Kangaroo Island–The Wildlife

As well as fabulous natural scenes, KI is filled to the brim with native birds and animals.  Many of them are in the wild, there are also lots to see in wildlife parks.

Whilst we have kangaroos everywhere here where I live, none of them are of the nature where I want to pat them and feed them by hand.  This park featured lovely tame ones, most of them babies or females.  No fully grown males in this pen, thankyou!

It was a lovely chance for my girls (and me) to hand feed them.  They are so soft and gentle, it's so lovely to see them up close.

Rainbow Lorikeet.  I don't like to see birds in cages, but most of these were damaged in some way and are being restored to health.

Some, like Stanley the cockatoo have lived in a cage their whole life and would not cope with life 'outdoors'.

Really bad photo, but this is a tawny frogmouth - an owl like bird who will mimic a tree stump if threatened. I almost never see them in the wild, which is not to say they aren't there - just that I can't see them.

Clearly a kookaburra.  This one is a mainland one, mostly brown feathered.  I adore kookaburras.

A very unattractive wild pig.  He was found on the island, though goodness only knows how he got there. The park keeps him out of the parks now.  Feral pigs are bad news out in the wild.

Extreme close up.

I'm a chook person, and I loved this guy, standing behind his women.  I think they were some sort of bantam - they were only very small.

 Kangaroo Island is a very fitting name.

Now, I'm not familiar with peacocks too much, but there were a family of white ones wandering the parks. Are they albino or are white peacocks a particular breed?  I must admit, they're not so spekky as their coloured counterparts, but those tails are wonderful what ever colour they are in.

My husband is a fully fledged Raptor lover (eg. owls and birds of prey).  Whilst he really doesn't like to see them in cages, he was in his element, being able to see these guys up close.

If he were here, he'd be able to tell you their names.  I don't know them at all.  This one is rare, apparently.

Here's a better photo.  Love his long tail.



A lovely barn owl.



With his friend.

I think this is a boobok owl.  Apparently they are very common though I have never seen one in the wild, ever.

Now I could be wrong but I think this may be a whistling kite or perhaps a kestrel.  I spent ages looking for him, and he was this far away from me the whole time, tame as tame.  I didn't stick my finger in the cage.

Though there was the token crocodile, he was imported from up north, as South Australia does not have any crocs.

We do have 20925950 turtles, however.  Quite common to pull them up in the yabby net.

After googling, discovered this is a curlew.  I'm ashamed to say I don't know the names of half of these birds.

 After that wildlife park, we visited Raptor Domain, which is a rehab/educational facility filled with raptors.

They brought out bird after bird for us to see.   This is a peregrine falcon, I think.

Black cockatoo, rare thing he is.  White ones are a dime a dozen, and pink galahs are everywhere.  Black ones are sadly all too rare.  Pink galahs are stooopid.

My photos are out of order here, but this lovely one is an owl of some sort.  He looks very self important there.

I was very happy with how these photos turned out.  It was a newish camera and it worked wonderfully.

 Another lovely owl, hidden in the treestump.  When they call him, he comes out for lunch.



Can you see the tail of a mouse ever so delicately hanging out of his mouth?

A Sea Eagle.  My husband just about took flight himself when he saw him.  They are very rare, this bird was particularly unsettled and not so cooperative, but he was magnificent all the same.

Oh lovely kookaburras again.  These are Kangaroo Island kookaburras, they are related to the Kingfisher family and they sport wonderful blue feathers.

And here is the reason we came to the park.  A wedged tailed eagle, or wedgie as my family call them. They are quite common around here, and they act much as vultures do - cleaning up carrion from the roadside and the outback.  We see them often in the sky, not so often close up like this.

 

See that arm? That's my husband's.  He's just fulfilled a dream of his, ticked something off his bucket list. All for the princely sum of $10.

It was so wonderful to see him do that.

And that's my foray around Kangaroo Island.  I hope you've enjoyed it, tomorrow I'll be back with quilty showings for you.

Till tomorrow,

Suzie

Kangaroo Island–the nature parks

There are so many wonderful sights to see on KI - we spent a few hours at the Flinders Chase National Park which houses so many things - I walked and walked and walked.  The following photos are from "Remarkable Rocks", a natural rock formation that is like massive man made sculptures.

There are no fences, and you are in danger of simply falling off onto the rocks below.  We had a very firm eye and grip on our kids, but some parents scared me silly with their lack of attention to their children - I had to just take big deep breaths and leave them to it.

It's so windy there that it felt as though you would be picked up and thrown off all by yourself.  I stayed firmly in the middle.  It was fairly amazing though at how they were formed.  It was all rather complicated - all to do with different sorts of rocks millions of years ago, with a bit of volcanic activity thrown in for good measure.  My husband tried explaining it to me.  I didn't really listen.

I never tire of gumtrees.  Filled with colour and light and birds - just lovely.  And everywhere.









I think these are younger trees.  The size of the trunks is small compared to those around here.


















I tell you, so many quilts in my head after this trip.  So many quilts.



Also in the national park was the walk to Admiral's Arch.  You'll see how it got its name later down.



You have to climb lots of boardwalk to get to the lookouts.  The wind is so strong that you literally cannot talk, it takes the breath from your mouth.  Amazing.


















 So you walk and walk and walk, see lots of major rocks, see many seals sunbaking on the rocks, and then you go down this long steep staircase, and you are met with this:



Admiral's Arch.  I went to KI when I was ten and I still remember this view vividly.



That little cove down there is filled with seals.



And though you can't see them, they are all over the rocks on the left, just chilling.



A crack of sunlight.  My girls thought it was the cave of a dragon.



Haven't a clue what these are - some random beach grasses but they really took my fancy.



After our visit to the wilds of the coast, we moved to another side of the island where we came to Seal Bay. Seal Bay is exactly what the name suggests, seals come and sun themselves while they recharge from fishing.



We were escorted by a guide who (rightly so) didn't let us get too close - the bull sea lions are not the type to be trifled with if they are in a mood.




























And again, rocks, rocks, rocks.  It was blowing a gale here and it was the height of summer.  I can only imagine how much it blows in winter.



As we were leaving I had to take a photo of this awesome tree.  I love how nature adapts to its circumstances.

So that was the nature parks.  Tomorrow we visit the wildlife section of our tour of KI.

Till tomorrow,

Suzie