wildlife

I haven’t mentioned the wildlife yet. You really know you’re in Australia when you hear all sorts of screeching and see multicoloured birds everywhere. These are everywhere and nobody takes the slightest bit of notice. Apart from me, with my head in the air looking every part the Englishman in Australia. From my apartment window I saw a red and green parrot picking at the tree outside. The magpies don’t look much but they make plenty of crazy noise first thing. I’ve seen other colourful birds that I can’t identify and they seem to be very restless to the extent that they don’t stay still for long for a photo opportunity.

I visited a part of Canberra nature reserve on Thursday. Basically this is scattered all over the city in patches of bushland which means you never have to go far to get some peace and quiet. I visited an area just past Kingston at the eastern edge of Lake Burley Griffin. Again I saw a fair few birds and also a couple of hares I think. They of course were startled by my presence, which startled me (any noise in the undergrowth is a worry!). I did manage to get a pic of a “flaming Gullah” by the lake on Friday.