HORROCKS ODDS & SODS

After publishing my last post on Horrocks I have been out and about, with the opportunity to capture a few more images of the local wildlife and scenery. 

The creature below has many names including bobtail (which the locals use), stump-tailed skink, pinecone lizard, bogeye and sleepy lizard. Thy are the most commonly seen reptile here and we have a few that reside in the caravan park. 

Shingleback Lizard

Some short bush walks yielded a few wildflowers, but it seems the major displays in this area at least, have long since finished. 

Acorn Banksia

Starflower

Calandrinia

Walking into one of these spiders is always a danger with their strong webs strung up between the low growing vegetation. This specimen being about half the size of my hand.

Orb Weaver

At Port Gregory the wildlife didn't look at all threatening, with these Banded Stilts in the ponds across the road from Pink Lake being the highlight of another visit there. 

Banded Stilts

Pink Lake

Another couple of visits to Bowes River yielded some more waders along with an obliging Osprey and some loafing cormorants. 

Eastern Osprey

Pied and Little Black Cormorants

There are a few pairs of these plovers, some with chicks in tow, tribute to a successful breeding season.  

Red-capped Plover

Sanderling & Red-capped Plover

Red-necked Stint

Bar-tailed Godwit

Grey-tailed Tattler

If the birding gets a bit slow, fishing is always an option!

Evening at Horrocks Beach 

Cheers & Happy Birding

NEW PICS FOR A NEW YEAR

We've had some night time visitors the last few weeks and they've cleaned up 

the fruit off the cocos palm in our backyard. I counted nine up there one night

and they can be quite noisy as they squabble and climb around the fronds.

Grey-headed Flying Foxes

I hadn't realised how long their wing "hooks" are and how these 

appendages help their agility.

There was another winged creature hanging upside down,out on the 

back verandah.We seem to find a lot of creepy-crawlies out there.

I think this may be some kind of cricket.

I visited a local dam today.There were about thirty Black Swans spread over 

the water and some Little Black Cormorants and a single Whiskered Tern

preening and resting on the pumphouse.

Little Black Cormorants

Black Swans

Poona Dam looking towards Kureelpa.

I found this fungus on a bush track nearby.

It was a dainty cup shaped mushroom about 10cm tall.

I tried to identify it through the internet but was unsuccessful.

Back in the backyard these Silvereyes were waiting patiently for their turn

 in the birdbath. Afterwards they partook of some mutual preening 

and canoodling. 

Although we have had a very wet spring and summer so far with record rainfalls in the area, we are high and dry here in Kureelpa. Our thoughts and prayers go out to those people affected by the massive flooding further north and west. I know what they are going through, having endured the 1974 floods in Brisbane.