Natural splendour, real musics, wines, wordpower
Just a few minutes after I’d photographed the Strzelecki peaks’ seaward-facing side, I noticed a large raptor, gliding above the nearby beach.
It was soon obvious that s/he was a wedge-tailed eagle – Australia’s largest raptor, and one of the world’s bigger eagles.
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It is Bass Strait’s largest island.
Among Tasmania’s more than 1,000 islands, only the “Apple Isle” is bigger.
However, Flinders Island’s nearly 1,400 square kilometres are home to fewer than 1,000 humans.
Any observant tourist will encounter many more wallabies than people; the same is true of wombats, cattle and Cape Barren geese.
Finding a splendidly wild and uncrowded beach is phenomenally easy; Flinders Island has more than 120 of them!
And if you are partial to granite and lichens….
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Three of Australia’s nineteen to twenty-one recognised “finch” species are “firetails”.
(Australia has the world’s most “collectible”/“beautiful” finch species, but some members of the human species do not regard Australia’s finches as “true” finches)
Arguably, the finest-feathered firetail is the one that naturally occurs only in a small portion of a single Australian State.
Within its range, this species is neither rare nor threatened.
However, remarkably few humans have seen this bird.
An even smaller number have ever managed to see one, properly.
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Arguably, at the relevant time and place – the same as per the previous, full-colour chapter – the view from Stony Hill was best-captured in “glorious, living, black and white”.
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Stony Hill is the highest point on the Torndirrup Peninsula, which shields one of the world’s greatest natural harbours from the Southern Ocean.
Albany’s King George Sound is around twice as large as Sydney Harbour..and is every bit as splendid.
On the first day of November 1914, thirty-six ships sailed out of King George Sound; they (plus another two, which sailed from Fremantle) comprised the convoy that carried the original ANZACs.
Another, not-coincidental claim to fame: “King George” is the name of the most delicious of whiting species.
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Western Australia’s south coast is mostly unspoilt, uncrowded, wonderfully wild.
However, in February 2025 sunshine, strong winds and big waves were generally “AWOL”, and the usually-brilliant, clear light was mostly flat, hazy and/or smoke-tainted.
This trip yielded an unprecedentedly low number of worthwhile opportunities for landscape/seascape photography!
Nonetheless, even on a “flat, grey day”…
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Both photos were taken within a few seconds of each other.
The pictured individual appeared to relish dip #2 even more than it had evidently enjoyed its first immersion, five minutes earlier.
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Chapters #39 through #41 feature the same individual; #39’s photo was taken immediately after that morning’s first sighting of him/her.
S/he was so sodden as to be unrecognisable, in terms of species or age.
The featured image, above, was taken three minutes later.
I then assumed that our hero/ine was relishing the morning sunshine’s drying power… and would soon be airborne.
I was wrong.
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#40 will answer the headline’s question!
The very tiny star of this and the next two chapters was photographed within a single five minute “window” on the morning of 09 February 2025.
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This chapter’s three previously-unpublished photos show the same individual.
They were taken within a single minute, on the morning of 07 February 2025.
Above and below, this grey fantail had just emerged from what soon proved to be the first of two immersions.
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