Our great southern migration

  Most of the Australian jellyfish are also full of toxins. The main ones to worry about are those that hae been beached. Stepping on them is still painful! The blue-bottles (aka Portugese Man o'War) is apparently four creatures merged into one. From the Australian museum website : The float (pneumatophore) is a single individual and supports the rest of the colony. The tentacles (dactylozooids) are polyps concerned with the detection and capture of food and convey their prey to the digestive polyps (gastrozooids). Reproduction is carried out by the gonozooids, another type of polyp.  J is also for journey. The waiting list for cardiology evaluations is just as long here as in the US. Because my pacemaker was no longer under remote monitoring, they found me an earlier appointment - in Canberra. We could and did do it and I feel more comfortable that I will soon have it back under an alert system. However, it was a 3 hour trek each way (over the mountains). We stopped at a nati...

  There are definitely more invaders in Lithgow than in Potato Point. The bird above is the noisy miner. According to the Australian museum website,   " Noisy Miners aggressively attack larger birds such as hawks and kookaburras. These attacks may be so vigorous that most other birds are excluded from an area occupied by Noisy Miners." Apparently it is a native bird, but often takes over.  We also see many European sparrows and some starlings. Mostly that leaves magpies, crimson rosellas and some eastern rosellas. We have seen one king parrot and one gang-gang.  Much less exciting for us.  In our travels, we have also seen signs of wild boars, rabbits and feral goats. The boars root up the ground and the goats are quite happy in the scrub and on pastures designed for other animals.  On the old farm,  they were constantly trying to control the serrated tussock  brought in as livestock feed but not eaten by anything. In Lithgow we have seen english ...

  Today is mostly a bird lesson. This is because I needed to take time to sort out the different herons that we have seen.  We have three for today - egrets (great white and little egrets), cattle egrets and other herons. I believe (and could be wrong) that all are herons. The heron classification is broad and includes many colors/colours and shapes. Egrets are more slightly built and are white. Many have breeding plumage (aigrettes). We have seen great white egrets often this trip. Fun factoid: their legs turn from yellow to black as they enter the breeding season. Note the different leg colors in these: Cattle egrets are typically identified near cattle. If in breeding season, they typically have a buff head. Apparently they find cattle a reliable source of ticks and flies, ready for the picking! Then  we have the very strident white faced herons. These birds nest in trees and feel it necessary to squawk loudly as they fly overhead! This little one is also a heron - a g...

  This beauty was spied when we took our rowboat to shore while on Myall Lakes (houseboat). The full view includes a very long tail I recommend the wikipedia entry for fun reading! Yes, of course they are poisonous. We have seen a few now, in varying shades of darkness. None seemed happy to see us but stayed on their trees, pretending to be invisible. G is also for grey shrikethrush - one of the less colorful birds but with a lovely and loud song This one was seen at the farm near Ryall Lakes, serenading the household.  I have also been spending time on Google, trying to improve storage by downloading images. Google keeps putting them in collections so I have to find the folders and delete. No useful help found yet. If you know how to prevent this, please yell! House sale is still moving forward. We are awaiting information on what they want to potentially sell off before they move to Wollongong (city vs farm). Arranged for inspection and for our people to talk to their peopl...

  We have seen a few cuckoos but only have pictures of this one. Therefore, you will get more of this cuckoo! This cuckoo has a wedge shaped tail and yellow eye ring. This means it is the more common one.   We have also seen the Eastern Koel and the Channel-billed cuckoo (the world's largest). See Australia's cuckoos . All are brood parasites, lying their eggs in other birds' nests.  F is also for Winnie, the fuzzy raganuffin we are now pet sitting for in Lithgow, NSW.  Lithgow is an old industrial town, prospering when the railway lines made it over the mountain and through the valley. Finally, F could be for noisy friarbird (yet another honeyeater). Note the nice ruff and distinctive bump on nose. We found this one on our last trip this way. Happy hunting of your own birds!

  This adorable pair walked right past us down the road! Dad emu raises the chick(s) and this one is doing a great job. We first spotted them about 70 yards away. Then they just walked down the road and by us (within 1 yard). I wasn't at all sure how well this was going to go but figured staying still was good. Scott continued taking pics as they wandered past.  The little one got a little upset at dad once or twice and let his feelings be known. Dad and chick both snacked on the fresher greens in the area: The emus were brought to the region by the man who owns H orse Island . Access to the island is off Potato Point Road. Apparently, he was unaware that, while emus can't fly, they can swim. Most swam off the island and took up residence in the scrub around Potato Point. We were over visiting someone who lives across the inlet from Horse Island. Another flock of emus was happily grazing on the island - at least for now. We are at another sit -  this one in a suburb of Sy...

  We put earnest money down on this property at 184 Barbaroo Rd in Cobargo, New South Wales .  This was after having driven up and down the south coast of New South Wales most of Tuesday. This drive  included a bit of moving in and out of the rolling hills near Brown Mountain. We looked at three properties with a realtor (Hayden did a lovely job) and liked all three and were ready to research the pros/cons of riverfront that is owned by the crown. [Crown lease is a new term for me; property held by the government but you can have full or partial rights to use it, depending.] The property we looked at with the crown lease was gorgeous and had riverfront that was used in the past for a kayaking company. The owners had also invested in "hip camping" sites. We were not in love with that bit. It was also above our comfort level in price and more than we needed. But absolutely gorgeous. We fell in love with the one we saw this morning though. This one is close to Scott's folks ...

  We found this gorgeous one in Cooma, near the Snowy Mountains. However, crimson rosellas have been sighted in all of our adventures to date. They have a brassy call when flying and a soft melodious sound when perched. We have watched them hunting for mates and nest sites. While I am getting more used to seeing them, we have nothing that compares to these beauties in MN! The pied currawongs (another"C"!) look like ravens to me but then you can see the white bits. We have also seen them throughout our travels. I still think this guy belongs in an Edgar Allen Poe story: We are now in Goulburn, headed back to Potato Point. We had a great visit with Scott's Aunt Bero and his cousin James near Rylstone. They have a 300 acre farm complete with horses and a river view. It was gorgeous.  We snuck in a couple of loads of laundry. It was so windy, drying on the fence and laundry line took less time than the washer did. I was afraid something would blow off the line and never be se...

  Sacred kingfisher as "robin" and  the black-faced cuckoo shrike as batman?  Sorry for the pause in postings. We have been on the Myall Lakes chain in a houseboat for four days. This was our 30th anniversary. We had big plans for 25 but it was 6 months into COVID times so everything was shut down. We went for a lovely walk in a local park instead. This time we took the 33 ft Aries on a 4 day adventure. Deck above with grill and bed down below. Very stable and not super fast.  Our last anchorage (we did drift slightly from this point in the wind). You can sorta see the tender (rowboat) out back. We took that to go ashore to find that kingfisher! We also took it to spend brunch with some of Madill's classmates for their 40th reunion. This required extra help from the Myall Lakes Getaway Houseboats  group- Shout out to Dallas and his kids for making it happen! And Happy Anniversary to us!