LaughingDove Goes Travelling - SE Asia and Australia

Birding the Escarpment Country of Kakadu

We started a little bit later than I would have done on my own, having breakfast etc. in the room before heading out, but obviously I would never make it anywhere without a car anyway! We headed to a site in the North with a long a difficult to spell aboriginal name, though that doesn’t narrow it down much. Once you’ve got your head around the spelling they’re easy to pronounce though (Bardedjilidji). The rocks and scenery there really are amazing with the fantastic escarpment landscape and I managed to get a couple of the Kakadu speciality birds including the Sandstone Shrike Thrush. On the drive in though (just on the small road up to the car park) was the most amazing sighting of the morning: a Dingo right by the road! It didn’t recognise the car as a threat so just stood there and kind of rolled on the ground a bit and stretched before slowly trotting off. I got an amazing view from the car, but as soon as I tried to follow it on foot out of the car, it ran off as I was expecting. Really a fantastic sighting! This was about 9AM.

Also at Bardedjilidji, I got an unexpected surprise just in some dry forest on the ground. I was walking along and then suddenly out hopped a Rainbow Pitta! Just hopping along in the leaf litter. Pittas are supposed to be tricky birds! They shouldn’t just be hopping around everywhere, you Australian birders don’t know how easy you’ve got it. I was practically kicking pittas out of the way today (not really). I also could hear what was almost certainly a Banded Fruit Dove really close by but I just couldn’t see it. Other highlights of this walk included Crimson Finches which are lovely. But the juvenile is not illustrated in the Sclater Field Guide! It looks totally different to the adults, and I first got a super up-close view of two juveniles and had no idea what they were. I’m not all that pleased with the Sclater Field Guide. I’m using it because it’s the smallest one and I know a few people who use it for travelling purposes around Australia but I don’t rate it. The worst thing is the non-taxonomic order and I know this is a trend for Australian Field Guides. Why? Taxonomic order is great, all birders know it, all field guides use it in a mostly consistent way. Why is there this annoying thing that you’ve got to mess with it and put birds in the wrong parts of field guides. Seabirds should not just generally be crushed together and stuck at the front, it’s ridiculous. I wondered when I first saw some field guides ordered by habitat and bird type if it would be handy for easy comparison of birds, but now that I’m using it, I know it’s not. It just means that I’m constantly checking the index rather than being able to flick to roughly where that group of birds always is in a field guide because all field guides use the same order. I give non-taxonomic order a firm thumbs down for field guide purposes. Anyone disagree? I’m definitely feeling better with getting over my illness though, I’m almost back to normal so I’m back to complaining about things.

Anyway, we walked around that area for a while, there are a lot of tracks and camp grounds and stuff there, but it soon got to hot so we sat around in a small restauranty thing that was there until it was starting to cool down. Then we drove back to the same spot as we were at yesterday evening (Nourlangie), for another evening visit. Primarily (as far as I’m concerned this was the primary reason) to look for Black Wallaroos. Despite much searching towards sunset, I couldn’t find any. It is a lovely site though with a fantastic viewpoint. At Nourlangie is a huge massive rock there with various aboriginal art and lots of rocky landscapes and open forest. The raised viewpoint over the vast expanse of Kakadu is particularly stunning in the evening light. While walking around I found some Northern Rosellas, which I was pleased with (they’re a really cool looking rosella), as well as a massive Wedge-tailed Eagle Soaring above and on the drive up to the site some Black-tailed Treecreepers flew across the road and we could pull over so I could get a nice view (which is the main reason that buses suck!). This was one of my key species from that evening’s visit, two others which we missed being White-throated Grasswren and Red-backed Fairywren. We’re in Kakadu for the full day tomorrow and the morning after though so still have a chance.

Oh, and a question for Australians. When walking past people just on a path or something I will say something along the lines of ‘hello’ or ‘hi’ just purely for acknowledging the existence of other presumably sentient and living humans before never seeing them again. As is customary. However often, at least here in NT, they keep walking past (as expected) and as they pass respond with “G’day How’re you going?”. Am I correct in assuming this does not require a response and I can just now continue walking past. Because I can’t help but notice that’s a question and it’s phrased in a decidedly unrhetorical way.

