Sunrises – Nature in Focus

That was 2017, part 1

Way back at the beginning of January 2017 I was planning to be diligent about posting on my blog this year, envisioning at least one post a month. That idea fell by the wayside rather quickly. In my defence, we have had a bit of a crazy year, what with selling our house, moving, travelling and so on. I did manage to squeeze in a fair amount of photography along the way so have decided to share some highlights of 2017.

In January I spent a lovely morning watching the Fairy Tern colony at Rous Head, where these endangered birds raise their chicks on a small patch of fenced off land in the middle of Fremantle’s busy port (see here for more information).

An Immature Fairy Tern stretching its wings

Young Fairy Tern being demanding

The demanding chick getting its fish

We spent many weekends during 2017 in Bridgetown, working on our new house, particularly the landscaping. In February I practised some macro photography on subjects found while gardening and moving soil. March was not a great month for photography as we decided to sell our Perth house and I spent most of my time painting, cleaning and de-cluttering. One thing I did manage was experimenting with taking bird’s-eye-view images of leaves and insects floating on the surface of the pool (probably when I was supposed to be keeping it clean). I was very happy with how an image of bleached bougainvillea flowers turned out (called “Floating Trio”). It has done well in a couple of competitions, netting a Silver Award with a score of 87 in the Revealing Nature category of the 2017 Better Photography competition.

Eastern Paper Wasp (Polistes humilis) on its nest

Floating Trio

Wolf Spider in the dirt pile

Garden Orb Weaver at night

Ants raiding the paper wasps nest

Our Perth house sold in April, which was a great relief. I was lucky to get a week off from the chaos, visiting Far North Queensland with my daughter. We hired a campervan and explored the area near Cairns, managing to make it to the Daintree, one of my bucket list destinations. Although it wasn’t the ideal time of year for birding we saw heaps of interesting things, including a couple of very special birds on an amazing boat cruise with Ian “Sauce” Worcester on the Daintree River.

Peaceful Dove on the Cairns Esplanade

Papuan Frogmouths on the Daintree

Great-Billed Heron calling

Immature Australasian Figbird

Male Olive-Backed Sunbird

May was a mad rush of packing and moving, with some stuff going to Bridgetown and some to a rental in Perth. We did get a bit of time to enjoy autumn down south.

Male Scarlet Robin

Autumn Leaves in Bridgetown

Once the moving was all done, we set off in our camper trailer for a long-awaited month of long-service leave, travelling north from Perth all the way to Broome and back (about 2400 km each way). We saw some amazing landscapes, met interesting people and saw lots of birds and other animals.

Murchison River at sunset, Wooleen

River Campsite at Wooleen Station

Stars at Millstream

Blue-Spotted Mudskipper, Broome

Western Netted Dragon (Ctenophorus reticulatus) at Hamelin Bay

Masked Lapwing at Pardoo Station

Zebra Finches

Flocks of Cockatiels at Quobba

Highlights included some amazing station stays at Wooleen Station, in the Gascoyne, Hamelin Bay Station near Shark Bay, Quobba Station north of Carnarvon, Bullara Station on the way to Exmouth and Pardoo Station on the northern coast. In Broome we stayed at the awesome Broome Bird Observatory and on our way back south we detoured to Millstream-Chichester National Park in the Pilbara.

Termite Mound at Millstream

Green Sea Turtle from the cliffs at Cape Keraudren

Grey-Crowned Babblers

Cockatiel in the cattleyard at Bullara

Spinifex Pigeon near Karratha

Woolen Station sunrise

Sturt’s Desert Pea

Spinifex at sunset at Millstream

Following the Murrimbidgee (sort of)

Rennix Trail sunrise in Kosciuszko National Park

The most direct route to the Snowy Mountains from Adelaide (the A20) quite closely follows the Murrimbidgee River, the second longest river in Australia. Our best look at the river was at an overnight stop in Wagga Wagga, an unusually large town for inland Australia. The Murrimbidgee looked lovely and cool at the end of an extremely hot day. I had a relaxing time watching some of the birds on its banks, as well as a colony of flying foxes or fruit bats – unfortunately they were a bit far away on the opposite bank to capture well.

