A bush walk

When the girls and I were in Sydney waiting for baby Opal to join our family, we did loads of bushwalking; Dad took the girls and me to the Symbio Wildlife Park on one of our waiting for labour days. Between our walks and the park I have caputured a few of Australia's finest residents for your viewing pleasure....enjoy.

 Everyone's favourite, the Koala. This one is sleeping over a rainbow.

A baby ringtail possum, seriously cute but seeing as one of his relatives just ate my big fat black russian heirloom tomato, cute is not what I am thinking right now!

A couple of Eastern Grey Kangaroos in the winter sun.

 

A Dingo.

 

An Echidna... look at his little nostrils. These are one of my favourite animals.

 

An albino Echidna. This was was found as a puggle (true, that is the name of Echidna babies) in its dead mother's pouch. A kind human brought it to the wildlife park where it was hand reared - rare little fellow.

 

Say hello to the Emu, Australia's largest, and flightless, bird.

 

The Sulphur Crested Cockatoo..possibly Australia's noisest bird!

 

These pretty fellas are Lorikeets, affectionately refered to as the Arnott's biscuit tin bird 

 

A Crimson Rosella

 

Magpie

Gang Gang Cockatoo; the Gang Gang is the faunal emblem for the Australian Capital Territory... my birthplace.

 

This is a Bush Stone Curlew. I was very keen to see what these birds look like because I have a friend who has a family of these threatened birds on her property...they only come out at night and make a somewhat eerie, wailing noise when the do. I think they sound a bit like a cat on heat and apparently they have been responsible for many a phone call to the police, from people thinking someone was screaming in the bush. For this reason the Bush Stone-curlew is also known as the 'Screaming Woman Bird'!

This is a King parrot... the males have a electric green flash of feathers on their wings, it is just hidden in this picture. The females are all green.

A Kookaburra... just so you know he did laugh while he was sitting in that gum tree, it sounded like this.

 

This is the best shot I could get of a Galah...despite it being one of the most comon birds about town!

 

I think this might be a stock standard crow but I liked the picture...

 

And this my friends is a Big Bad Banksia Man...

"We came to a grove of Banksia trees and sitting on almost every branch were these ugly little, wicked little men" May Gibbs, much loved Australian author, created the "big bad" Banksia Men as the villains of the story of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, they are modelled on the appearance of aged Banksia "cones", with follicles for eyes and other facial features...They give me the creeps but then I have read the books and seen the pictures.