I didn’t go spotlighting tonight because we’re doing a sunrise cruise at a wetland tomorrow (Yellow Waters) and it’s over an hour’s drive away and getting to a cruise that’s an hour away to be on a boat on a wetland at sunrise obviously requires an early start. Though I got distracted by the internet tonight and I’m not going to get to bed all that early after all! A 4:40AM alarm awaits…

And I think I’ve realised why these posts are shorter than the Malaysian ones too because this a fully written post from a fairly packed day and I’m not feeling all that sick anymore and it’s only just over a thousand words. ‘We drove to X’ requires far less logistical planning and discussion than anything I ever did in Malaysia!


Birds:

(Note: this isn’t from today but I’ve just remembered I have split Torresian Kingfisher on my list from when I saw it two years ago so I’m splitting it here. I’m not, however, splitting ‘Sandstone’ and ‘Hornbill’ Friarbird which is Helmeted Friarbird from the Top End and FNQ respectively which I think is split by one of the lists now, but if I remember correctly from a while ago is totally unjustified? I’m not quite willing to sink that low for a tick :D)

Torresian Kingfisher

Sandstone Shrike-thrush

Grey-crowned Babbler

Rufous Whistler

Crimson Finch

Silver-crowned Friarbird

Varied Lorikeet

Black-eared Cuckoo

Black-tailed Treecreeper

Silver-backed Butcherbird

Wedge-tailed Eagle

Northern Rosella


Mammals:

Dingo

Little Red Flying Fox
 
LaughingDove said:
I was walking along and then suddenly out hopped a Rainbow Pitta! Just hopping along in the leaf litter. Pittas are supposed to be tricky birds! They shouldn’t just be hopping around everywhere, you Australian birders don’t know how easy you’ve got it. I was practically kicking pittas out of the way today (not really).
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Yeah, Australian pittas are not like Asian pittas. They tend to be quite obvious. Even I can find them.

LaughingDove said:
I’m not all that pleased with the Sclater Field Guide. I’m using it because it’s the smallest one and I know a few people who use it for travelling purposes around Australia but I don’t rate it. The worst thing is the non-taxonomic order and I know this is a trend for Australian Field Guides. Why? Taxonomic order is great, all birders know it, all field guides use it in a mostly consistent way. Why is there this annoying thing that you’ve got to mess with it and put birds in the wrong parts of field guides. Seabirds should not just generally be crushed together and stuck at the front, it’s ridiculous. I wondered when I first saw some field guides ordered by habitat and bird type if it would be handy for easy comparison of birds, but now that I’m using it, I know it’s not. It just means that I’m constantly checking the index rather than being able to flick to roughly where that group of birds always is in a field guide because all field guides use the same order. I give non-taxonomic order a firm thumbs down for field guide purposes. Anyone disagree?
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The Slater field guide is taxonomic isn't it? Unless they have a new version which isn't? That's seems weird. It's been a while since I've used it, but Slater is the one I always take with me to Australia and the other field guides stay behind. But I agree that arranging a field guide by habitat is stupid.

LaughingDove said:
Oh, and a question for Australians. When walking past people just on a path or something I will say something along the lines of ‘hello’ or ‘hi’ just purely for acknowledging the existence of other presumably sentient and living humans before never seeing them again. As is customary. However often, at least here in NT, they keep walking past (as expected) and as they pass respond with “G’day How’re you going?”. Am I correct in assuming this does not require a response and I can just now continue walking past. Because I can’t help but notice that’s a question and it’s phrased in a decidedly unrhetorical way.
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It's not really a question. Just say "yeah good" or something. It's not an invitation to stop and talk.
 
Chlidonias said:
The Slater field guide is taxonomic isn't it? Unless they have a new version which isn't? That's seems weird. It's been a while since I've used it, but Slater is the one I always take with me to Australia and the other field guides stay behind. But I agree that arranging a field guide by habitat is stupid.
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I've got the new edition of the Slater and it seems that the biggest change is that its no longer taxonomic (I never owned the old version, but I have seen it).