Murrimbidgee River at sunrise, Wagga Wagga

Flying foxes (Fruit bats) roosting in Wagga

Superb Fairy-Wren on barbed wire fence

Sulphur-Crested Cockatoo fooling around

From Wagga we left the river and headed directly for the cooler climes of the Snowy Mountains, the source of the Murrimbidgee. A bit of an issue with the tyres on the hired campervan delayed us in the small town of Tumut – luckily we were in town when we noticed the problem and the guys at Tumut Valley Tyre Service were able to get us on our way as quickly as possible. We just managed to make it to Jindabyne in time to get a campsite for the night. After a day revisiting Kosciuszko National Park, we decided to camp at Kosciuszko Mountain Retreat near Sawpit Creek, a lovely site nestled in among the eucalypt trees. The area was also heavily populated with fierce horseflies, as we discovered when we went for a walk along the Waterfall Track – it is quite tricky taking photos of scenery or birds when as soon as you stop walking you get attacked by vicious insects.

View from Charlotte’s Pass

Along the walking trail near Sawpit Creek

A mountain stream from the Rennix Trail

Eucalypt forest at Sawpit Creek campground

Early next morning I dragged my son out of bed to accompany me on a sunrise expedition – we explored the beginning of the Rennix Trail which is where the opening image was taken in beautiful morning light. Stopping in Jindabyne for delicious pies, we then headed for the ACT and Canberra. We lived there for a year in 2002 so it was a bit of a trip down memory lane, although our main goal was to leave David at the Australian National University to begin his Honours year. Once he had checked in to his hall of residence, I dropped the boys off for their last golf game of the trip and headed for one of my favourite places in Canberra, the Australian National Botanic Gardens. A birder’s paradise, it also features lots of interesting plants (naturally) and a reasonably tame bunch of Australian Water Dragons (Intellagama lesueurii) that sun themselves on rocks and make great photographic subjects when they’re not getting underfoot at the café.

Water Dragon trying to be cryptic

Water Dragon close-up

Patterns of Eucalypt bark in the Botanic Gardens

Australian Water Dragon posing beautifully

I enjoyed photographing birds I hadn’t seen since we lived in the ACT, like the funny White-Winged Choughs with their messy digging habits and the striking Crimson Rosellas. I did manage to see my favourite Australian parrot, the Gang-Gang Cockatoo – but wasn’t lucky enough to get any photos. All too soon, it was time to say goodbye, find space for the tripod in the suitcase and head for Sydney and our flight home.

Crimson Rosella in the Australian Botanic Gardens

White-Winged Chough foraging in the Botanic Gardens

Scruffy young Currawong

Eastern Spinebill (male)

A taste of South Australia

Having finished the golfing activities, we headed down the Eyre Peninsula exploring some of the South Australian coastline along the way. I would love to return at some stage with more time, as there were plenty of places worthy of further exploration and better light for photography. The granite inselbergs at Murphy’s Haystacks, for example, really need some Golden Hour light to do them justice.

Murphy’s haystacks

Port Kenny fishing boat

Basing ourselves in Port Lincoln for a couple of nights, we enjoyed a lovely day exploring Coffin Bay National Park, and sampling some of the local seafood.

Coffin Bay National Park

Pacific gulls nesting

Ocean view from Coffin Bay NP

Teddy in his swag at Port Lincoln

A visit to South Australia has to include some wineries – a long drive north to Port Augusta and then south again found us in the Clare Valley, one of the premium wine regions of Australia. By this time, the heat wave we left behind in Perth had caught up – temperatures around 40 deg C tend to slow activity down – but we did manage to visit a few estates. We then relaxed a bit in Hahndorf, an attractive town in the Adelaide Hills with a very strong German influence (yummy beer and sausages).

Clare Valley wine estate

German-style beer

Hahndorf cafe

Plans for the next stage had to be abandoned due to the extreme temperatures (all the national parks in South Australia, northern Victoria and western New South Wales were closed) so we decided to head for the Snowy Mountains as quickly as possible – at least we had air-con in the vehicles during the day. South Australia is definitely on the ‘revisit’ list.

