Natural splendour, real musics, wines, wordpower
The featured image’s Southern Ocean waves are breaking on the Younghusband Peninsula’s narrowest, northernmost section.
The peninsula’s tip is the southern “lip” of the mouth of Australia’s biggest river system; the cormorants are on the “freshwater side”, as was yours truly at 3.35 pm on 30 March 2022.
If you have never been to this spot, you may be thinking, “it looks splendidly wild, barely touched by humans”.
Alas, you would be very wrong….
One Comment
Over the last 15 years seals have become an increasingly common/obvious presence in the Coorong-proper and on/around the Goolwa Barrage.
This has delighted some people, but infuriated/worried some others.
Some of the infuriated/worried people perceive the seals as “intruders”, as “fish thieves”, as “out of control”, “a threat to fish and bird populations”.
So, who are these seals, are they “newcomers”, and are they a threat to “the natural balance”?
Comments closed
When an Australian thinks of seagulls, the relevant species is almost certainly our most common, emblematic one.
Chroicocephalus novaehollandiae – the Silver gull – has prospered mightily, post-1788.
Arguably, this highly-adaptable bird should no longer be described as a “seagull”.
Comments closed
One of the pleasures of Australian life is to look up and see pelicans “surfing the thermals”, soaring, spiralling ever-higher, with so very little apparent effort.
They are also wonderful to watch as they take off from water (or land on it); then, however, a great amount of effort is spectacularly evident.
Pelicans are one of “our” world’s largest, living, flying “machines”.
Comments closed
Q: How would you reach the Hallelujah Hills?
Comments closedIn a “normal” year this 21.12.2020 post would be coming to you from right next door to South Australia’s Aldinga Scrub Conservation Park, where I took the photo on 21 December 2017.
Conifers mostly hail from the other hemisphere, but none of their “Christmassy” cones are lovelier than this Australian species’ “cones”.
One Comment
Leading by example: an Australian pelican, in South Australia’s Coorong National Park.
Comments closedThe featured image’s recreational fishers are at a location which is ever-shifting, but quite easy to reach.
The mouth of Australia’s longest river system is just a day trip away, if you live in Adelaide.
This is where the River Murray, the Coorong and the Southern Ocean meet…although the much-abused Murray-Darling system’s outflow is often so un-mighty that only dredging keeps its mouth open.
Comments closed
Less than 100 metres distant is the mostly-dreary, seemingly never-ending sprawl of greater Adelaide’s southern suburbs.
Down here, however, the beach is still beautiful, and at low tide one can walk straight onto a reef where non-human life is abundantly evident.
Comments closedA teaspoon of sugar weighs around 4 grams; 3 teaspoons make up a tablespoon.
The bird in this post’s featured image weighs around 7 grams.
Imagine an old-fashioned set of scales with a 1 ounce weight in one bowl.
To “balance” those scales would require 4 such birds in the other bowl!
Comments closed