It's arranged by both habitat (freshwater, saltwater, bush, and ground birds) as well as the families being kind of vaguely ordered by size within the habitat groups. It's a pain, though maybe once you've really learned it extremely well you could probably become very quick at it. Except of course most birders have already learned taxonomic order reasonably well...
 
LaughingDove said:
I've got the new edition of the Slater and it seems that the biggest change is that its no longer taxonomic (I never owned the old version, but I have seen it).

It's arranged by both habitat (freshwater, saltwater, bush, and ground birds) as well as the families being kind of vaguely ordered by size within the habitat groups. It's a pain, though maybe once you've really learned it extremely well you could probably become very quick at it. Except of course most birders have already learned taxonomic order reasonably well...
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That's just stupid. It's bad enough when a new field guide messes with the "old school" taxonomic arrangements (e.g. due to DNA advancements) so you've got the families in different places within the guides, but just having them all jumbled up is dumb. I guess I won't be recommending Slater any more then!
 
Chlidonias said:
That's just stupid. It's bad enough when a new field guide messes with the "old school" taxonomic arrangements (e.g. due to DNA advancements) so you've got the families in different places within the guides, but just having them all jumbled up is dumb. I guess I won't be recommending Slater any more then!
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The changing of taxonomic arrangements is their reasoning (there's a paragraph on one of the front pages) for using a different order and also to put similar birds - like swallows and swifts - together. They also claim that they've got it in a better order now rather than being totally jumbled up which they claim facilitates comparison with birds closer together in the book. But I totally agree with you that this is dumb and unjustified.

I don't know what the best field guide to Australia would be then (I'm using the Slater on this trip obviously, it's fine, just irritating to flick through and a little slower). The pocket-Morcombe is ok but slightly too light on info with pictures that are too small. Maybe Simpson and Day? That's not too big and is decent and taxonomic order as far as I recall
 
Wetlands to Rocks: Kakadu Day Three

We started with an early morning drive before sunrise to get to a large wetland called Yellow Waters for a sunrise boat cruise. My aunt wasn’t very keen on the drive because she doesn’t want to drive at night, but this had already been planning and booked in advance. I wasn’t complaining though, it gave me a good chance to look for some nocturnal things and there were quite a few Agile Wallabies by the side of the road, one in the middle of the road, as well as a Northern Brown Bandicoot by the side of the road.

The cruise at Yellow Waters is quite well known and one of the must-do things for tourists generally at Kakadu. It is also a good opportunity to get great views of wetland birds, mostly common species, but some nice ones and the birds generally let the boat get quite close. The sunrise was absolutely amazing over the wetlands and looking out over a vast marshy floodplain as the sun rose with a buffalo and two brolgas was a really amazing site. There were heaps of pygmy geese and whistling ducks and various common wetland birds like that, lots of Jabirus (Black-necked Storks) too and a few brolgas. I also spotted a gorgeous Little Kingfisher which the guide was very impressed at. He assumed I had seen an Azure at first and wouldn’t call it a Little as I had until he saw it himself. He said it’s been five months since his last Little. Great bird. Speaking of the guide, that was rather a highlight. He was a member of the family of traditional landowners of the area, and went on for a while about how he owned everything including multi-millions of dollars of tourist infrastructure, and how he could pick lotus flowers but no one else could. But he was quite entertaining and knew all the local things and I find that it’s much nicer to hear about aboriginal names and traditional practices of someone of aboriginal descent rather than some random guide. He did get really annoyed at people asking him questions which he had already answered in his commentary, almost actually mocking people who asked stupid questions. Which was entertaining for me as I was not at the brunt of any of this and that I was spotting (and correctly identifying) things which he liked, but it’s maybe not the best thing for tourists. He also really hated it when anyone pointed out and animal that he had just pointed out to everyone.

