Alaska Author of Nature Books for Children
My Australia Journey: March & April, 2010
March 24, misc. birds March 25, fox bats March 28, grass tree April 1, kangaroos
April 2, emus April 4, kangaroos jumping
I'm leaving for the Simpson Desert in the Northern Territory on April 13. I won't be back until May 2. Look for more updates then.
| Australian White Ibis. Isn't this a beauty! It loves to probe the ground for food with its long beak. |
Rainbow Lorikeet. A medium-sized parrot. | Sulphur-crested Cockatoo. There are many of these beautiful birds around Sydney. Their screeching woke me up this morning as they were flying by my hotel window. |
| I bumped into a duck family. She was teaching her ducklings how to fly. She led them to a ledge - it was fun watching the ducklings get brave enough to jump! |
Who will jump first? | There's one duckling in the green tuft of grass. The last one is still not sure if he can make it. He finally jumped! |
| Masked Lapwing. This is a large plover, a shorebird that is a little bigger than the Pacific golden plover. They have a beautiful yellow mask. |
Laughing Kookaburra. It sat quietly in the shade and wouldn't laugh for me, even though I tried to crack a few jokes. |
Grey-headed Flying Fox bats roost by the thousands in the Royal Botanical Garden in Sydney.
At last count there were about 22,000 flying fox bats hanging from the trees!
From my journal, March 25, 2010:
"Beyond the sulphur-crested cockatoos, I hear loud screeching and squealing high up in the trees. This din of voices is so loud that I can't hear the other birds around me. I look up and to my amazement the tree is filled with hundreds of roosting bats! These are huge grey-faced fox bats, one of the largest species of bats in the world. They weigh over two pounds with a 3-4 foot wing span! Their faces, round ears, and reddish body fur look similar to a miniature red fox.
Most of the bats look like they are sleeping, dangling upside down from the branches. Other bats are noisy, screeching at each other and sometimes they wrestle with one another. Their black feet grip the branches tightly like tiny human hands doing chin-ups. Their charcoal-grey wings wrap around their bodies so only their furry fox-like heads stick out. They have huge eyes and some of them are looking at me. From the distance it looks like the trees are decorated with shrink-wrapped giant ornaments.
Some of the bats are flying around. Their wing span is enormous. I have never seen a bat fly in bright daylight, so it is incredible to watch them grace the sky. The surface of their broad wings is thin so that light passes through them like a shade on a window. I tried to take several pictures of them flying which was hard because they are fast fliers and they dart. But I did get one picture so you can see their size and shape.
At night all the bats leave at sunset to feed on fruit, nectar and pollen of many different trees and plants throughout the Sydney area. These threatened bats have chosen the garden for a roosting place because they have lost much of their natural habitat. The gardens provide a safe place with few predators."
From my journal, March 28, 2010, Conimbla National Park
"I awoke to the laughing voice of a kookaburra outside my tent. There were several of these birds all taking turns with their comical cries, announcing the beginning a new day and proclaiming their territory. The kookaburra sounds a bit like a chimpanzee and you can't help but chuckle when you hear them. Today, we walked through a eucalyptus and ironbark forest which reminded me of a scrub oak forest that you might see at lower elevations of Sierra Nevada Mountains. An arid forest with many species of eucalyptus, the ironbark being one of them.
My favorite tree in this forest was the "grass tree" which reminded me of Alaska's tussocks. The grass tree only grows in Australia and they can live to be 600 years old. They look like a giant tussock and can grow to be 12 feet tall or more. Like the tussock, long strands of grass rise above a stump of old dead plant matter. It takes at least 20 years before the plant develops a skirt of grass on its head. The tree flowers every 2 or 3 years and produces a spear similar to a century plant."
From my journal, April 1, 2010, Warrumbungle National Park, New South Wales:
"Bright morning light is pouring through a eucalyptus grove and I'm surrounded by 20 kangaroos. They are grazing on the fresh green grasses from recent rains and browsing on taller flowering plants.
I feel like I'm in a dream. The bird sounds are other worldly. Butcherbirds sing flute-like liquid songs, ravens caw and moan, kookaburras laugh, friar birds pipe like clarinets, and the Australian magpie sings its resonating song that echos within itself. The forest music of the song birds is a symphony of percussion sounds. Absolutely the most beautiful bird music I've heard anywhere in the world!
The kangaroos are incredibly graceful. I love their arching gait as they bound across the meadow. They look like gazelles in motion but instead of slender legs and streamlined bodies, the kangaroos have prodigious tails and powerful haunches that work together in a tripod fashion. They get the best bounce for each hop. I measured the average distance between their hopping tracks - 15 to 16 feet! They spring into the air with such grace and ease, it's almost as though they might take off and fly!
I truly love this place! The kangaroos are like Alaska's caribou - there are more kangaroos in Australia than people."
From my journal, April 2, 2010, Warrumbungle National Park, New South Wales:
“I hear a faint drumming near the eucalyptus grove. It sounds like a distant bongo drum. It must be a female emu. Soon I spot her not far from a male emu. The male makes a grunting noise, completely different than the female. He sounds like a pig grunting.
Like ostriches, emus are enormous birds with lofty feathers stacked upon their backs. They look like grass huts on stilts. They can’t fly, but they can run very fast with their long, scaly legs that look like the skin of a reptile. When running at full speed they can reach 35 miles per hour.
I love their faces. From a distance they look duck-like. But when you see them up close they have big, reddish eyes and their huge, black beaks look like they are smiling at you. Very comical and human-like. They eat grasses, flowers, and insects for most of their diet.
Emus live across most of Australia, and there are signs on the road warning vehicles to be cautious.”
From my journal, April 4, 2010, Pillaga Nature Reserve, New South Wales
“We are driving along a dirt road through Pillaga Nature Reserve on a beautiful, sunny day. Along the road we spot a well-defined set of Eastern Grey Kangaroo tracks. How far can a kangaroo hop? We stop the car to find out.
We don’t have a tape measure, but three different methods can show an average hop distance. First we use the car as a comparison, then I lay on the ground between two tracks, and finally I count the number of my footprints between the tracks. On the average this kangaroo hopped about 16 feet. I’ve read that some kangaroos can hop 25 feet, but not sure what the world record is. I bet there is a student who can Google this fact and find out which kangaroo holds the record.”
It's
in Fairbanks, Alaska