An Answer: Cute and Sad

Well there were a number of guesses for this  week’s WIIW.


Some were way off, some pretty close and one basically right on the money.

 Susan guessed: “Hmmm, a close-up of some flowering vines growing on a rock?”

Sorry Susan that is way off beam.

 Marcy guessed: “I was going to say a close up of some animal's skin...?”

It is a close up of an animal’s skin. I can award that 75%.

 Lisa Guessed: “I thought animal hide but the purple is throwing me off.”
Well hide probably earns 75% too. 

Linda Guessed, “My first thought was the skin of some animal. Hmm. Not sure what kind, though. Some sort of reptile? “

It is an animal and it is skin, but the reptile guess loses you points so 50%

Kristen M (a zoologist) guessed “It looks like maybe an animal nose?”

I guess I have to pay that guess 100%. It is indeed a nose.

 

So what is the critter in question?

Recently we have had some work done on our track out to civilization. Along the edges where the soil has been disturbed the Blue-Gums are doing what they do best, taking over.

In many spots the disturbed ground is being covered by seedlings already competing to race for the sky.

Blue-gums are one of the favoured foods of a much loved Oz icon.

One night coming home just after dark I spotted this guy to one side taking advantage of the tender new growth.

 

Perhaps it was dazzled by my car headlights, but whatever the reason it let me get out and get really close. 

A less charitable idea is that it didn't quite understand what was happening. Average Oz marsupials are intellectual midgets. Many deal with a low energy environment by having very small brains (brains are energy hungry ours account for about 20% of our calorie use).

The bulk of Oz has poor soils and dry conditions, meaning little plant food available to form the basis of  local food-chains. Koalas are almost literally "empty-headed" when compared to their closet living relative the wombats. 

Of course where Deb and I live is unusual being a rainforest area.

I had a Deb’s pocket camera with me so I had to use the flash (it was really dark in the forest) hence the odd appearance of the eyes.

Despite the flash going off in its eyes it continued eating, letting me get off a few more shots

Then it had enough, turned 

 

and shot up a nearby tree.

A real treat.

Usually you never see much of koalas in the bush. At best they are usually a furry lump right up near the top of a 200 foot high tree.

Now to the sad part of the post.

Although in areas like where we live koala populations are undisturbed and strong. In much of Oz, particularly South East Queensland, the spread of suburbia and farming has destroyed much koala habitat.

Some conservationists argue koalas are becoming endangered. A sad truth is around 4,000 are killed each year from being hit by cars or being attacked by people’s pet dogs.

On Leeches and Dragons

Looking at this post's title you might ask "What is Al on about?" 

Well let me ramble to the answer. As those of you who read my blog regularly will know, I was recently at my mum's place. Unusually for me I took almost no photos for the entire time I was there.

Mum's is on the Great Dividing Range in northern NSW. For those of you who don't know the Great Dividing Range is a mountain chain that runs thousands of miles all down the east coast of Oz. The range runs from Tropical Far North Queensland all the way down to temperate Victoria.

Unlike most of Oz, the range which lies just inland from the coastal plain is wet for most of its length. As an example most of the waterfall piccies I post are of drops in the Victorian part of the range.

Where Mum is in NSW is rainforest country. And on one of the days I was there I went for a walk in the forest. I had my camera but I barely used it although I did capture some wildlife with it.

The first was this fellow I caught sneaking up my boot.

I pulled him off to give you a better look.  

A leech; the reality is when you walk in this forest the question is not whether you will pick up one of these terrestrial leeches, but how many.

In truth they don't bother me. I like to catch them before they bite, because when they drop off the anticoagulant they inject means you end up with a nuisance bleed. And I get a minor reaction to them so I end up with a red lump which itches for days after.

But as I said I am not bothered by them. They were a part of my life growing up. A fact of life.

I was much more happy to catch sight of the creature that provided my WIIW.

Here s/he is

A lizard; this guy is a Southern Angle Headed Dragon (Hypsilurus spinipes) one of literally thousands of Oz reptile species.

They adopt one of two tactics when threatened; running off on their hind legs, or freezing and hoping their camouflage saves them.

 

This guy chose to freeze rather than fly which allowed me to take my time shooting his/her portrait from multiple angles.  

Which brings me to points: I said my WIIW was easy and as I thought most people guessed an eye.
SO here are the points I am awarding.
Kristen M - 100% for "eye" sorry but no bonus in either of your supplementary guesses.
Anne - 100% for "eye", and 100% for amphibian/reptile. 200%!
This guy is a reptile, the only native amphibians Oz has are frogs
Linda G - 100% for "eye" no bonus for either bird or crocodile :-(
Christine - - 100% for "eye", while bird didn't cut it reptilian does + 100%!
Marcy got - 100% for "eye" + 100% for lizard, a total of 200%
Susan I guess you deserve 100% for your late entry.
Which brings me to Old Kitty, 100 bonus points for your brilliant guess of "eclipse" 

In which Al limps his way along.

I mentioned a while ago that I was beginning to read the second draft of my second novel to Deb. As a creative tool I find this wonderfully useful.

I get to weave my way through the narrative, and really hear the rhythm. Deb is a great listener and gently critical when the plot (or the writing) needs it.

