scalloped feathers as they variously swam and spent time on the boulders. I especially enjoying capturing the final one of this set where the black cormorants are almost symmetrical in their gaze from the same boulder.

This final sequence is a selection of three photos from many more taken of the same ospreys that spent a good deal of time on the lamp posts and diving into the bay as they were learning to hunt. The one shown here was the adult being successful and taking the prey back to the radio antennae arm and not sharing with the younger ones at all. It was quite the treat to see so many dives and attempts to fish their dinner - made the trek back to car a little easier with a few more stops!

Leap year special backyard portraits

This post is devoted to the scaly-breasted lorikeet. It has been a real treat to be obersving more of these around our garden in the last 6 months or so - long may it continue. While they bring out the most feisty behaviour of the rainbow lorikeets, this particular day, they had the spaces to themselves and that allowed for a more calm presence. This offered a great opportunity for some nice portrait moments ... I hope you enjoy ... 😁

While the scaly-breasted lorikeets have become more frequent visitors, the white-headed pigeon is not so frequent in our yard. In fact, I'm pretty sure this is the first one I have photgraphed other than on electricity lines out the front in any proximity to our place. So presenting itself on our front birdbath was a real treat. Nice to get such close portraits and capture subtle shifts in posture and sight - the contrast of various reds and pinks against the white and grey, and even the variants of grey in the soft light is a treat.

It's a leap year!

Appropriately the first posts catching up after our return from Tassie and into the new year of 2024 are presented on 29 February 😊. I shall add another two posts on this once in four year day so I can be "caught up".

In this first up post are some shots from around our garden again featuring the way a range of birds are opportunistic feeders and willing to share, provided a pecking order is observed! The first series of photos below show scaly-breasted lorikeets, rainbow lorikeets, a figbird and a Lewin's honeyeater enjoying the spoils of fallen avocados on our driveway.

Scaly-breasted lorikeet

Rainbow lorikeet

Figbird

Lewin's honeyeater

Once the Lewin's honeyeater had its fill I managed to track it to a perch in the bottlebrush near the carport. This photo offers a nice sense of the way they can easily blend in among the branches and seed pods that develop once the flowers are spent. The purple flowers of a nearby double hibiscus and green leaves of various shrubs provide a nice contrasting bokeh too.

The final series of photos in this post are of a Lewin's honeyeater and a little wattlebird sharing time in the front birdbath, then the little wattlebird having it all to itself, the final photo dripping after a good dunking.