Tag Archives: Victoria

The Falcon’s Roost

Posted on September 1, 2015 | Leave a comment

Moorooduc Quarry is a very good site for woodlands birds and for the Peregrine Falcon. The quarry is cut out from a hillside in Mt Eliza and from the top has vast views of the surrounding countryside. With such great views and an abundance of potential prey it is no wonder that the Peregrines can be found here all year round. They also breed at the site each year.

On a recent visit I walked into the quarry and looked for the Peregrines amongst the tall dead trees that overhang at the top of the cliffs. Spotting a Peregrine on a tall tree near one of the tracks that circle the lip of the quarry I thought I would try my luck and sneak up for a photo. I am pretty sure he watched me all the way, gave me a bit of chance for a photo through the fringing bushes and then took off and flew to the other side of the quarry. When the Peregrine took off he just leaned forward and dropped straight down to build up speed, glided for a while and then flew up to the other side.

Near the top of the Quarry, Moorooduc Quarry Flora and Fauna Reserve

View into part of the lake at Moorooduc

Peregrine Falcon, Moorooduc Quarry Flora and Fauna Reserve

Peregrine Falcon – a regular at the site, watching me puff my way up the steep track.

Dropping straight down the cliff edge to build up speed.

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Posted in Birds, Victoria

Tagged Australia, Australian Birds, Bird Photography, Moorooduc Quarry Flora and Fauna Reserve, Nature Photography, Peregrine Falcon, Photography, Victoria

Winter to Spring along Elster Creek

Posted on August 30, 2015 | Leave a comment

With only a few days to go until Spring officially starts, the local trees and Ducks are right on schedule. A late afternoon walk along Elster Creek to see what was about started with trying to find the Lorikeets I could hear in the flowering tree that hangs over the fence in my backyard into the creek. The Rainbow Lorikeets were feeding on the small white flowers and seemed to be enjoying the sun. They allowed me to get quite close before they flew onto the next flowering tree.

Rainbow Lorikeet, Elster Creek, Elwood

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At the local wetlands lake I ran into a birding friend Gio, and we walked along the banks together planning our next day trip into the bush. We came across a family of Wood Ducks that had nested nearby and were now raising 10 checks. Wood Ducks have quite large families and I think it is needed as quite a few chicks are taken by many predators. Wood Ducks are usually pretty calm around people and just wander back to the water if you approach but these adults were much more nervous of us and took to the water straight away.

Wood Duck and Chicks, Elster Creek, Elwood

Female Wood Duck and Chicks, Elster Creek

Is the male Wood Duck sticking his tongue out at me?

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Posted in Birds, Elster Creek, Victoria

Tagged Australian Birds, Australian Wood Duck, Bird Photography, Chicks, Elster Creek, Elwood, Nature Photography, Photography, Rainbow Lorikeet, Victoria

Honeyeaters hanging in the Gardens

Posted on August 26, 2015 | Leave a comment

The Australian Garden is located at Cranbourne and is part of the Royal Botanic Gardens. It is dedicated to Australian plants and landscapes and displays the various regions of Australia and its native plants. A great place to take visitors. It has large formal created gardens and larger areas of open natural parkland, woodlands, heathlands and even wetlands. It has many species of birds and quite a few Black or Swamp Wallabies as well as Wombats and Echidnas. I have visited a few times in the last couple of weeks. The previous Post at this site was about the Bandicoots that I had photographed. [I have since found out that the Bandicoot without the tail and the healed scars is called Stumpy and is a regular at the Stringybark Picnic area.

Australian Gardens, Cranbourne Botanical Gardens,

Australian Garden, Royal Botanical Gardens, Cranbourne – red centre section

Black Fronted Dotterel – a pair were working the waters edge along one of the ponds

By far the most abundant bird in the formal part of the Garden is the New Holland Honeyeater. Due to their numbers and ready food source available with the flowering Australian natives they are a great target for taking photos.

New Holland Honeyeater

New Holland Honeyeater on a standard weeping Grevillea.

