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Month: May 2025

Flinders Island, March ‘25 (#18 in series: longest beach, dry wetland)

 

 

From Sellars Point – a couple of kilometres east of Red Bluff – Flinders Island’s longest beach stretches along almost the entire southern half of Flinders’ east coast.

Nominally, Planter Beach is two beaches, separated (at East River Bluff) by what justifies Cameron Inlet’s status as an inlet.

Only rarely, however, does Flinders’ largest inlet contain enough water for it to open its “mouth” and “kiss” the ocean.

Planter Beach (North) and Planter Beach (South) are usually a single, uninterrupted strand.

The featured image looks south; on the horizon are Strzelecki National Park’s mountains, which dominate the southern end of Flinders Island.

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Flinders Island, March ‘25 (#17 in series: Babel Island)

 

This post’s photos were both taken from atop Red Bluff, circa midway along Flinders Island’s east coast.

No bird is visible in either image.

Both the wide angle and “normal perspective” images – respectively, 34mm & 58 mm – look to Babel Island, which covers just 440 hectares.

During one large seabird’s breeding season, this small island is home to a deal more than six million individuals!

You are looking at the site of the world’s largest shearwater “colony”.

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Flinders Island, March ‘25 (#16 in series: petite “soldiers”, big beaches)

 

Most of Flinders Island’s more than 120 beaches are on its much-indented western and southern  shores.

Flinders has a pointy northern end, so all beaches are essentially on the “south”, the “west”, or the “east” coast.

Just two very long beaches occupy circa 80% of the east coast.

The white line running right across the featured image is just part of Foochow Beach; its 23.5 kilometres comprise most of the northern section of Flinders’ east coast.

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Flinders Island, March ‘25 (#14 in series: Killiecrankie Bay “1”)

 

 

Killiecrankie Bay is on the northwestern side of Flinders Island.

Both of this post’s photos offer a wide angle view (32 mm).

The featured image looks north, from the southern half of the bay’s shoreline.

Its high point – Mount Killiecrankie – rises circa 316 metres above sea level.

(Alleged altitude readings for Flinders Island’s peaks are highly unreliable/inconsistent. Some add another couple of metres to Mt Killiecrankie. Others lop 30 metres off it!)

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Flinders Island, March ‘25 (#13 in series: superb, sassy)

 

None of Australia’s 10 fairywrens are “true” wrens.

However, all are truly beautiful.

3 equally beautiful species: superb fairywren, splendid fairywren and lovely fairywren.

The last-named lives only in near-coastal parts of Queensland’s Cape York Peninsula; the other two have much wider ranges.

When southeastern Australians  wax lyrical about “blue wrens” they usually have in mind the “superb” species, whilst a southwestern Australian is probably thinking of the “splendid” kind.

On Flinders Island all “blue wrens” are “superb”, albeit members of the island’s own subspecies of Malurus cyaneus.

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Flinders Island, March ‘25 (#12 in series: aglow/shaded)

 

 

The first three photos in this post were taken within a “window” of just one minute.

At 6.38 pm on 17 March 2025 the sun was low; it would soon “sink” into Bass Strait.

”Paradoxically” (not, in fact) this circumstance saw the west-facing, upper reaches of Strzelecki National Park bathed in “gold”, whilst their lower flanks were “greyed” by shade.

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Flinders Island, March ‘25 (#10 in series: longer lenses, shifting light)

 

A recipe for quiet delight…

1: Be in a place with dramatic topography (ideally, clad with both forest and exposed rock faces and/or outcrops) and oft-changing weather.

2: Find a comfortable vantage point, with late afternoon sun behind you, dramatic topography in front, and a sky that is neither cloudless nor overcast.  Ideally, bring camera/s and/or binoculars.

3: Watch closely, as clouds form, dance, dissolve, whilst the sunlight becomes progressively lovelier as its daily “disappearance” draws closer.

A “static” landscape – even a “stolid”  one – becomes deliciously dynamic when “golden hour” sunlight and shadows move across it.

(The southwestern corner of Flinders Island is an ideal location)

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Flinders Island, March ‘25 (#9 in series: two wallabies)

 

 

Some animals’ tongues are much longer than most humans imagine!

In the late afternoon & early evening of 17 May 2025 many Bennett’s wallabies were grazing the grassy grounds of Mountain Seas Lodge.

They are a mostly-solitary species – a marked contrast to the highly-sociable ‘roos that have brightened so many of my days, across seven decades.

These Bennett’s wallabies were large in number, but definitely not a “herd”, nor an “extended family”.

The pictured individuals, like most of their fellows, were “solo diners”.

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