Lots of huge crocs around too, as you would expect which was nice. The guide also gave me some tips for the two main species I still wanted: Rock Wallaby and Black Wallaroo. It was a two hour cruise on the wetland, just a couple of generally incidental new birds, but it was an interesting and worthwhile thing to do (though it is $100 per person). The cruise also included a big proper buffet breakfast afterwards, and there were some Great Bowerbirds in the trees around the breakfast place; I’m surprised it took so long to see that species! I certainly made the most of the included unlimited breakfast buffet and probably ate over a thousand calories. Had I been on my own, I totally would have snuck out some food in a Tupperware pot that I had on me anyway. This budget backpacking in Malaysia has really made me a cheapskate! After breakfast, we decided to try one of the wallaby/wallaroo tips which is also a place where I hoped to get a few of the last birds endemic to this region and we went to the fairly popular aboriginal art site of Ubirr to look at some trails in an area near to this. We did look at the art too though, which was cool, especially a 4000+ year old painting of a mainland thylacine that was in the area prior to dingoes. And there was an amazing view from a viewpoint on top of a rocky outcrop looking out over woodland and grassland and the Alligator River and its floodplain. My aunt decided to rest a bit at a picnic area in the shade which was the sensible option while I went out in the midday heat to work the trails and the main road as hard as possible to get the last few birds I wanted. This was largely successful, although very hard work and slow in the heat, and I found the White-throated Grasswren as well as various other nice species like fairy wrens and Little Woodswallow. There were loads of Double-barred and Crimson Finches which were really amazing, such lovely little birds, and a few other finches here and there too though not the Gouldian which is a top (but tricky and very rare) target that I’ve been keeping my eyes open for. Most exciting though, was at about 4PM while I was watching a big group of Double-barred Finches I heard a sound of something moving behind me. So I turned around and looking right at me from the vegetation at the bottom of the rocks was an absolutely gorgeously patterned Short-eared Rock-wallaby. It started at me for a little while and I grabbed some quite pictures before it bounded off along the base of the rocks and then away in between the rocks. An absolutely stunning animal; amazingly shaped and patterned and that tail with the fluffy black tip held slightly up as it hopped away. Such a neat little mammal! And such a lucky sighting too! No Black Wallaroos here, but I’m very pleased with the rock wallaby.

We stayed around there until as late in the evening as we could while still allowing enough time to drive back and get back at the hotel before sunset. Because it’s near the big tourist site of Ubirr where the art is, there’s actually a restaurant here which – almost surreally in the middle of Kakadu National Park, an hour away from cell phone reception – specialises in Thai food with a Thai guy running it.

I did a bit of spotlighting in the evening, just around the same woodland that I did the night before last. Heaps of Cane Toads of course, and I did manage to get a close enough view of a microbat to get a solid ID. There aren’t actually many microbats in range at all, not even a dozen, quite a few of which are distinctive, so the number of small brown microbats is really very small and most that can be seen well in flight are identifiable, unlike in Malaysia where most of them were totally unidentifiable without having them in the hand.

Tomorrow we leave Kakadu, after trying one more spot in the morning where I think I’ve got a good chance of Black Wallaroo, especially as we should get there pretty early and hopefully be the first people down the paths in the morning. This will also be my last chance at them as they don’t occur anywhere else that we’re visiting. Then we go to the town of Pine Creek for one night, where a few tricky birds and one tricky mammal are theoretically very reliable. Fingers crossed!


New birds:

Nankeen Night Heron

Little Kingfisher

Pheasant Coucal

Chestnut-breasted Mannikin

Brush Cuckoo

Great Bowerbird

Little Woodswallow

Grey Shrike-thrush

Red-backed Kingfisher

Red-backed Fairy-wren

White-throated Grasswren

Variegated (Purple-backed) Fairy-wren (doesn’t and won’t affect year list but is a lifer if split – will check taxonomy later)

Collared Sparrowhawk

Brown Honeyeater

Masked Finch


Mammals:

Northern Brown Bandicoot

Short-eared Rock Wallaby

Common Sheathtail Bat
 
LaughingDove said:
The changing of taxonomic arrangements is their reasoning (there's a paragraph on one of the front pages) for using a different order and also to put similar birds - like swallows and swifts - together. They also claim that they've got it in a better order now rather than being totally jumbled up which they claim facilitates comparison with birds closer together in the book. But I totally agree with you that this is dumb and unjustified.

