Wednesday 28 December 2011

My, what big feet you have

It was a beautiful summer's evening here at Homerton in western Victoria last night - temperature in the low 20s, no wind, no clouds.  The landscape looked stunning in the late afternoon glow. Perfect.

I went to the Darlot Creek to see if anything exciting like bitterns, crakes or rails would show up. They didn't of course, but I enjoyed the company of Yellow-faced Honeyeaters, Silvereyes, a Swamp Harrier, Red Wattlebirds, Crimson Rosellas, Grey Fantails and Superb Fairy-wrens exploring the willows the infest the creek's banks, and several Dusky Moorhens and an Eastern Swamphen exploring the reeds. A koala bellowed his presence in a Manna Gum nearby.


And then, just as I was about to leave, two Black Wallabies (Wallabia bicolor) came out of the blue gum plantation to graze on the Calystegia, large bindweed, that is enveloping the creekside vegetation in places. (This particular genus of wallaby is unusual in that it will feed of higher shrubs, and that's exactly what these two were doing.) One of the wallabies looked quite old, the other young.

2 comments:

Snail said...

No bitterns, but that's not a bad haul for a summer's evening. Sounds perfect!

Anonymous said...

ah, sounds like a great afternoon! I really like the shots of the wallabies, the second one looks a lot like the swamp wallabies (http://www.rootourism.com/fsheet67.htm)we see out here in Gippsland in the bush, they sometimes look like they have grey beards!