83.) The Best Place You Have Never Heard Of!

Short-beaked Echidna in the wild!

It seems we are doing the Tour de Islands of the Southern hemisphere, in search of animals and birds and areas not completely overrun by people. Kangaroo Island is Australia's third largest island, located off the coast of the state of South Australia. Logistically these places are challenging, as they require multiple means of transport to simply arrive. So we took a taxi to the Coolangatta airport, a plane to Adelaide, a bus to Cape Jervis, a ferry to Penneshaw, and there we obtained a rental car to explore KI, as it is affectionately known.
More about KI see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangaroo_Island

We searched a number of known habitat locations on the Island for the elusive Glossy Black Cockatoo. Pretty much their only food source is the cones from the Causarina or "She-oak," that have finely textured evergreen foliage. Another bird on the brink of extinction, there are an estimated 200 cockatoos on the island (of which we saw none).

We did see alot of other great birds, but here at Lathami Conservation Park, our golden moment came at dusk when a little Echidna on a mission came trundling along through the forest. To our surprise, he paid us not much mind as he seemed determined to barrel down a hill where the creek was about 300' below, in search of whatever was on his little Echidna mind. He moved remarkably fast for such a little animal (see video, below). And how he was going to get back up the hill (on one inch legs!) didn't seem to matter. Echidnas are also called "spiny anteaters" because they are spiny and eat ants. They are one of the world's three monotremes (two species of echidnas and the platypus). Fascinating little animals, they lay eggs and have backwards facing pouches where the baby echidna lives until "ejected" after a few months when it gets too spiny for mom. Their legs are like reptiles--they go "out and down" and the claws on their back feet face backwards. Regrettably, we just missed the season for seeing the echidna "trains," where up to ten boy echidnas trail after a girl echidna, hoping for some action. Spines on echidnas on KI are more "blonde" than in other places of Australia.


We had rather sensational weather, providing many photogenic moments. Huge waves lashed the island here the "Remarkable Rocks" in Flinders Chase National Park on the southwest coast of KI. Looks a bit like a Stonehenge on the Sea... Only open ocean between here and Antarctica...




















Dirk had a heyday snapping photos of the rocks because - well - they are Remarkable! Nancy tried to keep from flying away in the gale-force winds...






































Don't get too close to the edge of the dome, there be dragons down there in the frothing waves slamming against the rock!

The rocks are algae covered, there are "freak waves" and in the words of a local, if you go in "you are so much shark bait!". The area is famous for large numbers of White Pointers (Great Whites) and if you were in the water at the base of the dome it would be VERY hard to get out.



Admirals Arch is an impressive sea arch with scads of stalactite-like drip growths under neath it. This park of the park and the two offshore island are also seal colonies. Like everything else here, the seals were heavily impacted by man's hand and were decimated by hunting until recently. The area around the arch was awash in seals sleeping in the oddest places, young seals cavorting in the pools and cruising around in the most radical looking surf (see video below)



A seal surfing in the 'death zone' where the 4-5 m waves were just utter chaos among the rocks.











The lighthouse and seal colony at Cape Couedic and the Casarina Islets












It's springtime, with lots of happy flowers blooming with the change of season. Golden fields of flowers contrasted sharply with the black-blue stormy skies.







An endangered cassowary at the "Parndarna Animal Park" refuge aviary. This girl (note her luxuriant eyelashes!) looks simply gorgeous with her bright blue and red wattle and impressive "casque" crest. These birds are big and flightless, similar to emus and ostriches. They are shy and normally live in the rainforest, one species is extinct, the others are endangered. Only about 20% of their habitat remains. They communicate with low-frequency "booming" noises, the lowest known bird call, which is at the edge of human hearing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassowary).











A little Zebra finch, also in the Parndarna aviary. We did see Zebra finches in the wild in the Blue mountains, but apparently they are quite popular caged pets.











I think this is a "Brush Bronzewing" pigeon in the Parndarna aviary. The irridescent wing patch is rather astonishing!









An unfortunate marking for a bird that wants to survive in the age of guns.... but Nancy thinks this is not a AU bird and it does not appear in any field guide. This bird was also in the Parndarna aviary.
[Update - This is a "Luzon Bleeding-heart (Gallicolumba luzonica) is one of a number of species of ground dove in the genus Gallicolumba that are called "bleeding-hearts". The species is endemic to the central and southern parts of the large island of Luzon, and the neighboring small Polillo Islands, in the Philippines.
Thanks for the identification Callie!]








