Last week, camera in hand, I revisited a location where I had spotted an Osprey nest, whilst on a stroll with my mum near Cudgen Creek the week previously. There are a couple of these structures along the coast around here, a platform attached to the top of a 15 metre wooden pole, built by council to provide a safe place for Osprey to build their nest, and I have been meaning to visit with my camera for the longest time. I finally did and I was rewarded richly for my troubles. Not long after I had arrived the female Osprey began calling to her mate and before I knew it I was photographing them sharing a most intimate moment! The waxing moon in the background was a wonderful surprise addition! Ospreys mate for life and right now it is their breeding season. Once the eggs are laid the couple will spend the next 5 or so months working together to raise their young. In a month I will return to see if the eggs have hatched and revisit when I can over the following 2 months to see if I can capture an image of the chicks before they leave the nest.
5 Comments
A wonderful adventure with my brother, travelling along the eastern edge of the New England Tableland, introduced me to some wonderful back roads between the historic towns of Grafton and Glen Innes that are only accessible by four wheel drive. We travelled through a total of 7 National parks (Ramornie, Nymboida, Gilbraltar Range, Baroool, Guy Fawkes River, Chaelundi and the Nymboi-Binderay NP's) as well as several state forests and nature reserves all within a 120km radius as the crow flies.
Kayaking along the Nymboida River The next day after camp pack up we headed back up the ridge to the Gwydir highway travelling through Washpool and Gibraltar Range National Parks with stops to check out the local flora and fauna as well as some breathtaking views looking South (photo below is from Rasberry Lookout). Thirty five kms east of Glen Innes we turned off to the historic old Grafton Glen Innes Road. The view from Raspberry lookout The Old Grafton Glen Innes RoadThe Grafton Glen Innes Road was built in the 1800's and until the Gwydir highway was built,more than 100 years later, it was the the only way to get from the tableland towns up high to the river port town of Grafton down below. It boggles the mind how difficult it must have been to build this narrow winding, oftentimes steep road, which for kilometres is hewn out of the rocky cliff face alongside the Boyd River. This engineering feat is most evident when you arrive at the historic tunnel, found not far from the deserted town of Dalmorton, which was hand cut through solid rock for 20 metres! The route has an amazing history, including being the scene of a number of hastily built towns to support the gold rush of the late 1800's, many of which are now deserted. Tales of some of our most notorious bushrangers can be found in the historical accounts of this area and travelling along the route you get a real sense of the incredible and time consuming journey it must have been for the drovers to transport their cattle down to Grafton for sale. We set up an impromptu campsite on a pretty spot beside the Boyd River, not far from the rock tunnel, as the sun was starting to dip towards the horizon. Temps fell to minus 4 degrees that night so we were grateful to have ourselves a campfire. I woke up the next morning to fields full of Monarch butterflies, like something in a dream. Exploring along the riverbed the we almost tripped over a Red Bellied Black snake who was clearly also glad to be able to defrost itself on the warm stones in the sun! The following day we turned off the road at Dalmorten after a quick investigation of the ghost town where we saw a creepy deserted small building with hooks hanging from the ceiling! This, I discovered later, was an abandoned butchers shop and was located not far from what looked like an old school house, all remnants of the old gold mining town. From Dalmorton we travelled along Chaelundi Road with Chaelundi National Park (famous for having the largest old growth forest in Northern NSW) to our left and Guy Fawkes NP to our right. We stopped for a short walk in Guy Fawkes NP along the Escarpment walking track to Chaelundi Falls where we encountered a very friendly male Superb Fairy Wren who seemed keen to show us the way along the path. The male Superb Fairy Wren Our final destination on the journey was Platypus Flat Campground in the Nymboi-Binderay NP near Dorrigo. Accessed via the Moonpar Forest drive, as its name suggests Platapus Flat it is a beautiful open area running alongside a lovely stretch of the Nymboida river. We enjoyed a lovely afternoon surrounded by abundant bird life, including more Superb Fairy Wrens, the Laughing Kookaburra, a Lewens Honeyeater, A Pied Cormorant, Grey Fantails and many more. It was a great way to finish off a very enjoyable trip through some truly stunning landscapes. In that special time which straddles the old and the new year, my family and I spent four days camping amongst the sublime rainforest of Washpool National Park. Washpool NP is part of the Gondwana Rain Forests of Australia World Heritage Area and is choc-a-block with beautiful gorges, sparkling rock pools and giant tracts of some of our most pristine ancient rainforest. It has been my favorite camping destination since my first visit, almost 20 years ago.