Noisy miner

South Australia border – Murray River

The heart of the Nullarbor

The Nullarbor is most definitely well-named, from the Latin words Nullus arbor, meaning No trees. The seemingly endless flat plain covers an area about the size of the State of Victoria. Once a shallow sea-bed, the Nullarbor is the world’s largest karst landform. South of the Nullarbor is the Great Australian Bight, essentially a very large bay with steep cliff faces. We stopped briefly at a couple of the viewing platforms – with me cursing that the light was in the wrong place for landscape photography – and made it to the Nullarbor Motel just before sunset. Not long before reaching the motel, David and I saw a dingo on the side of the road, and then discovered that the golf hole at the motel was called the Dingo’s Den. Interrupting dinner to take some photos of the sunset, I got another glimpse of a dingo – of course, I had my very wide angle lens one so the dingo is a speck in the distance. He is on the edge of the Royal Flying Doctor Service airstrip; the RFDS is a lifesaver for residents and travelers in the Australian Outback.

Flying Doctor airstrip with dingo

The Great Australian Bight

Nullarbor scrub

Typical Aussie road signs

Next morning saw the beginning of the last golfing day, with some fun hunting balls around the Dingo’s Den. This was followed by some very hot and dusty holes in places with odd names (Nundroo and Penong). Finally we made it to the golf course in Ceduna for the last two holes! A visit to the Visitor Centre to get the cards signed off (and to David’s relief, to hear that there were much worse scores on record) was followed by a well-deserved 19th hole in the air-conditioned comfort of a Ceduna pub.

Handshake at the final hole in Ceduna

Maybe the dingo has the ball

Hot and bothered

Dusty in Penong

Dry, dusty and up a hill

Norseman and Fraser Range Station

Day Four of our cross-country trip began slowly, as our planned destination was only 100 km away. We began the day with a bit of exploring around Norseman, a much smaller gold-mining town that marks the beginning/end of the Eyre Highway. When heading east it is the last major town in Western Australia before you get to the border with South Australia, 720 km away. Finishing up with a walk at the Beacon Hill lookout, we enjoyed spectacular views of the Great Western Woodlands ( see previous post for more information).

Looking out over the Great Western Woodlands from the Beacon Hill lookout in Norseman

Spotted Jezebel butterfly

Fraser Range Station was our next golfing and overnight stop. A working pastoral lease and farm, Fraser Range hosts one of the Nullarbor Links holes and offers station stay-style accommodation and camping. After some frustrating golf action, we walked to the top of the rocky outcrop near the homestead to enjoy watching the sunset (and a beer or two). A delicious dinner in the station kitchen was followed by David and I experimenting with a bit of night photography.

The green of the ‘Sheep’s back’ hole at Fraser Range Station

Sunset from the hill above the station house at Fraser Range

Night sky attempt, Fraser Range Station

Next morning, I was up early (thankfully a bit later than in Perth, due to changing longitude without changing time zone) to capture some sunrise images. A great treat was seeing two Wedge-tailed eagles soaring overhead.

Water pump at sunrise

Red kangaroo on the move

Soaring Wedge-tailed eagle

Aussie outback animals – roos and emus

Golden hours in Kruger

Landscape photography is often about the “Golden hours” just after sunrise and just before sunset. Taking photos at these times in Kruger was a bit of a challenge as this is also prime game watching time. I stayed back in camp at Skukuza one morning to take this sunrise shot of the old railway bridge over the Sabie River and am very glad I made the effort. The view would be familiar to anyone who has spent time there; this version at least has some interesting lighting although the sunrise could have been a tad more spectacular. This was done in traditional landscape fashion, f/16 with a tripod and graduated ND filters.

Bushveld sunrise

Silhouette at sunrise

I did manage one sunrise with some vibrant lighting – the wide shot was taken with my landscape lens and quite a slow shutter speed, a bit hair-raising in a vehicle with three other people under strict instructions not to wriggle. A little later during the early morning game drive I managed to position myself to get the sun behind a silhouetted tree – taken in quite a hurry , handheld with my birding lens and the aperture wide open to keep the shutter speed up for sharpness.

Rushing back to camp before the gates close in the evening and still hoping for that elusive lion or cheetah sighting is not really the ideal time for landscapes, but I couldn’t resist the lone tree in the savanna at sunset; another image using the short end of my birding lens. The Berg-en-dal sunrise was a bit more planned – taken from the vehicle using a bean bag for support, using my wide angle lens to capture the lovely soft light over the mountains. A fitting farewell image on our last morning.

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