Tag: Butterfly
Back up in the Southern Tablelands
Featured Image – Pied Monarch (Adult Male)
Well all is just fantastic in our little world……
We are almost healthy again. I don’t know about anyone else but I must say whenever I get even the inkling of a sore throat I think I’ve come down with some deadly virus and probably the stress of that makes me go downhill even quicker.
But whatever we both had went on it’s way pretty quickly ( thank god ) and maybe I shouldn’t read the news so much….the stuff about viruses anyway. Watching the movie “ Contagen” on the way home on the plane didn’t help either😳😳
It certainly hasn’t stopped us getting out and about. It was great coming back to Yungaburra, we are even in the same van site as last time with the same neighbours we had last time, so it really was a bit like “coming home”.
Lovely Fairywrens
Gorgeous Green Ring-tail Possum with ultra cute Bub
Press Play to view Steph’s Video Snippets
Here I was wishing This (Adult male) Victoria’s Riflebird would hop down lower in the tree for a better Shot
At that moment, to our amazement he dropped the fruit and followed it to the ground.
Life in Nature is soooooo good.
The Apprentice
This Immature Victoria’s Riflebird is certainly not yet ‘dressed to impress’ a female, However is giving it a good go.
We have been very lucky with our wildlife spotting as you can see by the pics and
video……absolutely amazing. Many birds on our bucket list have just been appearing
before our eyes. Of course we are putting ourselves in the best places to see these
amazing animals.
A Medley of Flutterers
Pied Monarch (Bucket List Bird)
Very Excited to finally photograph this stunning Bird at Lake Eacham
Rainforest Birds
The Golden Bowerbird is a story in itself. (Pictured above)
It’s the same bower at Mount Hypipamee where we got chased away by a very aggressive rather large male Cassowary two years ago. Terrifying I know but that was a while ago now and I mean….what are the chances of having another run in…plus we will really keep our eyes peeled.
So we found the bower and to our delight it has been worked on…lots of nice new mossy wallpaper, we heard the male bowerbird’s very loud distinctive chatter so settled down ready with camera and video in anticipation and then out of the corner of my eye I saw a big black shadow, quickly looked through my binoculars and saw the blue head of that monster cassowary heading our way…yikes….you’ve never seen us move so quick, we were out of there in a flash.
After we settled down a bit, and the monster didn’t come out and chase us down the road, we decided we could sneak back later and just keep an eye out for him, pretty brave aren’t we🙄.
Well we did just that and never saw the Cassowary again, Anthony got a photo of what at first we thought was the female but turns out it’s a immature male without his adult colours yet ( this can take up to 7 years ).
We stayed for quite some time and never saw another Bowerbird come in and also we heard a horror story from another birder, that the adult pair that were at this site had been poached last year. Also some other pairs have been taken from other well know locations so that is pretty upsetting but as with all wildlife, if it’s pretty or has a nice voice or is rare, it sadly has a price tag on its head. We feel we are very fortunate to be able to see these amazing creatures while it’s still possible.
Chestnut Brested Mannequin
Australasian Pipit
Golden Headed Cisticola
Grassland Birds
Other Birds
We have another week or so in this beautiful area so will get out as much as possible, there is a lot more action out in the rainforests now that the weather has warmed up. Please enjoy the pics and video.
Cheers and bye for now, Steph and Anthony.
Inspirational quote of the week
Glass Wing Butterfly : acraea andromacha : Queensland, Australia
Yungaburra and Mount Hypipamee NP
Well we had no problems fitting into the Lakeside Caravan Park in Tinaburra, on the Southern Atherton Tablelands.
It’s very busy, however the managers kept a nice big site for us so we are happy campers for the next few weeks.
We have been out and about catching up with family and friends as well as checking out some great places for wildlife.
Here are a few images of this gorgous Macleay’s Honeyeater with a face full of pollen from the Metrosideros Flower
Peterson Creek is a Hotspot for Platypus
Press Play to check out this Platypus
Just up the road here in Yungaburra is Peterson Creek. With a great walking track and a variety of habitats there’s always something to see. We have spotted quite a few platypus even around 2 pm which I think is unusual. They must be quite used to humans being around as you can get quite close to them on the banks.
