April 20, 2005
The day after arriving in Adelaide, we took a little side trip to Kangaroo Island – a large island 12 km off of the southern coast of Australia – in search of wildlife and birds we hadn’t seen before. We spent two nights at the Ozone Hotel in the Kingscote, and booked two full days of sightseeing tours, to make the most of our time on the island. On April 19, we took a bus from Adelaide to the coast, and then a ferry out to the island. It was getting dark when the ferry arrived at Kangaroo Island and we arrived at our hotel just in time for dinner, about ten minutes before the restaurant closed. From what we could see, though, the island and hotel looked lovely. I was looking forward to seeing it all in the daylight!
In the morning I woke up before Kevin and Eclipse, and decided to go for a morning walk, as is my habit when traveling. When I left the hotel and saw my surroundings for the first time in daylight, I discovered that we were directly across the street from a lovely little beach, so that’s where I decided to go. Plenty of birds to be seen, including Australian Pied Cormorant, Australian Pelican, Pacific Gull, Pacific Reef Heron, Pied Oystercatcher, and lots of Silver Gull.
I was happily snapping pictures of birds when I heard something scuttling around nearby where I was walking, and a few minutes later, I realized that something was growling at me from a smallish hole between a few of the rocks that formed a small cliff between me and the street above. Curious now, I took a closer look, and saw movement in the burrow. I snapped a few pictures, but wasn’t able to figure out just what it was . . . a mammal of some sort, I assumed. Not wanting to disturb it by staring at its home all day, I moved along down the beach. It wasn’t until I was heading back to the hotel, and took another quick peek into the burrow, that I realized who was living there: a penguin.
I was so excited! OMG PENGUINS!!!! I’d found one of the penguins! I knew there was a species of penguin on the island, which is one of the reasons I wanted to visit here . . . after all, it seemed foolish to come all the way to the Southern Hemisphere and not see any penguins. They’re called Fairy Penguins (or Little Penguins), Eudalypta minor, and they’re the smallest species of penguin in the world, only about a foot tall. This bird was most likely a parent sitting on eggs, while the mate spent the day out at sea hunting. Again, I didn’t want to disturb the bird unduly, so I moved along on my way. But YAY! Penguin! The first photo below is probably my single favorite that I’ve ever taken in my life, a memory of this magical moment in my life when I was growled at by a penguin. (How many people can say that)?
I returned to the hotel so we could all have breakfast together as soon as the dining room opened. From the dining room, I spotted some new birds, and went out to investigate . . . Black-shouldered Lapwing, along with New Holland Honeyeater.
After breakfast, I just had to bring Eclipse down to the beach to see the penguin, so the three of us went on a short walk. I think Eclipse liked the penguin, but what they really enjoyed most was turning over rocks and looking for crabs, of which a great many were found!
Finally, it was time for our tour bus to start (as if I hadn’t already had a big day). To be honest, if I had it to do again, I wouldn’t take this particular tour. We did see some cool stuff, but not quite as many birds as I’d hoped, and we spent a lot of it on the tour bus driving from one place to another. I ended the day feeling a bit disappointed, mostly because it is frustrating to try and birdwatch from a fast-moving vehicle. I actually did see a fair number of birds, but couldn’t get a good enough look at very many of them to get an ID, or photographs.
Even so, I was only a little bit disappointed, because we DID see some great stuff. Our first stop was Clifford’s Honey Farm, where we were given a quick tour (although we didn’t see any bees). The tour was interesting, but (big surprise) I would have rather been outdoors looking at birds. I did see a fantastic bird just as we’d gotten back in the coach – a Wedge-tailed Eagle – but I couldn’t get in position to take any pictures through the bus windows, and I didn’t think quickly enough to ask if I could hop off for a minute to snap a few photos.
Our next stop was lunch in a town called Parndana, smack in the center of the island. Our bus driver/tour guide was terrific – he gave lots of historical information as he drove us around, since he’d lived on the island since the 1950s. After lunch, I wandered around the town’s main (and possibly only) street, and then we visited the Parndana Wildlife Park, where we got to see lots of captive animals. It was fun to get some close-up looks at koalas and things, and feed some Grey Kangaroos.
