Back to Nature

It's amazing what you find in your own 'backyard'.  Today we drove a short distance to Walkabout Creek, near The Gap, here in SE Queensland. Hubby had found out that they have animal feeding sessions every Saturday and Sunday at 11am so he, Miss M and I went for a little excursion.  As soon as we got there I remembered that I had been here once before, almost 20years ago, on a Kindergarten excursion with Miss M who was 4 at the time.  I actually remember it well because at show and tell, when they brought the (python) snake out and placed it on the carpet, I was jumping onto a chair to get as far from it as possible while my 4 year old was quite happy to touch! She couldn't recall the experience at all.

We first heard all about the resident Spotted Quoll and watched as he, very shyly, came out to eat his chicken neck feast.  These little native marsupials do not have extended lives due to them being prone to chest infections and other, quite horrible, afflictions.  The males usually only live for 9 to 11 months while the females can live to 2 years.

Next we entered the Aviary and fed the Tawny Frogmouths.  These have to be one of my very favourite native birds.  They are actually very docile birds and I just had the strongest urge to reach out and stroke his feathers.  Look how big her eyes are......

Some of the other critters were ( top to bottom ) L to R: Tawny Frogmouth pair, Curlew, Eastern Dragon, Red Neck Wallaby, Green Treefrog and a very elusive, sleepy Wombat.

I didn't take any photos of the snakes (eeeww!) 'cos I don't want to look at them and I didn't take a photo of the Platypus simply because he was constantly on the go and racing around his tank so quickly.  We watched as he was fed live Redclaw and it was fascinating to see him hunt them down to eat. Interesting to remember they are blind in the water so depend on vibrations to find their prey. Most people lost interest after the platypus feeding so hubby had the ranger all to himself to discuss the snakes.  I was just relieved they were not part of the feeding session and stayed in their glass cases. 

Afterwards we had coffee and muffins at the Green Tree Frog Cafe. At this point, I should inform you that it was freezing cold.  Last night we had our coldest night for over 100 years in Brisbane. Yep, the temp dropped to 2.5degrees overnight. Time for a walk to warm ourselves up.

We decided on the 5km walk that circled around the Enogerra Resevoir thinking that we would walk for a bit and turn around and walk back.

As we started walking, we started spotting some really gorgeous birds.  Hubby is a keen twitcher so we ended up walking the whole 5km's and saw quite a few species that I have never seen before. Of course, they are really quick so I missed out on snapping them with my camera.  So I have put a collage together of internet images so you can see how pretty they are. We also heard  the 'ting ting' of the Bell Birds.  They are a particular favourite of hubby's. I have known him take a 4 hour trip just to listen to the Bell Birds.

Top L to R:  Hardhead Duck, Grey Fantail, Coot
Bottom L to R: Rose Robin, Azure Kingfisher, Scarlet Honeyeater, Golden Whistler

Here are a few photos from our walk

a trail through the trees

Enogerra Resevoir looking towards the back of Mt Cootha

looking back the other way.....north west.....of the Resevoir

looking up at a rather tall gum tree

Hubby and Miss M birdwatching

The feeding session lasted for about two hours and our walk took us about the same time so this really was a day trip. We all really enjoyed the feeding session, the walking and the birdwatching so Walkabout Creek has made it onto our list of special places to share with visitors to our part of the world.