Red Kangaroo

Red kangaroos are the largest living marsupial, with adult males often attaining a height of 1.4m and weighing up to 85kg. They are quite a common and widespread species but mainly across the interior and so are difficult to see if you just stick to the coastal cities and resorts. The only places where their range extends down to the coast are in the Nullarbor region and the north west coast between Exmouth and Broome. This animal, photographed on the golf course at Exmouth, was my first red kangaroo on my 4th visit to Australia.

Around Exmouth, WA

Exmouth is an amazing place, not a particularly beautiful town, but it really feels like you are in the outback or in a frontier town. Emus walking around the streets, warning signs about dingos and some familiar species not looking quite so familiar as I expected.

Take the bird above for example. It's a crested pigeon, quite common across all of Australia including in the major cities of the south and east.This however is of the western race whitlocki which seems to me to be much brighter than others I have seen.

Where the desert meets the sea - a Western Australia roadtrip

It's a long drive north from Perth to Exmouth on the west coast of Australia, nearly 13 hours in fact, and once past Geraldton the landscape becomes relatively flat and the vegetation sparcer. This is where the desert of  central Australia meets the sea. It's a place where you really don't want to break down and where you need to have a full tank of petrol and plenty of water. One of the commonest raptors seen is the wedge-tailed eagle whilst the rarest is the black-bellied buzzard. All kinds of odd flowers grow here and there are termite mounds for as far as the eye can see, but the avian highlight of the trip for me was four Australian bustards right at the side of the road.  A wonderful experience!

Return to Herdsman

Herdsman Lake, just north of Perth is a fabulous birding site and a must for any visitor to the city. Last year I went there right at the end of my holiday in the hope of adding freckled duck to my Australian list, and though I succeeded the views were not great. Since then I have seen Australia's rarest duck well on several occasions in the Melbourne area last November. Today I had time to kill while I waited for Josh to fly into Perth airport for our road trip up the west coast, and I couldn't think of a better place to visit than Herdsman. This time the freckled ducks showed much better and allowed me to get some half decent photos.

Botanising in the Jarrah woodlands of the Darling Range

...or perhaps the post header should be "enjoying the flowers of the Jarrah woodland", because there certainly wasn't much botanising going on. I can tentatively put some of these plants into families but I just don't know enough about them to identify them to species level. Does that really matter though, I'm content to say that the Jarrah woodlands are a very special place with a stunning array of flowers and I'm happy to leave it at that.  This post contains a selection of some of my favourites.

White-breasted Robin, Wungong Gorge, WA

White-breasted robin is endemic to south west Australia and is one of the reasons I wanted a week south of Perth before meeting up with Josh and heading north.

Western Grey Kangaroos

The only kangaroo in south west Australia is the western grey. I came across an approachable mob today, including this adorable female with a joey in her pouch.

Creery Wetlands, Mandurah, Western Australia

The fairy-wrens are beautiful family of birds, and here in south west Australia the common one so far has been the aptly named splendid fairy-wren.

Blue-billed duck

Blue-billed duck is the Australian equivalent of the ruddy duck or white-headed duck, and despite seeing quite a few during my time in the country, this is the first time I've ever got anywhere near taking an ok photo of the species. This is a male, photographed at Dunsborough.

Blue Whale, Humpback Whale and Southern Right Whale, Dunsborough, Western Australia

We'd only been out about 10 minutes, less than half a mile offshore I would say when one of the crew standing next to me said "I'm sure that's a blue over there".  The skipper immediately turned the boat and headed over. This is the same guy who just a few minutes earlier had told me that they had seen a blue whale last week but it had only surfaced once never to be seen again, so I was a little nervous to say the least. The chance of seeing a blue whale, the largest animal ever to exist was the dream of a lifetime, but would it reappear or would this prove to be a shatteringly close but ultimately failed dream? How many more opportunities would I get?

Fortunately the animal did reappear and broke the surface several times giving us some great views, though not quite the vaudeville performance which is usually put on by humpbacks! Perhaps not quite up there with the Orca I saw off mainland Caithness last year which were the highlight (so far) of my career as an amateur naturalist, but not far short and still a fantastic experience.

Busselton and Cape Leeuwin, Western Australia

What a stunner and what a great start to my latest trip to Aus! Banded Lapwing. It's taken a few visits for me to finally see one but it was worth the wait. Today I saw three on a grassy verge  at the side if the road as I was leaving town to head for Cape Leeuwin. I pulled over, put the window down and watched as three birds fed in a flower filled grassy area. The bird in the photo walked towards me right up to the edge of the road and then actually walked across the tarmac and behind my car and onto the grass on the other side! Fortunately this was just a side road and traffic was very light and hopefully it wont do that in rush hour! Talking of flower filled meadows, there are lots of flowers at the moment so I'm putting together a rolling blog post of those I see and will post it here soon 😀.