Photography by Jennie Stock
Nine different species of fairy-wren call Australia home - and I'd love to see all of them. So far I've found five - the two well-known 'blue wrens' and the three I will focus on in this post: Variegated, Red-winged and White-winged. White-winged Fairy-wrens are fairly easy to identify if you see a male in... Continue Reading →
Brightly-coloured male Fairy-wrens in their nuptial plumage can stop many an Australian birder in their tracks. The birds may be tiny but they more than make up for it with showiness. Most familiar are the two "Blue Wrens' - the Superb Fairy-Wren (Malurus cyaneus) of the east coast and Tasmania, and the Splendid Fairy-wren (Malurus... Continue Reading →
Some of the noisiest and most commonly seen parrots in Australia are the large white corellas and cockatoos - huge flocks can often be found congregating loudly near their roosting sites, like these Little Corellas at Carine Open Space. These birds all feed on the ground and seem to have adapted well to human landscapes, to... Continue Reading →
No visitor to Australia can fail to notice and be charmed by the colourful, noisy and endearing parrots found in this country. Some of the most brightly coloured are the beautiful rosellas. They all have a similar plumage pattern, with an obvious cheek patch. My favourites are the Crimson Rosellas, which unfortunately are only found... Continue Reading →
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... Continue Reading →
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... Continue Reading →
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... Continue Reading →
First stop on the Eyre Highway after Fraser Range was Balladonia. The golf hole here is named "Skylab" in homage to the bits of the NASA space station that scattered its bits all over the area in 1979. The Balladonia Motel includes a museum with some interesting displays and information, and provided a decent cup... Continue Reading →
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... Continue Reading →
Just over a year ago (yes, I know, I'm a bit behind), we began our trip driving across Australia from Perth to Canberra. Wave Rock, one of Western Australia's iconic tourist attractions, was our first overnight stop. Not one of the easiest things to photograph effectively, the wave is the eroded northern face of the granite... Continue Reading →
Nature in Focus 