Our great southern migration

  Yes, this alphabet is a bit skewed! I lost effort during our move in and the holidays. Backtracking to "V". The map above is where we stayed in South Australia. Goolwa was very dry and sandy. Cool breezes coming up from the antarctic. One of the biggest sites of our visit was seeing the Murray River. We sped over it to enter South Australia (also getting rid of our fruits/vegs at the border- oh well).  And then walked along it in the region to the east of Goolwa. They were dredging it during our walk.  South Australia is in a different time zone - 1/2 hour earlier than New South Wales and Victoria during Daylight Savings. Mostly changed our arrival times at motels and discord video chats with the kids.  Goolwa harbor: We took a trip to see birds and the nearby harbor while over there - avoiding Adelaide following the coast a bit.  We took a slightly more northern route on our return trip. The painted silos along this path are really cool and someone(s) have ta...

Although snow was seen in parts of Australia this December, the Potato Point area was warm and not unusually white. So you get white birds in honor of the season. The bird above is the white browed babbler, not to be confused with the white-browed scrub wren below!  The scrub wrens seem to be scowling most times. They definitely have a scolding approach to life.  The white throated tree creepers became easier to photograph after Scott explained their habit is to move up one trunk and then fly to the base of the next tree and repeat the process: I followed something else into the scrub and found this juvenile white-winged chough (above). As adults, these birds look like chunky crows. Not adorable as youngsters, either.  In earlier posts you got to see the white-cheeked honey eaters so can refer back to N is for New Holland if you want a more complete representation.  On a larger scale, the white-bellied sea eagles (Dad's sea gulls according to the kids) are common at ...

Check the navigation screen - this is the Wimmerle Highway in Victoria. It is NOT a divided highway. More a game of chicken and/or careful sharing of the road. I have not looked up the official definition of highway but I will say my mental definition was not a single paved lane, at least not before now. I have gotten a bit more used to the Prince's highway - the main coast road - with its occasional roundabouts and changes in lane dividers but this was a bit beyond my expectations. It was a step up from the prior road which was similar but stayed a single paved lane. On the "highway" the road crests and curves had a lane and a half of pavement, making it easier to avoid oncoming traffic. It was fine once I got used to it; just took a bit and I needed to trust Betty (the truck) to handle one set of tires in gravel and one on pavement. This post is more of my Oz-specific signs and experiences. The "Ashes" cricket match is on now and is its own long, drawn out exp...

Unlike finches who are little squeaky birds on the ground, thornbills are little squeaky birds in trees. They do have tiny little beaks. They also flitter and are hard to catch in focus so we are proud of these pics and it only took several hundred attempts. The thornbills come in various forms but they can be challenging to differentiate. I might have these wrong.... Even in Australia, there are "LBBs" - little brown birds. Scott claims the USA has lots. This is a brown thornbill: He could be mistaken as a buff-rumped thornbill but those are less brown. This one has a bug so the beak looks funny: The chestnut rumped version has the special tail This cutie is a striated thornbill (the default label for most): And this one is a yellow thornbill! At least the naming folks made these pretty straightforward I do use the ebird app (which is fantastic) and google lens to check on my bird ids, along with a bird book. Google lens and the app are really good at deciphering fuzzy pics....

  I have to share my good/bad/horrible swallow pics as these little creatures are hard to capture! These tree martins were in Swansea and were settled in for the evening. Scott took this pic. I have my contacts set for reading distance/computer work and Scott has his set for further out. He does a much better job at finding birds and focusing correctly on the more distant ones. I have prescription sunglasses set for further distances. They work much better for finding birds but not at dusk! I was essentially out of commission once the sun set. Lesson learned. I let him do the spotting.  These were from our houseboat trip. We had two ducks and two swallows follow us around. The swallows attempted to nest on the boat. I actually got one in focus while flying (thank heavens for digital cameras that don't mind hundreds of attempts)! Then they started hitchhiking on the rowboat. Cute little welcome swallows.  This guy was not a welcome swallow but a white breasted wood swallow...