I also saw my first non-captive Koala here . . . while we were looking at the captive koalas in their enclosure, our guide noticed a “wild” one in a tree very close by. Apparently, the koala isn’t native to Kangaroo Island, but was introduced because they were in jeopardy on the mainland. There aren’t any predators for them here, and now they’ve actually become pests – there are more koalas on the island than the vegetation can support.
After Parndana, we headed toward the coast, to Seal Bay, home to a large colony (~ 1,000) of endangered Australian Sea Lion. The beach is only open to the public during ranger-led tours, and we had the good fortune to experience one. It was super cool to go onto the beach see the sea lions at such close range (they’re really BIG), as well as the thousands of Great Crested Tern and Silver Gull on the beach. This was by far my favorite stop of the day.
After Seal Bay, one final stop – back to Kingscote where we got to see the Pelican Feed. There’s a local man who comes out every day and feeds Australian Pelican at the jetty, and it was great fun to watch. He’s very humorous with the things that he says, and the pelicans and gulls are hilarious to watch. I think Eclipse enjoyed this as much as anything else we’d seen that day, laughing hysterically throughout most of it.
After dinner at the hotel, we returned to the jetty for the nighttime Penguin Walk. We started out in the two-room aquarium run by the fellow who fed the pelicans. He fed a bunch of the animals on display, including a cuttlefish. Then his wife took us down along the rocks to an area where there were several nesting pairs of Little Penguin, and by her red-tinted flashlight, we saw a few of these adorable, adorable birds.
I think Eclipse really enjoyed the penguins, maybe even more than the pelicans earlier in the day. I know I loved seeing them, and learning more about them and their habits. Unfortunately, none of my photos turned out – I couldn’t remember how to change the “film speed” on my camera. But they are very cute.
Species List
Black-shouldered Lapwing (Vanellus miles novaehollandiae), Australian Pied Cormorant (Phalacrocorax varius hypoleucos), Spotted Scrubwren (Sericornis maculatus), Silver Gull (Chroicocephalus novaehollandiae novaehollandiae), Great Crested Tern (Thalasseus bergii), Pied Oystercatcher (Haematopus longirostris), Welcome Swallow (Hirundo neoxena neoxena), Willie-wagtail (Rhipidura leucophrys), Black-faced Cormorant (Phalacrocorax fuscescens), New Holland Honeyeater (Phylidonyris novaehollandiae), Gray Fantail (Rhipidura albiscapa), Silvereye (Zosterops lateralis), Black Swan (Cygnus atratus), European Starling (Sturnus vulgaris), Galah (Eolophus roseicapilla albiceps), House Sparrow (Passer domesticus domesticus), Eurasian Blackbird (Turdus merula), Pacific Gull (Larus pacificus georgii), South Australian White-backed Magpie (Gymnorhina tibicen telonocua), Pacific Reef-Heron (Egretta sacra sacra), Australian Pelican (Pelecanus conspicillatus), Little Penguin (Eudyptula minor novaehollandiae), Black Finger Crab (Ozius truncatus), Purple Mottled Shore Crab (Cyclograpsus granulosus), Black Rat (Rattus rattus), Little Pied Cormorant (Microcarbo melanoleucos melanoleucos), Wedge-tailed Eagle (Aquila audax audax), Common Brown (Heteronympha merope), Koala (Phascolarctos cinereus), Cape Barren Goose (Cereopsis novaehollandiae novaehollandiae), South-eastern Red-tailed Black Cockatoo (Calyptorhynchus banksii graptogyne), Striated Thornbill (Acanthiza lineata whitei), Superb Fairywren (Malurus cyaneus), Kangaroo Island Grey Kangaroo (Macropus fuliginosus fuliginosus), Australian Sea Lion (Neophoca cinerea), Australasian Gannet (Morus serrator), Tammar Wallaby (Macropus eugenii), Australian White Ibis (Threskiornis molucca), Little Corella (Cacatua sanguinea gymnopis), Lemon-scented Gum (Corymbia citriodora), Taupata (Coprosma repens), African Boxthorn (Lycium ferocissimum), Slender Cypress-Pine (Callitris gracilis), Aleppo Pine (Pinus halepensis), Barrier Saltbush (Enchylaena tomentosa), Myrtle Wattle (Acacia myrtifolia), Grey Saltbush (Atriplex cinerea), Spinifex Grass (Spinifex sp)
Let me know what you think!