On our early morning walk we headed down towards the villa area and campground.
The aim was to try to see a catbird and lyrebird
Despite our efforts the lyrebird was unseen, but the catbird was seen through the misty grey morning although not a very clear sighting, but enough to see the white spotted breast of the otherwise green and grey bird at the top of a tree.
We did have fun with a little Wren
Then we were out on to the “border track” for a few hours and were lucky enough to see both a lyrebird and a number of catbirds plus a really good look at a logrunner- which was a very satisfying finish to the bird spotting.
Duncan is pretty good on orchids and pointed out the spider Orchid high on the tree
The dagger Orchid high up in the tree
The king Orchid, also high up in a tree cleft( sorry about the bad photo)
There was a good view of the walking stick palms. The extremely straight trunks of these were harvested heavily to provide walking sticks for returned soldiers. Their ripe bright red berries were also eaten by the survivors of the Stinson disaster ( planet crash) to keep them alive until Bernard O’Reilly discovered them 10 days later and effected a rescue.
We were also interested to see the massive holes chewed into a dead tree by black cockatoos, looking for the resident grubs.
A wasp mimic moth was also an interesting find
And a tiny snail as big as half of my little fingernail.
Here are a few other shots from around the area:
After a final lunch together we finalised our bird count for the group (151 seen and another 5 heard but not seen)
Jan got spotter award for emerald pigeon one morning and little shrike thrush today
Joel won the spirit of bird week prize ( of a double insulated flask which he then gave to us)
As we drove down the hill for the last time we saw some whip tailed wallaby on a grassy patch ( very pretty white striped faces).
We stopped by to visit Sarah and Jason Norris and kids for a while who were generous and shared a bottle of wine made by cousin Andrew Diment and his friends.
We were back at Pip and Andy’s for family tradition fish and chips on Friday night. So great to have time for another visit here.
It was an extremely humid and still night and we ended up moving the swags into Mary’s lounge room under the fan for some respite and sleep.
Luvapuzzle 