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A pair of New Holland Honeyeaters – spring was definitely in the air…

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Posted in Bird Behaviour, Birds, Victoria

Tagged Australian Birds, Australian Garden, Bird Photography, Black Fronted Dorrerel, Cranbourne Botanical Gardens, Nature Photography, New Holland Honeyeater, Photography, Royal Botanic Garden, Victoria

Nests, Dreys and Bandicoots

Posted on August 19, 2015 | 1 comment

Saturday was another lovely Winter’s day in Melbourne and we decided to head down to the Melbourne Botanical Garden, (Cranbourne), also known as Australian Garden. We started at the Stringybark Picnic area and walked along the forest paths looking birds and reading the various information signs. We came across a large curious nest only a few metres off the ground. I could not figure out what made it or what was using it – I could see a brown furry looking lump through the side entrance but could not confirm what it was – I was unable to get closer without bashing through and damaging the prickly bushes in front. Last night, a local naturalist (Gio) suggested that it was most likely a Drey – a round nest made by a Ring-Tailed Possum. I did not know that Possums made nests like this nor had I ever heard of a Drey…

Drey, Cranbourne Botanical Gardens

Moving around the paths we saw a number of Eastern Yellow Robins and watched for a while as they hunted. I found one of their freshly made nests. Very similar style to the previous nest that I have posted about from Moorooduc.

Robin’s nest, Cranbourne Botanical Gardens,

The highlight of this part of the day was spotting a Southern Brown Bandicoot, a threatened marsupial species, often wiped out from areas by foxes. This site is protected by a fox proof fence and so the species is surviving. We saw one dart across a path. As we were walking back to the car my eagled eye walking partner yelled out that I was about to step on another one. This little guy was not very scared of me at all and we moved back a bit and took a few photos. It had some nasty healed up scars on its rump and a missing tail. I was surprised by its size – roughly the size of a small cat – much bigger than I expected. It moved around the path, had a little stretch and at some point decided to bolt off the track but only into the fringe where we watched it a bit more while it napped. We left it alone and drove to the main part of the gardens.

Southern Brown Bandicoot, Cranbourne Botanical Gardens

showing some old healed wounds on its back, its tail is also missing

Long claws front and back and a long nose that was surprisingly agile

Southern Brown Bandicoot

Leaping from the path to the scrub a few feet away – very powerful back legs

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Posted in Animal, Victoria

Tagged Australia, Australia Garden, Cranbourne Botanical Gardens, Dray, Drey, Eastern Yellow Robin Nest, Nature Photography, Photography, Ring Tailed Possum, Southern Brown Bandicoot, Victoria

Southern Spring is on its way

Posted on August 17, 2015 | 2 comments

After a morning of visiting the local birding sites, I dropped into the family farm to grab a lunch with the Matriarch and the Patriarch of the family. Afterward I walked down the road with my sister to show her offspring the secret field hidden behind a row of large pine trees. The field is effectively abandoned but once a year bursts into a sea of yellow, indicating Spring is well on its way. In another week or so it will be filled with yellow and cream daffodils.

Daffodil Field, Moorooduc

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Posted in Flowers, Victoria

Tagged Australia, Daffodils, Moorooduc, Nature Photography, Photography, Victoria

Sunbaking at Williamstown’s Jawbone

Posted on August 13, 2015 | 1 comment

A recent Port Phillip Birders day trip to several south western birding sites started with a morning stop at Williamstown and the Jawbone Flora and Fauna Reserve. It is a favourite spot of mine with many resident bird species with quite a few drop-ins and seasonal visitors. The wetland lagoons are narrow and accessible. It makes for good photographic opportunities. It is a very handy location for beginner birders as the birds are generally used to people passing nearby and don’t panic and fly away. It is where I started to learn more about the waders and coastal shorebirds. On this occasion it was cool and quite windy but we still managed to clock up over 50 species and take a few nice pics. The highlight was a group of 16 or so Brown Quail sunning and grooming themselves along one of the main paths. I have often seen Brown Quail here but not close and not so many. The images below show just how well camouflaged they can be – they just blend into the dry brown grass. When spooked a bit they jump up and scurry off into deeper cover. I have still yet to see one fly.