I don't know what the best field guide to Australia would be then (I'm using the Slater on this trip obviously, it's fine, just irritating to flick through and a little slower). The pocket-Morcombe is ok but slightly too light on info with pictures that are too small. Maybe Simpson and Day? That's not too big and is decent and taxonomic order as far as I recall
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I imagine it's not too long before guides will come in ereader versions where you can filter birds according to area or even down to a specific site. I still struggle with IDing from the big guides, but I find that googling 'place' + bird will often easily allow me to find exactly what I saw. For example, in the Phillips Borneo Mammal guide there is actually a two page spread called Birds of Mt. Kinabalu. I actually found that much more useful than the MacKinnon guide .
 
FunkyGibbon said:
I imagine it's not too long before guides will come in ereader versions where you can filter birds according to area or even down to a specific site. I still struggle with IDing from the big guides, but I find that googling 'place' + bird will often easily allow me to find exactly what I saw. For example, in the Phillips Borneo Mammal guide there is actually a two page spread called Birds of Mt. Kinabalu. I actually found that much more useful than the MacKinnon guide .
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There are app-based field guides for some regions. The only one I have actually used was the one for East Africa and it was actually perfectly usable. The thing I found handy was having recordings of calls built in rather than the generally pointless descriptions of calls in field guides.
 
Pine Creek: The Birds and the Bats

We started the morning by heading back to Nourlangie Rock for the third time this trip, but this time getting there early in the morning with one goal: Black Wallaroo. I had found out that the best way to see these, was to make sure you are the first person down the path in the morning and apparently they are generally easy enough to see if you are the first person down the track. That’s what I had heard anyway. I walked down the path slowly, looking carefully at the base of the escarpment and in rocky areas because Black Wallaroos are actually a generally nocturnal species, coming down to the base of the escarpment to feed before sheltering in caves or under ledges during the day, but I knew people do see them here. It took quite a while, and two hours later I thought it was too hot by now and they would have all gone to sleep for the day. This part of the blog is where I was expecting to write about how Black Wallaroos are dumb anyway and who even wants to see an incredibly unusual looking and highly range and habitat restricted macropod?

But then as I was scanning the rocks at about 8:30 on a rather unused bushwalk up in the rocky outcrop areas, I heard something behind me and moving rapidly towards the rocks and I got a glimpse of at least one, but judging by the sound possibly even two Black Wallaroos moving up towards the escarpment. Yes! This was the last chance on the trip, and I’m so pleased to have got the species. I think they’re actually quite easy at Nourlangie Rock and I’ve seen pictures of them even right by the main tourist paths to the art site. You can’t spotlight here though because it’s a sacred site and closed from sunrise and sunset. The Black Wallaroos seem to be out in the daylight here though.

It occurred to me at this point that I had not seen any birds at all this whole time. None. I was too focused on looking for the wallaroo, but that happens sometimes. At least I saw the bloody thing in the end!

After that, we headed on to our one-night stop at Pine Creek. This is a smallish outback town just outside Kakadu but on the main Darwin-Katherine-Alice Springs-South Australia Road but is quite a popular stop for both birders and mammalwatchers for some specific target species. The town does have a real outback feel to it, and we’re staying in a motel behind the pub which should give you an idea of the sort of place it is. After lunch at Pine Creek, we headed out for the bird target. In the middle of the town is a small park called Lake Park which is a small patch of green consisting of ponds with trees around it. There was one species I really wanted here: Hooded Parrot. It’s supposed to be reliable roosting in the trees. Hooded Parrots are a bird I have wanted to see for a long time. I first remember seeing one in Paignton Zoo in the desert house when I was a small child and it’s a really vivid memory. I remember thinking how bizarre and striking that shade of turquoise is, surely it wouldn’t be possible to see a wild one?

