Monday, June 28, 2010

Around Town

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Its nice to stroll in the late afternoons and see some life about the place and then within minutes enjoy a hot cup of tea in the back garden.
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Candlestick Cassia Senna alata
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Coral Tree Erythrina variegata var. orientalis
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Crimson Finch Neochmia phaeton Juv.
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Rosy Periwinkle Catharanthus roseus
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White-breasted Woodswallow Artemus leucorhynchus
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White-breasted Woodswallow Artemus leucorhynchus
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Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Mary River Catchment Pathways

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Thoreau, wrote over 150 years ago, thought and wrote that, "Our village life would stagnate if it were not for the unexplored forests and meadows which surround it. We need the tonic of wildness — to wade sometimes in marshes where the bittern and the meadow-hen lurk, and hear the booming of the snipe; to smell the whispering sedge where only some wilder and more solitary fowl builds her nest, and the mink crawls with its belly close to the ground. At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be infinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature."

Henry David Thoreau, Walden - an annotated edition, 1854, Chapter 17, Verse 24.
[http://thoreau.eserver.org/walden00.html]

Today, 150 years later, as the villages expanded to cities and the wild has vanished except in nature reserves, it seems all the more important to test ourselves, to make our way even where there is no path. I sometimes manage to get off the well worn trail or the natural avenues created between different colonies of plant species. While there, I sometimes find as I tune into my surroundings I become lost in the moment and if I am lucky (right place, right time and facing the right direction) an event occurs which happens so swift, sometimes it seems almost imagined. When I re-run the event in my mind or reflect on it later, it seems these fleeting events allow us to become part of the” mysterious nature” we can never have enough of, which Thoreau thought and wrote about and connects the land to those who walked the land before us.
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Mary River Catchment Adjacent Open Woodland
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Royal Spoonbill Platalea regia
in Lowland Wetland
Freshwater Mangrove Barrintonia acutangula
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Agile Wallaby Macropus agilis
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Banded Honeyeater Certhionyx pectoralis
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Blue-banded Eggfly Hypolimnas alimena
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Bush Cuckoo Cuculus variolosus
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Chestnut-breasted Mannikin Lonchura castaneothorax
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Chocolate Argus Junonia hedonia Inside
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Chocolate Argus Junonia hedonia Outside
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Golden-headed Cisticola Cisticola exilis Female Juv.
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Golden-headed Cisticola
Cisticola exilis Male
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Grey Whistler Pachycephala simplex Female
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Lemon-bellied Flycatcher Microeca flavigaster
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Lemon Migrant Catapsilia Pomona
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Pacific Baza (Crested Hawk) Aviceda subcristata
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Pacific Baza (Crested Hawk) Aviceda subcristata
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Red-backed Fairy-Wren Malurus melanocephalus Female
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Red-backed Fairy-Wren Malurus melanocephalus Male
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Rice Grasshopper Oxya japonica (Thunberg)
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Spotted Rustic Phalanta phalantha Outside
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Spotted Rustic Phalanta phalantha Inside
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Sundew Drosera indica
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TaTa Lizard Amphibolurus gilberti
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Two Spined Rainbow Skink Carlia amax
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Whitebellied Cuckoo-shrike Coracina papuensis Race hypoleuca
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Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Mary River Catchment

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The Mary River catchment is a riverine floodplain of mixed grasses, sedges and herbs. In contrast to riverine woodlands, the habitat consists of mostly grassy landscapes. This environment is occasioned by huge granite boulders that rise out of the black soil plains. The Mary River catchment is unique in its status as a “nursery area” for many species found in Kakadu National Park. I first visited the area at the end of the dry when there was very little water and migratory birds were congested in dwindling billabongs. Now that the transition is from an abundance of water to wet soil grasslands those inhabitants are more residential.
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Aegeratum conyzoides
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Australian Shelduck Tadorna tadornoides
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Bar-breasted Honeyeater Ramsayornis fasciatus
feeding on
Woollybutt Eucalyptus miniata
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Chocolate Argus Junonia hedonia
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Chocolate Argus Junonia hedonia
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Cleome tetrandra
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Crotalaria medicaginea
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Cullen badocanum
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Dainty Grass-blue Zizula hylax
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Freshwater Mangrove Barringtonia acutangula
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Grey-crowned Babbler Pomatostomus temporalis
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Kapok Bush Cochlospermum fraseri
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Little Woodswallow Artamus minor
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Ludwigia octovalvis
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Red-backed Fairy-wren Malurus melanocephalus Female Juv.
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Wandering Percher
Diplacodes bipunctata
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Water Lily Nymphaea violacea
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Monday, June 14, 2010

At Last

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Finally got to see the Gouldian Finch. Hard to photograph as they were very skittish, but heart was pounding and the adrenalin flowing so it was hard to even keep the camera steady.
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Gouldian Finch Erythrura gouldiae
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Gouldian Finch Erythrura gouldiae
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Gouldian Finch Erythrura gouldiae
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