Brown Quail, Jawbone Flora and Fauna Reserve

Well camouflaged amongst the dry grass

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Another highlight was a New Holland Honeyeater that seemed happy to ignore us and allow a close approach for photos. It spent 20 minutes hunting for insects from a few perches close to the path.

New Holland Honeyeater

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Posted in Bird Behaviour, Birds, Victoria

Tagged Australia, Australian Birds, Brown Quail, Jawbone Flora and Fauna Reserve, Nature Photography, New Holland Honeyeater, Photography, Port Phillip Birders, Victoria, Williamstown

The ever changing laneways of Melbourne

Posted on August 13, 2015 | Leave a comment

I often walk through the laneways of Melbourne CBD looking for changes, new art and really anything of interest. I revisited my favourite laneways this week and while walking down and around AC/DC Lane and into Duckboard Place, I squeezed past several tradesmen trucks and walked on to look for new material. Something was not right so I back-tracked and realised that one of the best pieces in the Lane had gone and new/old windows had suddenly appeared. The whole building has been gutted and the old windows have been restored after being bricked up for so long. Duckboard Place (extension Lane of AC/DC Lane) has had a few changes as well. An expensive new restaurant is about to open up and the whole wall opposite has been covered with small advertising billboards. I guess the locals advertisers have realised how popular the area is – the problem will be that no-one will bother any more as the street art has gone and there is not any space to put up anything else. I certainly don’t mind progress and restoring the old buildings and giving them new life and purpose, I am just a little disappointed that a favourite piece has gone. Most pieces last only a day or so before being tagged and covered but ACDC Lane is different and the art has lasted months.

Bird Street Art, ACDC Lane, 9 June 2015

ACDC Lane, 10 Aug 2015

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Posted in Architecture, Melbourne CBD, Street Art

Tagged Australia, graffiti, Melbourne CBD, Melbourne Laneways, Photography, Street Art, Urban Photography, Victoria

Cruising the Kamarooka Forest

Posted on August 12, 2015 | Leave a comment

Kamarooka Forest is part of the Greater Bendigo National Park. It is north of Bendigo and contains a variety of habitats and plenty of interesting sites for finding birds and animals. I recently spent a day exploring Kamarooka with a birding mate, John. I clocked up a new Vic lifer (312) as well – White Fronted Honeyeater. Along the way we found plenty of small birds and one that I have only seen a few times before – a White Bellied Cuckoo Shrike. One of our favourites was a Weebill, Australia’s smallest bird. We also tracked a bird call that neither of us had heard before and it turned out to be a Restless Flycatcher making a very unusual call – certainly one we had not heard before.

Golden Whistler

Female Golden Whistler

Weebill – Austrralia’s smallest bird

White Bellied Cuckoo Shrike

Restless Flycatcher making a very unusual and loud call.

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Posted in Birds, Victoria

Tagged Australian Birds, Bird Photography, Golden Whistler, Kamarooka, Kamarooka Forest, Karmarooka State Park, Nature Photography, Photography, Restless Flycatcher, Victoria, Weebill, White Bellied Cuckoo Shrike

A little cup with loads of Spring hope…

Posted on August 10, 2015 | 2 comments

It has been a long cold Winter here in Southern Victoria. Lately the weekends have been good enough to get out, explore and photograph birds and other wildlife.

Our small crew of intrepid birders decided on a big day of birding down the southern coast, exploring a mix of favourite locations and a few spots that others have not been to before. We started off at Rickett’s Point for Terns and a good start with one of the crew picking up a lifer – a lone tiny Double banded Plover. We stopped briefly at Mordialloc Creek mouth for more tern spotting, and then onto Moorooduc Quarry for Peregrine Falcons, woodland birds and the bonus of a rare and endangered Growling Grass Frog. Tootgarook Swamp was the main target for the day for a general bird survey to help provide evidence to stop yet another real estate development draining the remaining wetlands. We finished with an early evening bushwalk around the Baldry Circuit at Green’s Bush.

There are signs in the bush that the weather will soon be changing. Mates, territories and food sources are being defended and nests are being built. Birds are looking for good locations and appropriate material to build their nests.

