Royal National Park
Great weekend trip! Royal National Park just south of Sydney is the second oldest national park in the world (next to the great Yellowstone NP). It has amazing vistas of the coast and a really rugged coastline.. but I just want to see the birds! Over 280 species have been spotted there. I'll have to believe them. But I did see two very exciting species, the famous lyrebird and the satin bowerbird (and his bower).
The lyrebird is famous for mimicking pretty much any sound. Other birds are their favorite subject, but people have observed them copying trains, chainsaws and even camera shutters. The one we saw/heard was apparently a star wars fan. Lyrebirds don't fly (tail feathers are like peakcocks), instead they are quite quick on their feet and managed to elude my camera at every turn.
"It reminds us that though the fire has consumed everything, life still manages to prevail." Couldn't resist quoting Paul (friend at work) on this one. 1994 a fire swept through RNP and pretty much leveled everything. Took a while, but all is well.
These little guys were singing away at us on our hike. The burned tree trunks provide a great backdrop for any subject.
Had to throw in the obligatory Ray and Tara shot. This is outside our packed campsite. This was not a good place to camp. If you picture Aussies with 10 man tents, bottles of wine and screaming kids, then you might be able to get a feel for it. Ear plugs are required.
This was a great find. The Satin Bowerbird creates this bower and decorates it with little blue bits and pieces. In the wild there are no blue pieces other than flowers and feathers. Here we found blue bottle caps, forks, clothes pins, labels and a single blue feather. This bower of course is to attract the female Bowerbird (which isn't satin colored, but spotted white and brown). And sure enough, we spotted both the male and female nearby having their way with each other (took about 1.2 seconds).
Finally saw a real live Goanna. I believe this is technically a Gould's Monitor, but I believe "Goanna" is a catch all for around 20 species of monitor here. This guy was huge! At least 3-3.5 feet long. As soon as I grabbed this shot he headed up the tree to hide.
The forest floor was lush and teeming with life. Same can't be said for 90% of the dry continent. But when found, it is beautiful.
These tiny guys are cool characters with their red masks. I've seen them in two other environments, but here they were quite a bit more relaxed and let me grab these shots before taking off.
