Feathered friends

One unexpected pleasure has been the amazing bird life on the trip but particularly in the Kimberleys. In retrospect I should have brought binoculars. Instead I've managed to take a few zoom pics and enlarged them for identification.

As mentioned in a previous post, we've been lucky enough to see Gouldian Finches and other endangered species. Further south in the Pilbara we constantly drove past wedge tailed eagles on the side of the road atop recent road kill. Such magnificent birds.

The sound of the west Kimberley was definitely the kites, and for a month we met these Great Bowerbirds at every stop. Unlike our southern bowerbirds these gather white and green objects and build bowers from sticks, often right in the middle of campsites. At Silent Grove we had a pair 2m away in a tree. He (below) kept flashing his brilliant blue nape feathers and throwing leaves at her but she was much more interested in us.

Great Bowerbird - image by Robyn Jay

But it's the Willy Wagtail who has followed us right around the nation. No matter where we are he's there to make sure we stay in line!

Fire

There's nothing quite like sitting around a warm campfire with a glass of port under the stars. However, we've had surprisingly few campfires on the trip with most national parks and conservation areas banning or restricting fire use.

Certainly people here have strong opinions about fire use and perhaps overuse in the Kimberley. Its about finding the right balance.

If you've ever lived in the top end and stood neck deep in spear grass towards the end of the dry season you'll know it feels like a tinderbox. Dry season burn offs have been part of aboriginal life for tens of thousands of years but today these include matches from cars and incendiary drops from helicopters.

Down at Mornington Wildlife Camp the AWC with some traditional owners has designed a fire program that also involves some stations and a fair extent of Central Kimberley. We were told of a huge fire a few years ago that swept from the NE down through the country blackening all country and burning for weeks. The new program burns the land in carefully selected patches early in the season so that when big late dry season fires do occur they don't cause as much devastation.

Of course it's not only the vegetation that suffers in a big fire. We were told the story of a collared feral cat at Mornington that normally has a restricted territory but which after a big fire traveled quite a large distance to patrol the edge of the fire front catching all the small fauna as they escaped, then returned back to its normal hunting ground.

Our journey into the Mitchell Plateau was a hazy one with burning ground and fallen trees along the track to the falls. In fact many places we've visited have been recently burnt and our feet are often black from sooty ground. Rising smoke and hazy skies are most definitely something to be expected traveling in the Kimberley in the Dry.

Fires coming into Kununurra

Synchronous fishing

Yesterday we visited Parrys Lagoon up near Wyndham, a wonderful wetland teaming with birdlife.

Apart from a few loners, the pelicans spent the entire time fishing together as a group, swimming in one direction until one put its head under and the rest followed, then swimming back as a group in another direction. Very funny to watch. Almost like a training exercise.

Pelicans fishing

Stowaways

Living in a confined space for an extended length of time has it's challenges, but one we didn't really count on was sharing it with other critters.

Early on in the trip, while traveling with Kathie, we managed to pick up some ants that decided the folds of canvas might make a good nest. Thankfully we dealt with them fairly easily and quickly..

Some time after leaving Broome we noticed a bag of bread rolls had been chewed into. The following night in the same location Steph put out his infrared camera which revealed a mouse. The way it looked and moved suggested a run of the mill town mouse. And we moved on. A day or two later I lifted the bed to access clothes and there it was, up in the battery compartment but with easy access to our clothes for a cosy nest. Not much we could do being out of town but a visit to the hardware in Fitzroy Crossing soon fixed the problem. Poor little guy.

About this time I started smelling more thing bad under the bed and assumed it was the mouse. When it continued to worsen after catching the mouse I though it may have left babies somewhere (heaven forbid).

The next day I set about locating the source. It didn't take long to track it to Steph's undies/socks box where treasures are also carefully packed. A black plastic parcel had a chewed spot in it; it looked like the mouse had tried to access what ever was inside (which I couldn't remember at that point).

it turned out not to be something trying to get in, but something trying to get out! Up at One Arm Point on the Dampier Peninsular we had visited a trochus hatchery where the son of our camp hosts worked.  We bought 2 beautiful polished shells there.

Polished trochus shell

Now at this point I know you think it was the shellfish and that they had sold us a live shell, but no. As I unwrapped the parcel I found a shriveled up hermit crab that somehow had taken up residence, stayed hidden on their table of sale items, and then got wrapped up on purchase and had sadly died under our bed!