Favourite Birding Spot # 6 Cleland Wildlife Park
14 Comments »16th September, 2006; Category: Aviaries, Birds, Bush birds, Favourite Birding Spots, Garden birds, Good Birding Sites
Entrance to Cleland Wildlife Park, South Australia
I love travelling so I can go birding in a new area. Last week I visited Cleland Wildlife Park in the Adelaide Hills, South Australia. This park is run by the National Parks and Wildlife of South Australia. It is a small part of the Cleland Conservation Park.
It has been quite a while since my last visit. In another life I had taken many groups of primary school children to this wonderful park. On quite a few of these occasions the visit was a part of a school camp at the nearby Woodhouse Scout Camp.
Southern Brown Bandicoot, Cleland Wildlife Park
The beauty of this wildlife park is that one gets a very close up look at many of the birds and animals native to Australia. These include a range of different species, including kangaroo, wallaby, wombat, echidna, bandicoots, potoroos and bettongs. In one spot you can have your photo taken with a koala. A feature of my recent visit was the absolutely gorgeous four dingo pups. They were about four weeks old.
Dingo pup, Cleland Wildlife Park
The main attraction of Cleland for me is the birdlife. The area is well wooded and so there are many native birds resident in and around the park. There are two walk through aviaries which enable one to get up close to many bird species. This is just great for photography. There is also a large wetlands area for all the water birds.
Over coming weeks I will feature some of the photos I took of the birds there. If you are impatient you might want to visit my photo gallery (sorry this gallery has been removed). I took over 200 photos that day, so you will have plenty to look at!
Happy Birding.
Trevor
This article was updated in August 2015.
How to be a Birder part 17
Hint # 17 Read books about birds
Birds have had many thousands of books and magazines dedicated to their identification, study and beauty. Most birders end up having at least several field guides. Many birders subscribe to a range of birding or natural history magazines and newsletters. A few dedicated birders have large libraries of bird books. There are even specialist bookshops dedicated to bird books, or at least to books about natural history.
Books and magazines are an excellent way to educate yourself about the life of birds, their characteristics, identification and distribution. The vast majority of books are broad in their scope. Some are dedicated to the birds of a region or a particular country. Others may confine their coverage to a particular region within a country like the birds of South Australia, for example. Still others confine their attention to a specific family of birds like owls, gulls or honeyeaters. Some authors have restricted themselves to just one species for the entire publication. I have in my collection a book published many years ago on the life of the Mallee Fowl, a threatened species present near where I live.
Build up your collection of bird books and magazines over a period of several years as your budget allows. They will, I am sure, bring countless hours of pleasure over many decades. If your budget is very limited, try second-hand bookshops, garage sales and stalls at markets and fetes and even eBay. Don’t forget your local library either. Our library even has a few excellent videos and DVDs about birds.
Links:
Updated November 2013.
Australian Magpie
How to be a Birder part 16
Hint # 16 Collect Birds on Stamps
In another life I collected stamps. I mainly specialised in Australian stamps but started a collection of birds on stamps when my interest in birds started to develop. I never went very far with this off-shoot. I always said that I would take up stamp collecting again when I retired from teaching. Two years ago a retired from teaching and now I am busier than ever. No time for philately.
At the moment it is not for me, but there are literally thousands, perhaps millions of people who collect birds on stamps. It seems that every stamp issuing country has produced at least one set of birds on stamps. Some seem to issue a set every few months. I guess that there are many thousands of birds featured on the stamps of the world. It is a collection that would never be complete, with new issues every few days somewhere or other.
This is a hobby where you could specialise, seeing the field is so broad. For example, I had intended making a collection of the stamps featuring only birds of Wallacea. This is the area south-east of Wallace’s line, including Indonesia, Papua New-Guinea, Australia, New Zealand and some of the Pacific Islands. Wallace was a nineteenth century naturalist. Many birds endemic to this faunal zone have been featured on stamps from outside this area, especially some European countries.
Wallacea is divided from Sundaland, the other hotspot found in Indonesia, by Wallace’s Line, which separates the Indo-Malayan and Australasian biogeographic realms. The line and the hotspot are both named for the 19th century English explorer and naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace, who identified the distinctiveness of faunas on either side of the line.
Whatever format your stamp collecting interests are or become, this is an excellent way to further develop your knowledge of the wonderful creatures we share this world with, and your appreciation of their beauty will increase.
To read more hints on how to be a birder click here.
Rainbow Lorikeet
Some links with birds on stamps:
- Australian Bird Stamps (Sorry – this link no longer exists)
Updated November 2013.
Of Emus and Fairy-Wrens
Drew Fulton, and American naturalist and birder, has just announced his itinerary for travelling throughout Australia over the twelve months commencing on 26th July. His aim is to cover as much of Australia as he can during his year long stay here, photographing and journalling his travels and experiences.
Drew is planning on writing and posting a daily journal of his travels as well as a monthly emailed newsletter. Having spent a little time looking at his photos on his web site, we are in for a treat as he attempts to capture many Australian species on his camera.
To look at his photos click here.
To subscribe to his newsletters click here.
A Visit to Monarto Zoo
We had my wife’s ten year old niece staying with us over the weekend. On the holiday Monday we decided to take her to the local open range zoo at Monarto. This zoo is about a ten minute drive from our home in Murray Bridge, South Australia.
Near the entrance gates I saw two Peaceful Doves sitting on a fence. Two Common Bronzewing Pigeons flew over the road a little further on. As we waited in line to pay at the gate I observed a Red Wattlebird and several Australian Magpies. Thoughout our visit I saw many more magpies. In the car park I saw two Grey Currawongs and Mallee Ringneck Parrot near the Meerkat enclosure.
We only had a ten minute wait before our tour bus left. Unlike some open range zoos where you drive yourself, this zoo has a regular guided bus tour through the park. On busy days like Monday the buses often leave every ten or fifteen minutes. The tour takes about 80 minutes and covers a large part of the zoo property.
During the tour I saw Galahs, Magpie Larks, Masked Lapwings, Willie Wagtails and Little Ravens. Several times we saw flocks of White Winged Choughs. Rocky Gully Creek flows through the middle of the park. For most of the year this is a dry creek bed but seeing we have had some rain recently sections of it have some pools at present. In the largest pool I saw Pacific Black Ducks, Wood Ducks and several Black Fronted Dotterels. Welcome Swallows swoooped low over the water.
After our bus tour we went for a walk along the self-guided walking trail called the Emu Trail. We saw no emus, but had good views of Yellow Rumped Thornbills and a Grey Fantail. Two Adelaide Rosellas flew quickly past and we had fleeting glimpses of a Singing Honeyeater.
There were three highlights of the visit as far as I was concerned. I saw a female Red Capped Robin, a species I hadn’t recorded before in the park. The second was seeing the 30+ playful Painted African Dogs cavorting happily all around the bus. The third highlight was the two new “baby” giraffes, one born two days ago and the other three days ago. At over two metres high at birth “baby” seems almost inappropriate.