Dandenong Range

At 8:30 this morning a wonderful birder Joan Broadberry picked us up and drove us to this gorgeous mountain range. It has cute little towns poked amidst the trees, like the mountains outside of San Diego. We started birding at a park where cockatoos, crimson rosella parrots and rose-breasted cockatoos (otherwise known as galahs) literally swarmed the area. The park service puts out special seed for them and the birds completely ignored us as they ate breakfast. We walked right up to them. Amazing!!!

The Crimson Rosella parrots are gorgeous red with multi-colors around the tail and body. If you can find bird photos on the internet it would be worth checking them out, and the Galahs. They are so beautiful. Then we walked through this soaring forest of ash trees that are second only to the redwoods of California. Mammoth trees, but mainly second growth now because of fires in the 1930s. The fires around Melbourne have devastated the habitats. This is one of the few if not the only habitat remaining for a hundred miles. The scope of the fires is impossible to conceive of until you talk to people who know entire families that were lost. The winds reversed course and swept over towns in minutes. People had sprinklers on their roofs and still were overwhelmed without warning. It is almost incomprehensible and our heart goes out to each and every person here.

Back in the forest, we saw the lyrebird, this large forest creature with a tail that looks like a large fern branch. It is silent, but we saw one a couple times right by the trail before it fled into the fern underbrush.

Then we saw a wallabee. Our first kangaroo. It was a small fellow with cute little rounded ears. Dave snapped a couple photos before he hopped off. More wonderful birds and a great hike in the woods. Then we picnicked in another lovely spot. By now the temperatures were soaring. It got to 100 centigrade or 37 celsius. We moved on to a park, Jells Park, where there is a little stream and lake. Birded along the stream and saw a Superb Fairy Wren with some of the iridescent blue on the face and tail of the male. Also a yellow robin, much smaller than our robin and with a bright yellow breast, and a red-browed firetail – whose name sort of describes the bird fairly well. We heard a Bell Myna, this ringing sound sort of like a bellbird of the tropics, but it’s a myna. Finally tracked down a lek of them and saw one clear as a bell, smile. Saw wonderful ducks, a Gray Teal and Chestnut Teal. The heat was draining and we were grateful there was a “Tea House” in Jells Park. We sat for at least half an hour in the shade drinking water and talking, while Dave visited with a lady that had an Australia cattle dog like Abby only longer hair. We ended up at home, happy campers at about 5:30. It was a marvelous day out.

Joan was a high school teacher, taught economics and accounting. We talked politics and swapped views. It’s interesting the news they get and don’t get here about the US. She’s retired and very involved in nature groups here as well as orchid and other groups. Done an immense amount of travelling to Sri Lanka, Papau New Guinea, Kenya, Tanzania, and other places that we’ve wondered about travelling to. She is a wealth of information. After talking with her we dropped New Guinea from our list and added Sri Lanka. She says the birding is exquisite and so easy to do. She’s going to New Zealand next week and we’re going to be in roughly the same places. But she’s going birding and I’m going lecturing, so don’t think our paths will cross. Her husband is going to London soon and we recommended he see Wicked. Loved that play, if you get the opportunity definitely worth the money.

We saw perhaps 32 species during the entire day but wonderful looks and great habitat. It was a joy just to experience this mountain range and we’ve made a new friend. Hopefully she and her husband will come and stay with us in Tucson or Nashville and you will get to meet them.

Lecture is tomorrow.