Below is a gallery of some of the beautiful things to see at Washpool NP including some of the local flora and fauna. If you hover the cursor over the image it will tell you what it is. On my last night there I headed out with my brother, who was camping with us, with our spotlights to see what we could find. On this occasion it was not the glowing eyes of amphibians we discovered (see previous blog entry for more info about this) but the reflected light from the eyes of two different varieties of marsupial! The first, with it's glowing orange eyes was well known to us, the brush tail possum, who often frequents the campground at night foraging for edible scraps. I have had, as well as heard about, many funny possum encounters and wars waged over rubbish bags - one of the joys of camping in Australia! We saw little else for some time and had walked a few kilometers before a new set of eyes started to reveal themselves. This second set of eyes had a greenish glow about them and came from much higher up in the trees. Once we saw the first pair of green eyes we started seeing more and more - all consistently in the tops of the trees. It was a real challenge to get a clear enough photograph to identify what this creature was as it was so high up in the eucalyptus trees and the only illumination came from our spotlights. But as you can see below I eventually managed to get enough of it so that we would be able to identify it. It was clearly a marsupial, but which species we had no idea. Obviously one of its defining features is it's huge ears! Since returning and consultating with a marsupial specialist, we have discovered that it is in fact the Greater Glider. To get an idea where Washpool National Park and it's very close neighbour Gibraltar National Park are situated check out the map below.
A 24 hour photographic adventure in some of the most beautiful countryside in Northern NSW, otherwise known as The Promised Land, brought lots of surprises - in amphibian and reptile forms! Thirty minutes west of Coffs Harbour, my brother and I found ourselves an unofficial campsite beside the Never Never river where we set up camp for an overnight stay. As the sun went down we headed into the wet sclerophyll forest, on the cusp of a forestry plantation, with our spotlights looking to see what we could discover. Within moments of setting out we spotted the Great Barred frog, one of our local endangered species and a rare and exciting find! Due to recent rain there were quite a few large still water bodies about and the chorus of calling frogs made it easy to find lots of lovely specimens, like the Stoney Creek frog, the Red-eyed Tree frog and the Green Tree frog, as you can see below. In addition to the beautiful frogs we also stumbled upon a Red Bellied Black snake lying in the middle of our path. He seemed to be a bit slow and sleepy and not at all concerned by us which allowed me to get a couple of shots of him (below). Another amazing find was a muddy pool of water containing dozens of mating frogs and their large communal bubble nest full of eggs! Click on the image below left and you can see closer the hundreds of tiny black eggs amongst the bubbles! One of the best ways to spot all these critters at night is with a headlight/spotlight which can pick up the reflected light in their eyes. When we first set out my brother pointed out all of these pairs of tiny bright blue dots of light, which were all over the ground wherever I looked, and which I assumed to be dew. In fact they belonged to this guy below - the Wolf spider! There were hundreds and hundreds! And once I was aware of them I couldn't unsee them! The following morning I was up and out with the camera nice and early to see what I could find. Below are a few birds I managed to capture on film. Last, but definitely NOT least is this guy - a Lace Monitor (or Lace Goanna)- who I surprised on my way back to pack up camp. He was huge - close to 2 meters in length from tip to tail! These guys are Australia's second largest Goanna and are found on the east coast only. Word is that when they are frightened the Lace Monitor will race for the nearest tree .....and they have been known to climb a human thinking they are a tree! The latest research on these beasties has suggested that they are actually venomous (where they previously were understood not to be), so best not to get between a Goanna and it's nearest tree!
|
AuthorOwl Eyes AKA Nikki Archives
January 2020
Categories
All
|