I got a nice little video. Apparently Tree Kangaroos are seen here too but we haven’t spotted one there yet.
Here is a long range shot of one we spotted at Mt Hypipamee (Thanks Nissi)
We did take a drive out to Mount Hypipamee National Park where we spotted one a long way away, also a young Cassowary close to the picnic area but pretty quiet on the bird front.
The weather has been a bit iffy, very overcast and rainy yesterday. Today we woke to blue skies and within a couple of hours it was very dark and overcast again and even a couple of showers. It may be like this for the next week so we will just have to get out when we can and hope for nice weather.
A welcome Flyby of Sarus Cranes
At the suspension bridge across Peterson Creek we were treated by 2 Scarlet Honeyeaters (an adult and Immature) feasting on the fresh Bottlebrush Pollen.
The Sarus cranes are around the area at the moment too and they are great to see flying over honking to each other, fantastic to see.
Anthony has already got a great collection of photos since we have been here so please enjoy them.
Bye for now, Steph and Anthony.
The Odds and Ends
Cania Gorge, Queensland – pt.1
Greetings from Cania Gorge National Park . What an amazingly beautiful peaceful place this is. We are camped right at the entrance to the hiking tracks, at Cania Gorge Tourist Retreat . We have been here a few times before when there was no communication reception. Recently the owners of the Retreat have splashed out and got themselves a Telstra tower installed so Halleluja, we now have phone and internet which is great.
The trip here from Pomona was very lacklustre. Typical Queensland inland roads, very bumpy, even jarring in places, of course we can’t go real fast as we don’t like bouncing all our nice things around in our (house on wheels). It was a very long day, with a lunch stop in Gayndah and catching up with some friends. We didn’t arrive here at the Gorge till round 4.30 pm.
Here’s where this story turns nasty…….
When we unhitched the van, it made some really horrible creaking noises and actually seemed to be sitting way to low on the back of the truck.
We did manage to unhitch and started to look around the King Pin Box (hitch) with a torch and to our absolute horror, saw two very big cracks in the framework behind the hitch. We also noticed that the hitch had hit underneath the front of the van, as there was a chunk of fibreglass missing……which means that it was flexing a hell of a lot to do that.
After setting up we googled to see who on earth around here could possibly help us.
Some more pics from Cania
(Click or press on image for larger view)
We are 26 kms from the nearest town, (Monto) and luckily found a large engineering firm there, we rang them and they are coming out tomorrow for a look and fingers crossed, can help us out of our predicament.
Oh that’s not all, it gets even worse……we really wanted to see if there were cracks anywhere else, so we had to cut the lining away and take a lot of the trim off, take out the insulation etc to even be able to see the main beam and framework that the hitch is attached to and guess what????? We found 7 cracks, the biggest is over 3 inches in the main beam.
So now we are wondering how on earth we managed to get here without losing our van on the highway, talk about an absolute ship stopper, we ain’t going anywhere for a while till all this is fixed somehow. Our house is broken and unable to be towed. Of course we are devastated but after doing some massive googling find that this does happen a lot over time with 5 th wheelers and we have been travelling in ours now for 11 years.
We will certainly be keeping a close eye on this area once fixed.
This stunning male Striated Pardalote put on quite a display.
This family of Blue-faced Honeyeaters just kept on following us around, they’re so funny to watch
Cania Gorge Video
Cania Dam Video
In between all this happening we have been out and about, so don’t worry…..it’s not all doom and gloom. We have been walking our socks off, seen lots of birds.
We drove to the reservoir today and Anthony got some really wow photos as you will see.
Since we will be stuck here for a while we may have to blog Cania Gorge in a series form so hang on to your hats….there’s plenty more photos and video coming, plus keep you all posted on our repair progress.
Cheers Steph and Anthony.
