101.) Birthday - Girraween!

Suspended in time, the moment before resuming the Sisyphian Challenge once more...

My idea for a fun birthday this year was...looking for more birds! But it also involved exploring another national park (about 3 hours from the Gold Coast) called Girraween. Luckily for Dirk, it also had some interesting granite formations for exploration to keep things lively. Our first endeavor, upon reaching the campground in the pouring rain, was to suspend Jody's exceptionally glorious parawing tarp. We found out the next day that this was the first rain they had had in seven weeks, so it was a good birthday present--they needed the rain!








Dirk insisted we climb to the top of the "Pyramid" at sunset because he knew the colors of the light would be fantastic. And they were!











Doing the funky chicken, calling on the bird gods to grant us a Diamond Firetail siting! We did see two single guys, but not the flocks we were hoping to find. These bird are falling victim to collectors and inappropriate fire regimes that burn the seeds they depend upon for food.














This is the 'Pyramid' that we climbed at sunset. We actually climbed it twice. The first time, I was dawdling and Dirk forged ahead. After I ambled up and met him at the top, we determined I did the "standard" route (following the painted white lines) whereas Dirk did a first ascent on the slabs. At the top of the pyramid, we found the Sysiphian "Balanced" rock.

There are some J-Tree style climbs here. Either easy and run-out or really hard (and run-out). Too hard for our feeble powers right now.....






The Second Pyramid (great names eh?) Some very scary routes on this we hear. Luckily, the most promising (it has gear) was dripping water so we were not tempted.











In search of the elusive Diamond Firetail, we found other fabulous birds in a vineyard on one of the nearby country roads. This is wine country, and regrettably, this vineyard had a devastating frost this year that decimated the crop. But the birds took advantage of the withered grapes!

Some very crimson Crimson Rosellas.










I bought wine from a vineyard whose owners seemed to appreciate wildlife as much as me--they had posted signs that they are an official "Land for Wildlife" vineyard (they set aside some required amount of native bush for the local wildlife), plus they had a "Bilby Red" that benefitted the "Save the Bilby" fund... I couldn't resist buying a bottle (or actually, two!). I was careful to tell them that we were birders contributing to the local economy, and we came specifically to them because of their "land for wildlife" signs... We should have also purchased wine from this vineyard where we saw the rosellas...we'll have to go back, I should have thought of that at the time!




This bird took me a long time to figure out--does a photo id count for adding to your life list? This Australian Pipit forages on the ground and zipped around between the mounds of the grape vines, peeping up just long enough to confound identification until Dirk caught him in action.














These beautiful Eastern Rosellas were incredibly flighty (especially in contrast to the Crimson Rosellas). Any time we came anywhere near them, they'd disappear. We wondered if they got hassled for trying to make a meal from wine grapes...









This is the almost perfect photo of the rare Coxen's Fig Parrot --- .05 secs after it flew away).

There are no photos of this endangered bird and they haven't been seen in 2 years or so. But this was one. I am sure......

Or maybe it was a ________*

(*fill in the blank with any number of flighty, difficult to photograph birds that was there just a split second before!
The "Arch" which was just almost chimney-able.
















A fine example of a "Stringybark" tree (one of the many species of Eucalypts). As you may imagine, these are quite flammable trees!















Nancy wanted to make sure she got enough exercise after the b-day cake. Rolling this boulder up the first Pyramid did tire her out a bit.....











Kangaroo action photos! These two seemed fairly used to human activity, thought they did keep their eye on us. I believe these are Eastern Gray Kangaroos.












Dirk managed to catch both mom and Joey in mid-bounce as they sprung between rocks.























On of our favorite birds, the Spotted Pardalote. These birds are tiny, and difficult to track down, though they have a distinctive call. They also zoom around quite quickly and never stay still more than a moment. We're still in search of an even better photo to capture the beautiful white spots on their black caps and wings.











Pardalote!


















These king parrots were hanging out by the feeders at the chocolate shoppe...


















I always cajole Dirk to take pictures of the girls...this is a female Red-breasted Robin.

















These guys were hopping around underneath the grapevines on the ground in a "company" (how that's different from a flock, I don't know--maybe fewer in number?). They confounded us for awhile, the spotted crown threw us off, but their bright yellow rump that was visible when they flew helped us finally determine them to be yellow-rumped thornbills. They are bigger (13 cm) than most of the other species of little 10 cm thornbills that normally hang out in the bushes.







Another one of the girls--a female Splendid Fairy Wren (see her rusty lores and gray-blue tail?) chows down on a bug. These charming birds buzz about the grasses, flipping their wrenny tails. They hang out in family groups, and keep track of each others movements with animated buzzy calls.












Vrksasana (that would be "tree" pose). Balancing next to the balanced rock!















A vividly-colored mistletoe bird. These are the birds with the job of wiping their bum on tree branches and spreading the sticky mistletoe seeds.














Maybe this is the real funky chicken! Another bird hanging out at the chocolate shoppe.