Scary Israel
Israel Joined: June 15th 2006
Logged in: November 24th 2011
Logged in: November 24th 2011
Travel Blog Posts
Quokka (Setonix brachyurus)
One of the best things about Perth is that there's an island right off the coast full of quokkas. There's an island off Cheyne Beach full of quokkas too but no-one's allowed on there (that's Bald Island, which is also full of Gilbert's potoroos). A quokka is a type of little wallaby, once common on the western mainland but now largely exterminated by foxes and cats. They were first seen by Europeans in 1658 when Samuel Volkerssen, skipper of the Dutch ship Waeckende Boey (which looks like it translates as "Weekend Boy" -- exactly what sort of cruise was this?), spotted some on Rottnest Island. He thought they were a kind of civet, which sounds a bit odd but they actually do have a pointy civet-y sort of face, even if the hoppiness isn't exactly a ... read more
Western grey kangaroo (Macropus fuliginosus) in the caravan park
Next stop after Dryandra Woodlands was Cheynes Beach Caravan Park at Cheyne Beach (note the lack of an S), which is a fixed point in the itinerary of birders visiting Western Australia, largely because here you can supposedly find three extremely devious endemic birds called the noisy scrub-bird, western bristlebird and western whipbird. Not only are they devious but its quite likely they don't even really exist, having been dreamed up by government tourism departments to fleece foolish birdwatchers of their money. As I wrote in the previous blog, its well-nigh impossible to get anywhere in WA with public transport. Getting from Cuballing (by Dryandra) to the southern town of Albany is easy enough, but then from there to Cheyne Beach about 67km distant is a bit of a thinker. The owners of the caravan park ... read more
Common kookaburra (Dacelo novaeguineae)
There were really only two places I was visiting while in Western Australia, Dryandra Woodlands and Cheyne Beach. Both are birdy spots, and Dryandra has the added attraction of numbats. The reason for only going to two places was due to limited time and more importantly because I travel by bus and in WA you can't get anywhere interesting on a bus. They run between the main centres and will stop at towns along the highway routes but anywhere else you're out of luck. Still, I never let little things like that stop me. I had organised my stay at the Lions Village at Dryandra, and the caretakers there, John and Lisa, had kindly agreed to pick me up from the nearest bus stop in Cuballing. They have been the caretakers there for eight years and ... read more
female Australian darter (Anhinga novaehollandiae)
My plane from KL touched down in Perth at the entirely reasonable hour of 5.10am. This was my first time in Western Australia and I was looking forward to seeing a lot of new birds and mammals. I was staying at my brother's place so I didn't need to worry about accommodation, but of my two weeks in WA I would only be in Perth for a few days. First stop was the zoo. They had several species there I was looking forward to seeing before heading out into the bush, namely numbat, quokka, Western swamp turtle, spotted hyaena and slow loris. The first two I was hoping to find in the wild as well, but at least here I could be sure of photographic opportunities. I was very impressed with the zoo; I'd rank it ... read more
King bird of paradise (Cicinnurus regius) at Melaka Zoo
Apologies to anyone who has been waiting for further updates on the blog. After leaving Asia I went to Australia for two weeks and because everything there is expensive I couldn't spend long on the internet whilst travelling. Now that I am back in New Zealand again I will continue: After Taman Negara (where I saw tapirs....just reminding you) I had given myself a couple of spare days to go to Melaka. If you are old like me, or have some older books, you may know this town better as Malacca. Its about two hours south of Kuala Lumpur. The reason I was going there was partly because I can't stand KL and partly because I wanted to visit the Melaka Zoo. So I took the earliest bus from Kuala Tahan (at Taman Negara) to the ... read more
Raffles' malkoha (Phaenicophaeus chlorophaeus)
this post is pretty much solely about birding, so if you're not interested don't bother reading any further.... (And yes I realise there's only one photo of a bird in the post, but that doesn't change anything!). The birding at Taman Negara started around the Kumbang Hide. I really just sat in the hide and watched out the viewing window but the place is so birdy that even that was good enough for me. The best birds there were Raffles' malkoha, red-bearded bee-eater, dark-throated oriole, black and red broadbill, scarlet-rumped trogon and black magpie. A crested serpent-eagle obviously had its territory there and was seen regularly. There were so many bulbuls that I'd be thinking surely there can't be any more species here, and then another one would pop out. The babblers weren't shy about foraging ... read more
Malayan tapir (Taprius indicus)
With Indonesia finished for this trip I was heading for Malaysia to look for tapirs in Taman Negara, the country's foremost national park. The name Taman Negara itself literally translates as "national park". If you don't know what a tapir is, imagine a pig-like creature but the size of a small cow, with a short trunk like a mutilated elephant, and the black-and-white colouration of a giant panda. You can't make this stuff up! Or you could just look at the photo I posted on this blog. Sort of gives the game away as to whether I succeeded in finding any doesn't it? Of course I had to start with a travel day. I got up at 3am to get to the airport in Bali at 4am for the 6am flight to Kuala Lumpur, arriving there ... read more
Balloon Man at the Ende ferry terminal
So Flores is over and done with for the second time. I had a rough start, couldn't find any birds at all it seemed, but it picked up marvelously and I not only found a Giant Rat but also "cleaned up" most of the birds I still "needed" (I dislike that word "need" but its a birders term, so when in Rome...). The only ones now missing are that pesky hanging parrot, Weber's lorikeet, Flores scops owl, Flores hawk-eagle and variable goshawk. The tally of "new" birds was still low -- only 21 for the whole month to date in Sulawesi and Flores -- but that is what I was expecting because I've only been covering ground I already covered in 2009. I took the bus from Riung at about seven in the morning, getting to ... read more
Riung landscape
The week before when I was staying at the Seminary in Kisol, Father Fabi told me about some big lizards that could be found at Riung on the north coast of Flores which I thought sounded like they might be sail-finned lizards (Hydrosaurus). Another person who came visiting whilst I was there told me they were very common and anybody in the town could take me to see them (although he had never actually been to Riung himself, and neither had Father Fabi). I didn't think I would get to Riung, but then with the changes in my itinerary to eliminate Sumba and spend an extra week on Flores it turned out I had the time after all. After the excitement of visiting Istana Ular, I spent the night in Ruteng and the next morning took ... read more
Lembor bus terminal, with pig
After last night's owl hunt, I returned to Ruteng about 8am, had some breakfast, then set off to the town of Lembor about two hours away (roughly halfway between Ruteng and Labuanbajo). Near Lembor is a place called Istana Ular, the "snake palace", a cave where apparently dozens or hundreds of pythons gather for some mysterious reason or other (they are there to eat bats of course, so not really so mysterious at all!). I found a bus just before 9am, sat in it for an hour or so till it decided to leave Ruteng, got into Lembor about 12.30, grabbed a motorbike guy and set off for the cave. This was about 45 minutes ride away, first along the highway (newly sealed so as smooth as an otter), then on a road that hadn't been ... read more