We walked around the park for a while in the midday heat. It was quite birdy, with heaps of super-cool Grey-crowned Babblers which are a really, really nice bird. Also amazing was a Great Bowerbird actively maintaining an active bower, organizing the sticks and collecting white bits of rock, shells and plastic to decorate the bower with. Wonderful to watch. Loads of entertaining Blue-faced Honeyeaters too and a big colony of Black Flying Foxes. It took about half an hour, carefully scanning the trees for the roosting parrots. I never saw any in the trees, but as I was watching a group of babblers, a pair of Hooded Parrots alighted on the dry lawn next to them! Wonderful! They are actually rather inconspicuous until you’ve seen them, then once you get a closer look you can see the ridiculous, almost artificial looking colour. The weird thing is that they are primarily green which is a typical parroty colour, but they’re about the least natural shade of green I can possibly imagine. Wonderful Stuff.

Next, we drove to the other birding site in Pine Creek, just 3km outside town, which is the sewage treatment plant and neighbouring cemetery. This is set back from the town in the bushland, which here is very open woodland with lots of tinder dry grassland a huge termite mounds. The cemetery didn’t have all that many birds in it, lots of Magpie-larks and a Red-backed Kingfisher. There was a dead, almost just skeletal, Tawny Frogmouth though which is interesting. I really want to see a (wild) frogmouth. Despite being present throughout the places I was at in Malaysia and being supposedly common in Australia I have still never seen any at all.

The sewage treatment works was another story though. The whole area is incredibly dry, apart from the small ponds in town and these ponds for the sewage treatment plants. There were lots of ducks and waders around the ponds including a big family of Radjah Shelducks and hundreds of whistling ducks which were all crowded together under the shade of the pump house. There were lots of waders too, the dotterels being especially fun. Near the treatment plant was an area of relatively lush vegetation which attracted various small birds and small birds of prey. Lots of nice species. The species I really wanted though was a Gouldian Finch. These are supposed to be more reliable here than at most places, but they’re an incredibly tough bird to find and just requires loads of luck, but unfortunately I didn’t get any Gouldians. Oh well, I’ve got two more days in places where they are theoretically possibly. They’re just highly nomadic and very rare. It was blisteringly hot here though and unlike in the rainforest where you’ve got humidity and shade, the sun was just beating down.

As the evening approached, I had my final wildlife location of the day, and one that I was really excited for. Just 1km south of Pine Creek, and easy walk down a small road, is a place called Kohinoor Adit. A mineshaft leading to an abandoned gold mine. It’s not well advertised or anything, in fact I would have had no idea about it if it wasn’t for my ‘Finding Australian Mammals’ book, but about 1km South down Chinatown Road you come to two mineshaft entries on your right facing the road. You may have guessed what this is about from the title, but Kohinoor Adit and the complex of mineshafts here is home to the world’s largest known colony of, wait for it, Ghost Bats! I’ll say it again, Ghost Bats!

We were there waiting outside the cave entrances about half an hour before dark and there were a few birds and wallaroos around, but it wasn’t until after sunset that the bats started to emerge. There wasn’t a big bat exodus or anything, just one or two bats at a time coming out of the two entrances and spreading around the nearby forest until there were several dozen bats at a time in the forest directly outside the cave. But wow! Ghost bats really are amazing. They really are huge for a microbat, and they look, well, ghostly. It really is the ideal description of these almost angelic big white microbats with their vampire-bat-looking face and just wow. Definitely the most amazing bat species I’ve ever seen and one of my top mammals. Who says microbats are boring?! These were stunning. There are a few other species in the cave too and there were some flying around, but the Ghost Bats were by far the most numerous and wonderful.

The actual bat ‘exodus’ finished at about 7:30 and then after that there were just lots of Ghost Bats (and higher than usual number of microbats generally) flying around in the forest. After this point, I walked my aunt back to the accommodation because she had wanted to come with me to look at the bats but was ready to walk back by sunset before any bats had come out and was not comfortable walking back in the dark, but I wanted to see the bats some more so I walked back out to the cave. It really is just outside of town, only just over 1km each way. This is why I don’t like spotlighting with other non-mammalwatchers though, generally you have to be a bit mad to enjoy spotlighting like I do! Even general nature type people don’t tend to enjoy long periods of time spotlighting. I really love being out in nature in the dark though. On my second outing back to watch the bats some more, as well as lots of wallaroos I did get a particularly exciting mammal: a dingo! Seeing a large carnivore, especially on your own at night, is always exhilarating. Though dingoes don’t feel dangerous at all.

