Natural splendour, real musics, wines, wordpower
Whilst enjoying coffee on the Surf Gallery’s verandah we also enjoyed a close encounter with the pictured individual.
Click this for more info on this splendid species, which is endemic to near-coastal, well-vegetated places in southwest WA.
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The annual “spring flowering” in Australia’s southwestern “corner” is one of the world’s most spectacular natural phenomena.
It is right “up there” with any of the “great migrations” by mammals, birds or insects.
In its diversity of species (many, endemic) and its sheer beauty, Southwest WA’s “flower season” is peerless, I think.
However, far from all species of southwest WA flora opt to bloom in spring.
At any time of year in southwest WA considerably more than a handful of species are in flower; many occur naturally only in WA.
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As you can see, at 9.26 am on 09 February 2025, this post’s hero was well-wetted.
As his appearance makes evident, he is a male.
His plumage’s recently-concluded breeding season “magnificence” is fading, but not altogether gone.
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…diamond bird, diamond sparrow, headache bird, widopwidop…
Spotted pardalote is the “proper” common name for Pardalotus punctatus – one of Australia’s tiniest, loveliest, shyest birds.
Although moderately common in all of the reasonably fertile parts of Australia (the east coast, the south-east, and the south-west corner) it is seldom seen closely enough to enable identification.
On the morning of 16 February 2025, I at last managed to take some halfway decent photos of one.
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Homo sapiens is not the only species which includes a small number of lucky individuals who have “discovered” the “secret” beach, just east of Anvil Beach.
Another mammal also swims and fishes there.
It is safe to assume that Arctocephalus forsteri is the more successful fisher of the pictured, reef-sheltered waters.
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On WA’s wonderfully wild south coast there are some calm days, and a few truly safe places to bathe or swim.
16 February 2025 was such a day, and the “secret beach” (just east of Anvil Beach) usually offers safe bathing in perfectly reef-sheltered waters.
As evident in the featured image, even on this exceptionally calm day, the ocean-facing side of the reef gave occasional hints of the ocean’s oomph.
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This post’s featured image includes the father-daughter co-stars of #9 in this series,
I took this post’s photo half an hour earlier, at 10.19 am, just after we had parked the car, and just before we headed down to our favourite “secret beach”.
It is immediately east of Anvil Beach.
Mid-morning on 16 February 2025 was “singular” in several respects..
On no other occasion had we seen the sea so flat, off Anvil Beach.
Never before had the car park been so “full”.
And we saw a seal…which had everyone’s approval!
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“Stay here with Mom. Dad’s going fishing.”
In the pictured instance no such words had been spoken, nor contemplated.
It was a quiet delight to observe a father who so well understood that “joyful fishing is not just about catching fish”.
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Some birds – individuals & species – prefer to be alone, when drinking or bathing.
Others are happy to “share the facilities”…or they have to share them; flocking birds may be within a group of many – even many thousands – of individuals.
On some afternoons in February 2025 (near Youngs Siding, between Albany & Denmark) the “line up” at the birdbath reminded me of “the six o’clock swill” – an unlovely feature of most Australasian pub “culture” for surprisingly much of the 20th century.
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Two descriptions of the pictured, “secretive” species:
Red-eared firetails are usually only glimpsed briefly, if at all, as they move rapidly and discreetly through their habitat. (Wikipedia)
It is a solitary species and is generally found in the most retired spots in the thickets, where its mournful, slowly drawn-out note only serves to add to the loneliness of the place. Its powers of flight, although sometimes rapid, would seem to be feeble, as they are merely employed to remove it from tree to tree. The natives of the mountain districts of Western Australia have a tradition that the first bird of this species speared a dog and drank its blood, and thus obtained its red bill. (John Gilbert, as cited in John Gould’s Handbook, published in 1865)
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