No content, just trip photos.

[den]

Rainbow Lorrikeets

These are a few of the early morning bunch that would descend on our caravans and look for food. They should eat seeds but will make do with bread, toast and vegemite, corn flakes, rice bubbles and Weetbix.



Mountain Rosella

These are marginally larger than the Eastern Rosella. They, and the Rainbow Lorrikeets, are East Coast birds and won't be found west of the Mountains. As you head north of here these rosellas head for higher altidudes. Around Sydney you can only find them in The Blue Mountains. Another of the Early Morning Bunch.

Merimbula

At low tide the lake is a maze of sand banks and channels.

The crowded beaches of Merimbula


The mouth of Twofold Bay, Eden, looking across the Tasman Sea to New Zealand.


Twofold Bay, Eden, looking to the old whaling station.

This is where the orca pod assisted the whalers in their hunting.

Some of the Eden fishing fleet


Pelicans on the sea wall.



Sunset over Pambula Beach

Comments

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

Twofold Bay is the site of an on-shore whaling station. From 1900 to 1930 a pod of orca, lead by a male called Old Tom, would round up stray migrating humpbacks and rights and herd the animal closer to shore. Tom would then race to the station and make a commotion, leaping from the water and blowing to alert the whalers.

The men would jump in their boats and row. If Tom thought they were going too slow he'd grab a tow-rope and drag them to the site. After killing the whale, the whalers would withdraw and let the orcas feed on the tongue and lips of the carcass, then they's tow it back to the station.

When Old Tom died in 1930 the orca pod stopped helping the whalers and the annual catch dropped by 1/2. A year later the owner shut the station down. He'd always said the only reason the station was viable was due to the actions of the orca pod, and when they stopped helping he could see the writing on the wall.

[tavella.livejournal.com]

Y'know, this is one of those wildlife stories where you are torn between admiration and horror. Smart, smart animals! But humpbacks rare and endangered and probably just as smart!