Cleland Wildlife Park

I volunteer one day a week at Cleland Wildlife Park, and today was the volunteers AGM and Christmas Barbeque.  After business (and lunch) was over I took a stroll around the park with my camera.

This Red Kangaroo didn't seem too impressed having his photo taken, but the Koala was pretty chilled. (Aren't they always?) 

I went to the newly refurbished woodland aviary and got photos of a cute Zebra Finch, a Banded Lapwing and its week old chick, a beautiful Princess Parrot, and a Bar-shouldered Dove taking in the sunshine.

My next stop was going to be the forest aviary, and on the way I passed through the Emu and Yellow-footed Rock Wallaby enclosures, and almost tripped over a Southern Brown Bandicoot.

In the aviary I saw Australian King Parrot, Musk Lorikeet and Buff-banded Rail.

On the way back to the car, I heard, then saw a Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo, and got a close up of one of the Tasmanian Devils.

 

Deep Creek Conservation Park

For my first trip (and post) of 2010, I went down the Fleurieu Peninsular to Deep Creek Conservation Park. This park covers an area of forested valleys that meander down to small coves separated by cliffs. My first stop was at Cobbler Hill, one of the highest points in the park. Here there are areas of open grassland and grasstrees with panoramic views across Backstairs Passage to Kangaroo Island. There were a few Western Grey Kangaroos here including family groups with some well grown joeys. From here I went further east to do a 7Km (4.5 Mile) hike to Deep Creek Waterfall. This hike followed part of the Heysen Trail, South Australia's premier long distance trail.At the trailhead were a group of Superb Fairywrens, and they were quite happy posing for me. The trail itself is quite steep in places and took almost 2 hours for the round trip. On the way I saw a couple of interesting fungi. The waterfall is a lovely spot, very peaceful, but also very popular so there is a steady stream of visitors. This unusual plant looks very soft, but was actually very solid and extremely prickly!! I'm not sure if this is the flower or the leaves. I also spotted this ant, dragging a dead bee. The bee must weigh much more than the ant, but it still managed to haul it up vertical surfaces without any difficulty!! Finally I had lunch in another part of the park. Here there were a number of different butterflies, including this very tattered and worn Common Brown, and an orchid that I haven't been able to identify, despite several hours research on Google.