And the bush has friends to meet him, and their kindly voices greet him, In the murmur of the breezes and the river on its bars,
And he sees the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended, And at night the wonderous glory of the everlasting stars.

Banjo Paterson (1889)

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Outback Waterhole

When my wife Liz and I were at Alice Springs a few weeks ago, the weather was warm and sunny, but the wind in the area was crazy. It started early in the morning and usually finished only at dusk. Not good if you want to take video footage!

I did manage to piece together some footage of a wonderful day we spent at Trephina Gorge, especially at a small waterhole where birds and lizards came in to drink in the heat of the day. I know it's probably only my imagination, but it seemed like big gusts of wind would come as soon as I hit the record on the video camera.

The animals in the video are White-plumed Honeyeater, Peaceful Dove, Pied Butcherbird, Zebra Finch, Painted Finch, Long-nosed Dragon, Magpie-lark and Ta-ta Lizard.


2 comments:

Dale Forbes said...

not having been to australia yet, I dutifully pulled out my slaters' field guide to look up some of the birds. the variety of honeyeaters is staggering, but the one in the video seems to have white tips to the tail. is that normal? for my book does not seem to show it.

I love your header banner photo - such a stark and powerful landscape!

Richard King said...

Hi Dale, thanks for joining. Slater's is the one I always use, I think it's the best one for the field.

The white tips are probably just wear and tear on old tail feathers. We do have lots of honeyeaters and the good thing is most are easy to see. just find a nectar producing plant and thre's usually at least a couple species there.