But Ghost Bats and Wallaroos and Hooded Parrots! How good is that?


Birds:

Pied Butcherbird

Hooded Parrot

Black Falcon

Masked Woodswallow

Little Curlew

Red-kneed Dotterel

Pink-eared Duck

Australasian Grebe

Black-fronted Dotterel

Hardhead

Hoary-headed Grebe

Black-faced Woodswallow

Nankeen Kestrel

Brown Falcon


Mammals:

Black Wallaroo

Ghost Bat

Northern Cave Bat
 
LaughingDove said:
There are app-based field guides for some regions. The only one I have actually used was the one for East Africa and it was actually perfectly usable. The thing I found handy was having recordings of calls built in rather than the generally pointless descriptions of calls in field guides.
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I’ve been using the Morecombe app for about a month and really like it. You can limit the list to certain regions of Aus, have calls even when there’s no internet and it has descriptions for the diagnostic features on the pics.

@Chlidonias: If you can guess which one
I might be adding a new species to your marsupial-thread soon. ;)
 
Did you not see the Black Wallaroo at TWP?

I just saw a Tawny the other day at Dryandra towards the northwestern side next to the paddocks. Are you planning on going when you get to Perth?
 
Najade said:
Did you not see the Black Wallaroo at TWP?

I just saw a Tawny the other day at Dryandra towards the northwestern side next to the paddocks. Are you planning on going when you get to Perth?
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I looked for the Black Wallaroo at TWP because I was expecting them to have one but couldn't find it. Is it supposed to be held in that fenced in section within the larger wallaby walkthrough? That was my guess. There was no Black Wallaroo signed.

But I wouldn't have written that post any differently even if I had seen one at TWP. For me, seeing a species in the wild and in captivity are two totally different things.

I would like to get to Dryandra when I'm in Perth but I don't know if I will be able to find someone to drive me or whether I can somehow get there on my own. Slight date changes mean I've now got 15 nights in Perth (with Cairns down from 16 to 11, but I should still see a lot and the date cut there largely just cuts stuff that I saw when I was there two years ago and just won't get on this trip) so hopefully I'll work out how to get to a few places from Perth.
 
Interesting reports about Kakadu National Park! How busy was it compared to the Bornean parks?
 
LaughingDove said:
I would like to get to Dryandra when I'm in Perth but I don't know if I will be able to find someone to drive me or whether I can somehow get there on my own. Slight date changes mean I've now got 15 nights in Perth (with Cairns down from 16 to 11, but I should still see a lot and the date cut there largely just cuts stuff that I saw when I was there two years ago and just won't get on this trip) so hopefully I'll work out how to get to a few places from Perth.
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When I went to Dryandra (in 2011 I think it was) I caught a bus to the nearest town - on the highway - and the caretaker picked me up from the bus stop. He said I was only the second person ever to get there that way. Their cabins have kitchens for cooking food (which I didn't know, so I'd only taken food which didn't need cooking). The only real problem is the one of getting around while you're there because you're restricted to foot. It's a good time of year to go to Dryandra because it is cooler, but that also makes it harder to find reptiles and Numbats.


EDIT: this post is about Dryandra (Chlidonias Goes To Asia, part two: 2011) - I actually got loaned a bicycle while there. I have no idea on the current situation with the marsupial populations; as you'll read, when I was there most of them had crashed.
 
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Chlidonias said:
Did that work at school?

Teacher: "LaughingDove, you got all the answers in your test wrong."
You: "I really did know the answers, Miss, I just blindly copied the wrong ones out of the book..."
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Well by 'blindly copied out of the book' I mean, it's not split in the edition of the field guide that I've got and I just wrote down the name that the book said.

And the funny thing about your analogy of choice is that when a textbook is 'wrong' as in, out of date scientifically type wrong, you generally have to write the incorrect answer that's in the textbook to get marks in a test rather than writing the correct answer because you know more than the textbook. This is something that I always struggled with, especially with biology.
 
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