Tolderol

Yesterday I made a long overdue return visit to Tolderol Game Reserve, on the edge of Lake Alexandrina.   

On the way in, a Kestrel was playing cat and mouse with me, but eventually gave in and sat still to allow me a few photos from the car.

There were a few Black Swans on, and over the Lake.

Small birds were very busy singing and flitting about in the reeds,  Superb Fairywren and Golden-headed Cisticola both eventually staying still long enough to get some reasonable shots

There was plenty of raptor activity, mostly Swamp Harriers, but also a Whistling Kite.

Terns were very much in evidence with around 80 Caspian Terns, smaller numbers of Crested and Gull-billed, and probably thousands of Whiskered Terns on the reserve.

I was looking for White-winged Terns in the Whiskered tern roost when they all suddenly flew up.  I'm sure there will be one in there somewhere!!

The waders were all pretty distant except for this young White-headed Stilt.

Another sure sign of spring was this Bearded Dragon warming itself on a fence post.

Cleland Blitz

A couple of weekends ago I took part in the Cleland Blitz, a working bee at Cleland Wildlife Park.

Over a hundred volunteers spent a morning using tons of mulch and sawdust, pulling weeds and generally tidying up areas of the park.

Of course the residents of the park were still there, and we had some close encounters with Red Kangaroos as well as some of the birds in the aviaries like Masked Woodswallow, Brown Quail, Masked Lapwing and Australian Reed Warbler.

The wild birds were taking advantage of the disturbed ground too, with lots of Superb Fairywrens and White-browed Scrubwrens foraging for insects.

Being spring, there were some fluffy ducklings around too. These are Pacific Black Ducks.

Cleland Wildlife Park - Working Bee

This weekend it was time for another working bee at Cleland Wildlife Park. Around 100volunteers turned up on a beautiful autumn morning. First we all listened carefully to the safety briefing (including this Welcome Swallow perched above the visitor centre), then split into our work groups. On the way to our site, I noticed these interesting fungi This time, some groups were planting trees, others were weeding and pruning the wombat enclosure or the swamp aviary..... but for everyone there was mulch!! tonnes of it to be shovelled, barrowed and raked. Some piles of mulch even had supervisors!! (Black Swan and Superb Fairywren) This Southern Hairy-nosed Wombat watched carefully, but the Tawny Frogmouth and the Kangaroos hardly noticed what was happening. The Red-browed Finches didn't mind all the activity close to their feeder, and this one even sat still in the sun for me. If you are ever in the Adelaide area, Cleland Wildlife Park shouldn't be missed, it's a great day out for all of the family.

Kangaroo Island - Part 4 - Odds and Ends

For the last post from KI I have pulled a few more photos that didn't really fit into the other posts. This is one of the two ferries (I am on the other one) that cross Backstairs Passage between Cape Jervis and Penneshaw. Another place we stopped at was Kelly Hill Conservation Park, and here we saw Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos high in the eucalypts. There was an Australian Raven hopping around the picnic site, and another family of Superb Fairywrens. This one was feeding fully grown youngsters. The western KI coastline around Cape de Couedic is stunning! At Seal Bay, we saw this group of Silver Gulls, landing on, and eating the berries of, this bush. Vegetarian gulls? surely not!! In the New Zealand Christmas Tree from the last post, there was a House Sparrow attempting to drink nectar from the blooms, and also a camera shy Silvereye - he was definitely on the flower when I pushed the shutter........