Like this Green Rosella, endemic to Tasmania

Many people, on coming to Australia from elsewhere, are disappointed. They expect to see kangaroos every day and are surprised to find it’s not so easy, even when you actively go looking. At least, not wild ones. Part of the reason for this is that most Australian marsupials are nocturnal.

Green Rosellas in the leaves…

We tripped over wombats, had to stop for echidnas trundling across the road, stepped around wallabies in parking lots, said good morning to Tasmanian Pademelons outside our door in the snow, and even saw the magnificent Forester Kangaroo, which is now uncommon in Tasmania.

And one that did pose nicely

And of course, there were birds too. We had obliging endemics like the parrots above, in the historical site of Pt Arthur.

Lapwing stalks away from the camera

 Or the Masked Lapwings, who appear to loathe having their photos taken, yet were all over the place.
In fact you had to be careful not to tread on their eggs, or their fluffy young.
 
There were Ubiquitous “robins” – actually flycatchers – on every fencepost it seemed at times: pink ones and brown ones and flame ones and scarlet ones.

Currowongs fixed us with greedy eyes every time we stopped for a picnic. You know, the ones that make you feel guilty about not feeding the highly unsuitable junk food.

Pademelons

Wombat mum and offspring, Cradle Mtn

Black Currawong

Scarlet Robin, Freycinet

Bennett’s Wallaby in the parking lot

Echidna

…Bennett’s with young

Sperm whale remains on the beach in Mt William Nat.Pk

There was even a sperm whale…

I do apologise for the quality of the photos: I have only a tiny digital pocket camera.

This field was actually dotted with eating-machines – six wombats.

More from Tasmania’s west coast…

The orange colour is lichens on the rocks

Those birds are Pied Oystercatchers and the endangered Hooded Plover

I guess because of my childhood, I am fond of open spaces and few people, of walking lonely places, of far vistas. I don’t get it much where I live now.

I dream of places like these above, and wish I was back there – for if God is anywhere, it’s in places like this. Not in shouting into loudspeakers.

I am home again.
I know, because I had to catch a frog in the kitchen last night and release it outside, because I was woken up by the mosque this morning, because there are bulbuls in the garden and house geckos on the ceiling.

We flew out from Launceston, and here are some of the photos from the wetland centre just out of town there, where we managed to get our Tasmanian birdlist up over the 100 mark with the addition of the Purple Swamphen and the Reed Warbler. Heard the grassbird, but didn’t see it, alas. Black Swans were nesting all over the place!

This is a lovely area, manned by volunteers. I tried, years ago, to get authorities in Malaysia interested in doing something similar in my own area where we had a lovely swampy place. I once counted 21 bird species in half an hour without moving myself from one spot. And that was just birds. There was other wildlife – tortoises, butterflies, lizards and so on. It is a housing estate now, sans park of course.

The whole of Kuala Lumpur with its millions of people in the greater metropolitan area – once surrounded by swamp parkland teeming with life – has nothing like this. Launceston, with its tiny population, can do better than a huge rich metropolis like Kuala Lumpur. Here we have roads and hoardings, noise and pollution and much ugliness instead.

Wildlife and biodiversity has no value here unless it brings in money. And swamps are seen as ugly, full of dangerous things like mosquitoes and snakes.

Bullied birders … pun intended

We park the car and the trouble begins…the crowd starts to gather, regarding us with cold stares, in grim silence…

They call in reinforcements, using some method of telepathy, because not a word is uttered…

Intimidation by staring us down begins…

They circle us, spreading out…staring unblinkingly, watching our every move.

Finally we capitulate and leave.

But even more creepily, when we return later on that day – just driving past the same field without stopping – the cows came galloping down the hill to chase us until we vanished from sight.

Tasmania, you have truly creepy cows.

Yesterday, we started the day like this:

This was the view from our cottage from door when we woke up And this was the road out… And this was the car

To me, the West Australian, snow is alien, somehow unAustralian…

We left anyway, without waiting for the snow plough, as it was still snowing and there was not indication it was going to end.

And at last the snow plough passed us going in the opposite direstion and left the road looking like this

And this is where we ended the day, at St Helens on the east coast:

Along with Red-necked Stints and Red-capped Plovers running along the beach and a White-fronted Chat on the dunes…

Button grass…

Our cottage

The heathland around our cottage

The back of our cottage

More of the heathland around us

All of which probably explains what happened last night.
Strahan, for those who don’t know, is on the west coast of Tasmania, in the path of the Roaring Forties, the westerly winds that sweep around the world interrupted only by the tip of South America, New Zealand’s south island — and Tasmania.

Winds arrive in Strahan uninterrupted from Tierra del Fuego, or thereabouts.

Which probably explains why, in the middle of the night, I awoke to feel my bed shaking. Literally shaking. The thunder banged, the rain battered the walls and bushes hammered at the house.  The walls moved. They shuddered and the floor shuddered with them, shaking the bed. Shaking me awake.

I was petrified…

However, the house prevailed, and all was well come morning. If cold. Minimum 4 degrees, maximum 10c. The wind straight from the Roaring Forties. Hail and sunshine, both. Glorious rainforest. One of the world’s most glorious wilderness areas.

Oh, and I bumped into a friend from my home town and Worldcon… in a sawmill. And then again at a totally deserted airport where we went to find a (mythical?) ground parrot. Helen, don’t tell me you were also there to track down the elusive parrot?