Getting my photography juices flowing for the Arctic

A lovely day at Taronga Zoo yesterday, getting into the photography flow in preparation for photographing polar bears.  I'm happy with how the photos came out.  Hopefully, I'm ready to get that polar bear shot !  Wherever she is, dear Sue is smiling.

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• Our Arctic adventure: A list of posts

Blackbutts Reserve (Newcastle)

George and I were ecstatic when this little baby koala emerged from it's mum's pouch.  It was very unexpected!  And set up some gorgeous photos.

New England (New South Wales)

Warrumbungles

We drove through the ancient volcanic landscape of the Warrumbungles and enjoyed the scenery but it was too hot to do a proper hike and see it up close.  We'll have to come here again with more time to do it justice.  

Local wildlife

This lizard gave us a big fright!

Galah

Friendly Emus

We met these very friendly and curious Emus in a field near the Warrumbungles.

Gunnedah

Gunnedah is marketed as the Koala capital of Australia, supposedly abounding in these cute little furry critters.  But despite searching high and low, including a very hot morning hike in the local nature reserve, we didn't see any. What a pity!

Gunnedah is also famous for being the inspiration for Dorothy Mackellar's iconic Australian poem "My Country."  She spent time on her family's farm in the Gunnedah district and wrote the poem in England when she was 19 and feeling homesick for Australia.  I have included the poem at the bottom of this post.  Dani had to memorise the whole poem at school and she read it out to me in the car as we drove.  What a beaut is is.

Statue of Dorothy Mackellar, author of "My Country"

View of the town from the local hill.

It's all a conspiracy!

My Country  (by Dorothy Mackellar)

The love of field and coppice,

Of green and shaded lanes.

Of ordered woods and gardens

Is running in your veins,

Strong love of grey-blue distance

Brown streams and soft dim skies

I know but cannot share it,

My love is otherwise.

I love a sunburnt country, 

A land of sweeping plains, 

Of ragged mountain ranges, 

Of droughts and flooding rains. 

I love her far horizons, 

I love her jewel-sea, 

Her beauty and her terror 

The wide brown land for me! 

The stark white ring-barked forests, 

All tragic to the moon, 

The sapphire-misted mountains, 

The hot gold hush of noon, 

Green tangle of the brushes 

Where lithe lianas coil, 

And orchids deck the tree-tops, 

And ferns the warm dark soil. 

Core of my heart, my country! 

Her pitiless blue sky, 

When, sick at heart, around us 

We see the cattle die 

But then the grey clouds gather, 

And we can bless again 

The drumming of an army, 

The steady soaking rain. 

Core of my heart, my country! 

Land of the rainbow gold, 

For flood and fire and famine 

She pays us back threefold. 

Over the thirsty paddocks, 

Watch, after many days, 

The filmy veil of greenness 

That thickens as we gaze ... 

An opal-hearted country, 

A wilful, lavish land 

All you who have not loved her, 

You will not understand 

though Earth holds many splendours, 

Wherever I may die, 

I know to what brown country 

My homing thoughts will fly. 

Next stop
Dubbo Zoo


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My first sight of koalas in the wild

I have always wanted to see a koala in the wild.  In fact, it's on my life list.  So I was very excited when I saw one for the first time.  And, I think you'll agree, these little fellows are very photogenic.  Koalas are quite common at Kennett River and on the road to the Cape Otway Lighthouse.

If you look carefully in the photo below, you can see a baby koala.

Amazing facts about Australian Animals

I wrote this for a class based on Google found information.  Some interesting facts about our local critters.

• Marsupials like koalas and kangaroos can be found nowhere else in the world. Marsupials are animals that bring up their babies in a pouch.
• It is difficult to be a wild animal in Australia. It is very dry and food can be hard to find. This means animals need to use less energy.
• Marsupials use so little energy that they need to eat one-fifth less food than mammals of the same size.
• There are over 60 different species (types) of kangaroos.
• Kangaroos hop because it is takes much less energy to move around.
• A million years ago, there was a type of kangaroo that was over three metres tall.
• Koalas eat gum leaves which are so poisonous that they use 20% of their energy just digesting their food. They make up for this by having tiny brains (brains use up a lot of energy). They are very stupid! But nothing hunts them so it is OK.
• Koalas are not always cute. They can make an extremely loud growling noise.
• Australia has two mammals that can lay eggs. They are the platypus and echidna. They are the only animals in the world to lay eggs.
• Platypuses can eat their own body weight in food in a 24 hour period!
• The Emu is the world's third largest bird. The nest of an Emu can be up to 1.5 metres wide!
• The Tasmanian Devil has very strong jaws (nearly as strong as a crocodile). This helps them to eat bones.
• There are more than 150 million sheep in Australia and only 20 million people. That's 8 sheep for every person.
• Young Kookaburras (a type of bird) often stay with their parents to help them bring up new chicks because food is difficult to find.
• It is thought that Dingos were the first domesticated dogs and the "father" of all other domestic dog breeds.
• Australia has the longest fence. It's known as the Dingo Fence and runs through central Queensland and is designed to keep sheep safe from our native dog the Dingo... the fence is about 6 feet high and stretches over 5500 kilometers.

Dangerous Animals

• Australia is home to 10 of the world's 15 most poisonous snakes. Of Australia's 155 species of land snakes, 93 are poisonous.
• The Australian Taipan is the most poisonous snake in the world.
• The Stone Fish that lives in the Great Barrier reef has strong poison that can kill a person in less than two hours. People sometimes step on them. The only way to stop the poison is to put your foot in boiling water. Ouch!
• The box jellyfish kills more people in Australian each year than Snakes, Sharks and Salt Water Crocodiles.
• The Irukandji jellyfish is only 2.5 centimetres in diameter, but can cause death to humans within days.
• There are 1500 species of Australian spiders.
• The saltwater crocodile is the world's largest reptile - males can reach a staggering 6 metres long.
• The temperature of the saltwater crocodile's egg will decide the sex of the baby crocodile.
• The saltwater crocodile has only two muscles to open its mouth but 40 to close it!