Eastern Grey Walk

For the first day, when I get there in early afternoon, there was only time for a short walk. And - of course - the long car ride to get there. It was then a short walk left to an airstrip and then right to the ocean coast.
The airfield walk was impressive for the large group of Eastern Grey roos waiting for us. They did live in the wild, but not really without attention. Many of them were tagged all over. Most of them apparently only with signs to recognize them from the distance, others with senders, too. They indeed looked sometimes like a well-controlled German dairy cow.
Many Australian animals are surprisingly tame - at least in the eye of Europeans. But some of these even impressed the hiking plus people accomapigning me. It is not normal to get photographs of calmly resting roos and the observing person in one go.

Eastern Grey Kangaroo mum with her joey resting in the shade. She is not totally relaxed anymore, she has an eye on me.

Not all roos were equally tame. This group preferred to jump off before we came too close. But look at the female in the middle. She has a joey in the pouch and would have to lift a heavier weight than the others. She remained until we turned around.

Again, a fairly tame group. They grased on a different air strip and sat right in our way. We approached calmly and most of them remained calm, too. So one can do portraits of free roaming animals in the wild. :-)

After leaving the airstrip with the delicios short lawn we didn't see roos anymore, but somewhat higher vegetation and wattle shrubs. Suddenly, there was a big trouble in the shrubs, someone was having an argument or facing an attack. Then, something escaped from the bush. I grabbed my camera and did my first and only shot of an Emu in the wild. None of us had an idea what the fuss, that stopped as sudden as it began, may have been about. Even the Emu calmed down quickly. So maybe it was only caught by surprise.

On the other side of the street, we went to the coastline. The walk is also plain, short and easy, but it's full of living obstacles. For example, a Blue-tongued skink sat in the middle of it, having a feast on the ants. But well, with legs like these one should make sure one sits on a safe place.

The area was both sanddune and swamp - at least during this unusually wet season. The little lilac flower is not rare, I saw it several times on several sites, but I couldn't identify it yet. The snail shells look rather strange, too, but something like that can be found on other dry places like the Mediterrean, too. I's say the shells are empty by the time of the picture, but I wouldn't be sure.

Rather surprising was another find along the way. A strange sound in the grass made me bend down to see what was there. First I didn't really understand, but then it became clear: One dragonfly was eating the male of a mating dragonfly couple! The female later managed to get away alive, but the male was eaten so loud that a human ear could hear the munching sound. At the end, only the wings remained in the grass. Later, I googled around and learned cannibalism is not unusual amongst dragonflys. They normally will eat different species and that also seems to be the case here.

Approaching the beach, we found strange ornaments in the sand and had no idea who may have left them. Later I learned such tracks are left behind by millipedes. Much easier to determine was the black colleague searching for dinner on the beach: a Sooty oystercatcher.