Once again, an island rental cars come with cautionary tales. We could not rent a car in Adelaide, because insurance does not cover cars disappearing from sinking ferries (of course in that case, the car would probably be the least of our worries!). The dirt roads of the island are comprised of these little ball-bearings, and the rental car clerk had a jar of them that she would shake at us to emphasize her KI driving pointers and rules. To avoid "going bush" we were cautioned to drive under 70 kph on the "unsealed" roads. Insurance did not cover accidents occurring after the stroke of sunset (6:19 pm), outside of city limits (the streetlights of the two tiny towns on the island). Of course nobody in their right mind drives after dusk, anyway, due to the possibility of a KI 'roo leaping onto the road and fulfilling its destiny of killing both itself and the hapless occupants of a little white economy rental car.


Here's a little hand-raised joey whose mother met an untimely end in a clash with a local Landcruiser driver who was not encumbered by the speed/daylight rules imposed by the rental car agencies.















Our prize bird was this little "Beautiful Firetail" that we spotted at Cape Borda in Flinders Chase National Park. The rakish black Zorro mask and extraordinarily crimson rump on this little finch made him a big hit in our book.















Pretty flowers we spotted on one of our walks on KI.












Lovely trees overarching the quiet roads.












A pretty pink Galah guarding a tree hollow that should be housing a Glossy Black Cockatoo nest. The galahs, while entertaining and perfectly fine birds, are fairly common. They travel in screeching/wailing flocks.

















A luminous moment over the ocean at Cape Borda.










A contemplative sunset at the square lighthouse on Cape Borda.

















We stayed in the "quaint and unusual" lighthouse keepers cottage at Cape Borda. Managed by the Department of Environment and Heritage, the historical cottages provided affordable, singularly unusual accommodation and enabled us to experience unmatchable moments such as this, where the isolated setting verged on unnerving. We were treated to a late-evening entrance to the operating lighthouse, and an impromptu semi-private world history lesson in the half-lit stairway by the seasoned light-house keeper, who punctuated stories by "at end of the day..." remarks and emphatic jabs at a historical, faded map on the wall.


Our abode for the night on the left (no light on). Much is made about the square tower - only three in all of AU. Has to do with strength/height ration of square vs. round architecture. The lights weigh in the order of tonnes.









The red dots represent mapped shipwreck locations. No wonder Kangaroo Island has three lighthouses (and at least one other light plus a great deal in the way of 'navigational aids"!)










Here's the lighthouse at Cape Willoughby. We snuck into the conveniently open door and ran up the stairs to get a quick look around from the top.
















Out at the Willoughby lighthouse. The smell of wild onions, a deep beautiful cwm to my right with crashing waves and lichen covered granite and the haze of ocean spray in the distance.
























"Pools of liquid gold" on the beach....







A black swan (lower left) at an inland lagoon. KI has had a great deal of rain this winter and all the ponds are quite full - to the point that the big old gum (eucalyptus) trees are flooded.










A beautiful little orchid we found in the duff of the forest floor.











A roadside free-range egg box. $3/dozen, the sign inside on the money box said to lower the flag if you take the last carton, so the egg-handler knows they need to refresh stock.















An easily identified Tiger snake warming itself next to the trail. Easily identified because there are only two snake species ON the island. I would have liked to get a closeup of its head but "Tiger snakes possess a potent neurotoxin (notexin), coagulants, haemolysins and myotoxins, and rank amongst the deadliest snakes in the world. Symptoms of a bite include localized pain in the foot and neck region, tingling, numbness, and sweating, followed by a fairly rapid onset of breathing difficulties and paralysis. While antivenom is effective, mortality rate for this species is over 80% if not treated!" (Wikipedia). So I stood back with a telephoto and we tiptoed past. It was not there when we returned - hmmm. Undoubtedly lurking in the bushes!

The road heading down into Pennashaw to get the ferry. One just hopes they maintain the brakes on hire (rental) cars!

We rushed back to get the car turned in before the stroke of sunset, and went in search of little blue (Fairy) penguins, who return to their on-shore homes at sunset after fishing all day. There's a nice penguin visitors center near the ferry dock, with a boardwalk and soft lighting for people to view the penguins from above, to minimize disturbance. We were watching two little penguins cautiously making their way towards their burrows, when we heard our names broadcast on the ferry loudspeaker. Apparently they don't wait for the ferry departure time, it takes off when everyone is on board! We could see the hapless little penguins diving for cover under the bushes as we ran back to catch the ferry before it took off without us...even though we would have liked to have stayed and watched the penguins safely reach their beds, to know they were snuggled in for the night.






Spectacular skies - more KI photos to follow!

Below: Our Echidna cruising down the hill
Further below: Perhaps not a great surf day at Cape Couedic.
Impressive collidings wave at Cape Couedic - this was MUCH bigger than it looks on video!