Catching some Zees on the Goolwa Barrage

Australian Fur Seals routinely bask in the sun on the Goolwa Barrages. In season, the Great Cormorants come in to the rookery there, and every kind of Grebe can be seen fishing in the quiet lee-side of the barrage. Several kinds of Terns, Sandpipers, Dotterels, Spoonbills, and the Pacific Gulls frequent these waters, on the skirts of Coorong National Park, along with Pelicans, Swans, and the shorebirds. 

Wishing for waterfalls to be running as summer ends...

Ingalalla Falls

 

Hindmarsh Falls

Morialta Falls

Morialta, Ingalalla, Hindmarsh ... they're all dry and dusty at the end of summer. The season has officially outstayed its welcome, and as we begin to yearn for the coolness and rain of autumn and winter, here's a little "sympathetic magic" ... waterfalls, because I'm wishing for rain as Australia simmers and burns through the Long Dry. All these images were, of course, captured in either autumn or winter.

Some of the flittiest of the flitty critters

 

Eastern Spinebill at Mount Lofty Botanic Gardens

Grey Fantail at Perry Bend

Sparrow at Sellicks Beach

Black-fronted Dotterel at Laratinga

Rainbow Bee-eater at Langhorne

Nap time!

 

Many Rivers to Cross

The Wakefield River, at Port Wakefield

 

The Murray River, at Younghusband

The Onkaparinga River, at Old Noarlunga

The Sturt River, at Coromandel Valley

Redcliff Lookout, Port Augusta

The Murray River, at Mannum

Christie Creek, at Brodie Road

Onkaparinga River, at Riverbend Park, Clarendon

The Cherry Blossom Special

 

The Year of the January Green

Brodie Road Wetlands, from the roadbridge

Superb Fairywren at Onkaparinga Wetlands

Roo family at Onkaparinga Wetalnds

McLaren Vale area

Australian native bee at the Ironbarks, Kuitpo

 

Flinders Ranges

Mt Lofty Botanic Gardens

Gleeson Wetlands, Clare

Nangawooka

Something so extraordinary happened that it's worth blogging about. This ... Never ... Happens. I'm not exaggerating. In fact, I've been ransacking my memory for any other year in which the South Australian landscape was green as County Cork in January, ten days after the summer solstice ... and I can't remember any other time. There was a year (1971 or '72, I can't quite recall) when it drizzled until shortly before Christmas, but by New Year the hills were baked brown and the catchments were half empty, as usual. This year? Well --

This never happens. Except, apparently, in an El Nino year with some weird dipole values and a heck of a lot of monsoonal activity in the north and east. Put it all together, and you get a cool, sometimes misty, and rather wet summer for us, which translates directly into ... green. And I have to say, I like it. A lot. The climate could settle into this pattern and stay right there, if it were up to me...

In the Misty Mountains...

 

Alligator Gorge -- Mount Remarkable -- in January, 2023. Fog was the last thing we expected at the height of summer, in what is the "gateway to the Flinders Ranges," but as you drove up, and up, higher into the national park, you drove into a wall of mist. Birds called through the mist, sounding hollow and strange ... butterflies wafted on moist, chill air that was barely moving. No hint of sunlight, or wind, while sound was oddly muted. The forest seemed primordial. Wouldn't have been surprised to see a dinosaur appear from the fog!

A Tail of Several Fairywrens

...and of course, Mrs. Fairywren, too!