So far we are about 10% through and on the whole Deb likes it. But the downside is she has identified some points where I need to do more to develop the relationship between two characters. So as you can see very helpful!

Now I am going to digress to one of my other favorite topics waterfalls.

Weeks ago I took a trip to the Otway ranges in Western Vic. Unlike the Grampians they are just behind the coast so they are wet, very wet.

I wove my way down through the rainforest in search of the Beauchamp Falls.I caught a few shots of this amazing fungi,And from underneath.Finally I reached the falls. After climbing down these stairs I got this shot from a viewing platform about half way up.Never one to make things easy for myself I decided to leave the formal path and climb down to the river bed to get shots from the base of the falls.

I’m glad I did because I saw this little fellow.He was hunting for insects in a small patch along the river banks.
The shots aren’t great because it was really dark under the forest and he would not sit still.

I have no idea what he is, I have never seen one before. I presume he is quite a local species.

About now I did something very silly and slipped on what appeared to be quite dry and stable rocks.

In saving myself I managed to bash my knee and soak my clothes.

Fortunately, when I am crossing ground that I’m unsure of I carry my camera in a padded bag. So no damage to my camera, I think I would have cried had I broken it.

I limped on upstream to the base of the falls and caught some more shots.The misty look is caused by spray from the falls. When I looked at the rocks I saw why I had fallen. Continuous drifts of moisture from the falls has caused them to grow a slick film of brown algae. What looks like rock is actually as slick as ice.

Kind of content I had the fun of climbing back out of the gorge, then climbing the stairs and finally a mile long walk (or should I say limp) back to the car.

As I said this was weeks ago, and I am all healed up. But it is a good lesson extra care is needed. Good shots are not worth an injury.

Triplets!

This past weekend Deb and I shot away to the Otway Ranges west of Melbourne.

I am still mad keen on waterfalls and the Otways are both high and wet.

On Saturday we arrived fairly late after a leisurely start and a three hour drive. Our first destination was a section of rainforest near a village with the name of “Beech Forest”.

From where we left the car we followed this trail into the forest.I paused to snap this little fellow, s/he is a species I don’t know and I haven’t taken the time to look him/her up.Half a mile into the forest you round a corner and see this.The remains of a steam engine. And nearby tramway trucks for carrying timber to the sawmill that once stood here.You wouldn’t think it but all this forest is regrowth; a hundred years ago the whole area was clear felled.

It will be hundreds of years before it is a mature forest, but nature has an amazing power to come back if it is left be.

A bit further down we came to this stream feeding into a narrow channel and around the corner the reason we had come.

The Triplet FallsThe stream divides into three channels which tumble as a triple fall.

The star for me is the right hand fall which is…Well the piccies say it all.

Now one last thing.

I am heading off for the next five days to my Mum’s place so it is more than likely I won’t post until next week.

Hunting part II

Well I hope this isn’t a case of too much of a good thing…

From the Phantom Falls Deb and I went back to the car.

We drove further up the valley. The road (not quite sure it deserves to be called a road) got narrower and muddier, if I wasn’t a ‘bushie’ (a person who grew up in the country) I wouldn’t have dared to keep going without an all wheel drive. We actually drive a FIAT which is better suited to an autostrada than a bush track. But if you are careful and know what you are doing you can take 2 wheel drives to a surprising range of places.

As we drove we pushed into country I haven’t seen before, we saw other wonderful falls up branches of the valley that we just didn’t get to because it was too wet and too late. (I would have had to walk)
About another seven kilometres up the valley (nearly half an hour at the speed the road made me go) we crossed the Taggerty River.
Which cascades out of the forest by the road (this piccie was taken from the road bridge).

Notice the bush doesn’t seem burnt here? It’s a bit deceptive unfortunately.
This is a pocket of true rainforest in the Mountain Ash forest that surrounds it. Mountain Ash forest is a eucalyptus dominated ‘wet sclerophyll’ forest for the botanically minded of you. And like most eucalyptus forests will burn at the drop of a hat.

Proper rainforest like this pocket is usually too wet to burn but in the extreme conditions of Black Saturday in 2009 the crowning fire that raced through the forest around has effectively singed off the crowns of these trees.

Many of the larger ones are dying which is a real shame, especially as many of the trees in this pocket are rare Antarctic Beeches.

Back to my story.

The section of the river that cascades under the road is just the start. To my surprise just off the road is a beautifully built path.
There are a whole series of these lovely stairs that zig-zag through the trees up the side of the ‘Taggerty Cascades’.The stairs take you past a series of views of the cascades which divide and redivide between the trees and the granite boulders.

This boulder in the middle of one branch of the stream is about eight feet across.Just below on a smaller branch the water pours through under some boulders.
Then at the foot of these sweet stairs this mini cascade let me get my favourite shot of the day.A close-up with a very long exposure to compensate for the rapidly fading light.
Remember it was raining and it is winter with short days down this way.

One last piccie to give you an idea of how dark it was under the trees when I finished shooting. For shooting waterfalls you generally want low light so you can take long exposures, but this was getting ridiculous.So it was back to the car to weave our way out of the valley.

I think I caught my trophies from my waterfall hunt.

The only problem is I want to go back!