At Moorooduc Quarry we came across a pair of Eastern Yellow Robins building a new nest. It was being made out of paperbark strips for framing and held together with spider-web, packed down and then stuffed with moss and lichen. A lovely piece of engineering. I will have to go back and see the finished product and see how long until the chicks are hatched. They picked a good spot amongst a small dense grove of saplings that would make it difficult to find the nest and hard for larger birds to swoop in and attack the nest.

Eastern Yellow Robin nest

Eastern Yellow Robin

Eastern Yellow Robin building a nest – The robin circled around the rim and using its wings and chest to press the lichen into the top of the rim

Applying a bit more spider web and using its bill to push in the lichen and moss

Eastern Yellow Robin nest – under construction

Eastern Yellow Robin trying its nest on for size…

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Posted in Bird Behaviour, Birds, Victoria

Tagged Australian Birds, Bird Photography, Eastern Yellow Robin, Moorooduc Quarry Flora and Fauna Reserve, Nature Photography, Victoria

A winter’s feast at the You Yangs

Posted on August 6, 2015 | 2 comments

Following on from yesterday’s You Yangs post – The parasitic Mistletoe is also fruiting and the tiny Mistletoebirds are having a feast on the new fruit. One of the highlights of our photography expedition was watching the behaviour and skills of a few Mistletoebirds as they worked the Mistletoe bushes on the various gum trees. They would select an attached fruit bud and carefully remove its cap and pull out the fruit. It would not just eat the bullet shaped fruit, it would squeeze and twist several times and then when the fruit had released its sticky white secretion, the birds would then swallow it. The Mistletobird has a fast digestion and processes the fruit in an amazing time (4min to 25min). We watched as one did excrete a seed and did so slowly and seemingly with purpose. In doing a bit of research on mistletoe I found a picture where a Painted Honeyeater actually has to pull out the fruit seed from its vent as the white liquid is very sticky. This made sense as our Mistletoebird spent a bit of time on the branch wiggling about and when it moved away there was a little mound of white secretion and the seed pods stuck to the branch. This is how the mistletoe attaches to the host branch. In this case the seed wont germinate successfully as it was still located on the Mistletoe bush. The birds we photographed were very focussed and did not seem to mind 4 blokes only a few metres away clicking away with cameras. They kept an eye on us but were not at all nervous and one spent a few minutes sunning itself. We took hundreds of shots of the little birds.

At one point a New Holland Honeyeater flew into the mistletoe bush and started to chase off the female Mistletoebird. After a flurry of wings and loud calls, each bird flew off in different directions but our little friend came back for an encore and after a few more pics we left her in peace.

Mistletoebird, You Yangs

Squeezing the seed pod/fruit

Spending a few moments and using the branch to remove the stick seed pod excretion.

Mistletoe bird excretion with a few visible seeds stuck to the branch.

Mistletoebird

New Holland Honeyeater

Mistletoe bird back again

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Posted in Bird Behaviour, Birds, Victoria

Tagged Australian Birds, Bird Photography, Mistletoe, Mistletoebird, Nature Photography, New Holland Honeyeater, Photography, Victoria, You Yangs, You Yangs Regional Park

The You Yangs in Winter

Posted on August 5, 2015 | 1 comment

The You Yangs Regional Park (about 45 min SW of Melbourne) is a great place to visit and to photograph birds and wildlife in general. There is a variety of vegetation and terrain that brings in a good selection of birds at various times of the year. At the moment several of the gum tree species are flowering and many Parrots, Lorikeets and Honeyeaters are visiting. Recently I drove with a few local birder friends and we explored the usual spots and then onto a few new ones that I had not been to before. For the middle of winter there were quite a few birds and animals around. The Koala of course was safe up his tree and just ignored us. The Grey Kangaroos we came across along one of the walking tracks were wary but generally unconcerned – the larger ones took off first into deeper less exposed scrub followed by the younger ones and a few remaining females with Joeys in the pouch just stood up and watched us walk by. Enjoying the early morning sun on a cold winter’s morning was more important than panicking about a few walkers passing. We even had enough time to take a nice series of images. The local sounds were made up of Wattlebirds, Magpies, Kookaburras and several large family tribes of White Winged Choughs. In amongst these usual sounds we kept our ears open for the various Thornbills, Robins and Weebills. At one section that I have not explored that much we found a small group of White Throated Treecreepers. They move around a tree very quickly and are often defy gravity working their way along the bark upside down looking for hidden insects.

