October-November 2018 Field Visits – Riverina Drought

My apologies for the lack of October blog post, it’s been hard to find much to blog about recently, with natural areas across the region being not really at their best, given the current drought conditions.

Today’s post will be a selection of photos I took while driving around my patch during October and November; a mixture of incidental wildlife sightings and snapshots of the drought-affected landscape.

In roughly chronological order, I present to you:

A Bearded Dragon (Pogona barbata) sunning itself in a driveway near Narrandera. I saw at least three of these within a two week period in various locations, which is more than I am accustomed to seeing over such a short period of time. Either I was lucky, or they’re yet another species that’s venturing closer to roads and human-inhabited spaces looking for water and food this season.

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September 2018 Field Visit – The Rock Nature Reserve

For September’s Field Trip I headed to The Rock Nature Reserve with a friend of mine, and two of her kids. They had never been there, and I’d only been once before, when I visited a couple of years ago with my dad. The last time I was there we only made it about two-thirds of the way up, so my friend and I were determined to make it all the way up the hillside this time, kids and all.

The Rock Nature Reserve seen from The Rock village

July 2018 Field Visit – Cocoparra National Park

My apologies for the great delay in getting July’s field trip post online.

For July’s field trip I decided to head back to Cocoparra National Park, near Griffith. I visited Cocoparra last year, but had forgotten that that visit was also in July, so another apology for the lack of seasonal diversity. Coincidentally both visits were on July 26, which amuses me as it was completely by accident.

I decided to head in to a different part of Cocoparra this time, around the other side of the park and hill from last time, and went to see Jack’s Creek.

May 2018 Field Visit – Matong State Forest

Hello everyone!

For my May Field Trip I decided to go somewhere that I haven’t been before – Matong State Forest.

Matong is a small village of less than 200 people, and the state forest area is nestled within the surrounding farmland. It turned out to be bigger than I had expected, although I’m not sure what the actual size of the forest is.

April 2018 Field Visit – Narrandera Common

Everything happens in April. This is just a fact of my life somehow. But! I promised I would try to go somewhere in April, and so I managed to just squeak in a late-day visit to Narrandera Common yesterday, after the annual koala count had ended.

I usually attend the koala count, but was unable to this year, but I figured I could head out there in the afternoon and at least find the beribboned trees the counters had located koalas in. In about a 2 hour period I managed to find three. The rest must have been cunningly hidden, or at least away from the trails I was following. I did speak to a local person who had participated in the count, who said they’d found a total of 29 koalas across the whole count area, so I guess I just needed to look harder for the marked trees.

While I was making my way around, looking for trees sporting ribbons and koalas, I took a few pictures of other things I saw, and just as the light was going I stopped to take some pics of a small group of kangaroos, and was super excited to see a wallaby nearby. Said wallaby was then kind enough to stay put, nearby and plainly visible, while I tried to take some photos in the fading light.

So here are my photos from my little trip to Narrandera Common yesterday:

River Red Gum (Eucalyptus camaldulensis) tree – complete with mistletoe – on Snake Island in Lake Talbot

October 2017 – Incidental Sightings

As I mentioned last month, I have been All The Busy this October, with no time to head out for a proper field visit. However, having known in advance that that would be the case, I took my camera around with me all month and tried to photograph as many incidental wildlife sightings as I could.

I got off to a great start, when a work colleague – after seeing how excited I was over last month’s nesting Tawny Frogmouth – told me where to find another that she and her dad had found while out walking. She even took a photo of the surrounding landmarks to show me so I’d be able to find the exact spot. I do work with some lovely people.

No Field Visit September 2017

Sorry folks, I didn’t manage to get out for a proper field visit this month.

I did however get these pictures of a Tawny Frogmouth (Podargus strigoides) nesting at Narrandera Common.