Scarlet Robin, You Yangs Regional Park

Musk Lorikeet

Large Gum Tree

A napping Koala, You Yangs Regional Park

Young Grey Roo

Mum Grey Roo and Joey

White Throated Treecreeper

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Posted in Animal, Birds, Victoria

Tagged Australian Birds, Bird Photography, Grey Kangaroo, Koala, Musk Lorikeet, Nature Photography, Scarlet Robin, Victoria, White Throated Treecreeper, You Yangs

July Street Art Updates III

Posted on July 29, 2015 | Leave a comment

Along with mural style street art on walls there are also quite a few street art objects. Many are hidden away and need someone to point them out, others are right in front of you but don’t last long due to the temporary nature of street art. Anything that is meant to survive needs to be robust. There are some interesting, funny and strange pieces in Hosier Lane. The second skull image below has been many colours (just black when I first saw it) and has been altered a number of times. This is one of the most colourful incarnations I have seen so far. As usual many of the walls have been re-sprayed including what is becoming my favourite corner.

Street Art, Hosier Lane

The ever changing life size skull

Street Art, Hosier Lane

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My favourite corner – the art work here changes every time I visit.

Street Artist

Layers of art

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Posted in Melbourne CBD, Street Art, Victoria

Tagged Australia, graffiti, Melbourne CBD, Melbourne Laneways, Photography, Street Art, Street Objects, Street Photography, Urban Photography, Victoria

July Street Art Updates Part II

Posted on July 28, 2015 | Leave a comment

A few weeks later, I went back to the laneways to see how many of the street art pieces were still around from my previous visit . I am noticing that there are a few spots that are very popular for artists while other areas are left alone for quite some time, eventually being painted over once the taggers have left their marks.

Street Art, Hosier Lane

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In only a few weeks multiple layers have been sprayed over the face – see previous post.

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Street Art, Union Lane

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Posted in Melbourne CBD, Street Art, Victoria

Tagged Australia, graffiti, Hosier Lane, Melbourne CBD, Melbourne Laneways, Photography, Street Art, Street Photography, Union Lane, Victoria

July Street Art Updates

Posted on July 23, 2015 | Leave a comment

Earlier in the month I photographed some of the new work in a few of the regular sites. The hard part of photographing the work is to get there before the taggers and the next artist with an idea and plenty of spray paint – some really nice pieces are gone overnight.

Street Art, Union Lane

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Street Art, Hosier Lane

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Street Artist – finished work to follow

Street Art, Hosier Lane

Street Art, ACDC Lane

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Posted in Melbourne CBD, Street Art

Tagged Australia, graffiti, Melbourne CBD, Photography, Street Art, Street Photography, Urban Photography, Victoria

Flight II

Posted on July 18, 2015 | Leave a comment

A recent visit to the Western Treatment Plant with the Port Phillip Birders produced a good day with many birds on display and good opportunities for taking flight images.

White Necked Heron, Weribee

Pelicans, Weribee

Great Egret, Weribee

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Posted in Birds, Victoria

Tagged Australian Birds, Australian Pelican, Bird Photography, Great Egret, Nature Photography, Pooh Farm, Victoria, Western Treatment Plant, White Necked Heron

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Tag Archives: Victoria

The Falcon’s Roost

Winter to Spring along Elster Creek

Honeyeaters hanging in the Gardens

Nests, Dreys and Bandicoots

Southern Spring is on its way

Sunbaking at Williamstown’s Jawbone

The ever changing laneways of Melbourne

Cruising the Kamarooka Forest

A little cup with loads of Spring hope…

A winter’s feast at the You Yangs

The You Yangs in Winter

July Street Art Updates III

July Street Art Updates Part II

July Street Art Updates

Flight II

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