Kangeroo Island - wildlife experiences

Kangeroo Island is like the name already says an island. It is situated south of Adelaide and about 155 km in length. It's the third largest island of Australia, if I remember right what I read in the tourist brochure. A bit more than 4000 people live there permanently - mostly from tourism, agriculture and fishing. KI is a quite popular tourist destination especially during summer, because it has nice beaches, "vast wilderness" (means 1/3 of the island is nature reserve, otherwise agriculture ..) it's pretty easy to see wild animals there - and then there is a lot of other stuff people can to like wine tastig, eat in fancy restaurants, go surfing, go horse riding,...

I go there for watching wildlife, hiking - and enjoy the beach for a change after all those mountain areas and the desert.

The first night I spend on a bush camping side in the shelter of some bushes directly behind the beach. The water is rather cold (current from Antarctic waters) and so is the wind - but it is just phantastic to have a looong beach walk over the white sand. It really smells ocean and you can taste the salt in the air. After having travelled for some three weeks now and hardly spent more than one night at the same place, it feels somehow a bit like "coming home" now. Time to calm down, take it slower, not to try to see and discover everything - just be. I don't know if this inner calm is due to the place or due to the time span travelling - it usually takes some time until you get out of your everyday life toughts, work related thoughts etc. and just start to relax, to live day by day.

Having some of the excellent Kangeroo Island wine helps with that relaxing, by the way ;o)

A cool thing with relaxing and "just being" is that you start to have more "time" for wildlife observations, both with your eyes and your ears. I love the mornings when camping in the bush. Just before sun rise there is a real concert of different birds. Some I already identify now like the Australian magpies (which are not related to European magpies at all despite of their name). They have a strange voice - nothing like I ever have heard before.

Magpie

One night there is even a blackbird singing very beautifully next to my tent. I can hardly believe my ears .. it's meeting an old friend from your childhood somewhere at the other side of the world. Could it really be a blackbird, that common Central European species? Some days later I chat to an Australian traveller at a camping site who tells me to be a keen bird watcher. Blackbird? He had never heard of that and did not believe me I heard such a bird - but he had a good book on identifying Australian birds. I find it immediately: Turdus merula, blackbird. They have even song thrushes in Southwestern Australia. Cool when you can impress a keen birder with identifying blackbirds :D!

I am actually more impressed by the pelicans, those huge elegant birds which seem to look at you so wisely. I don't remember if I have ever seen a wild pelican before .. possibly not.

The strangest animal encounter on Kangeroo Island (and maybe of my whole life until now) is with an Echidna. Those spiky animals do not only looke strange - they are also weird being egg laying mammals. Their diet consists of termites and ants which they search by digging in the sand with their long nose.

They certainly have a good sense of smell, but can't see very well .. apparently ..

Funny Echidna encounter: Echidna video on youtube

I visit  the big national park Flinders range as well. They have an excellent visitor centre there with lots of information on the area. Excellent is also the cafe - not only because of the cappuchino but also because you can have your next funny wildlife encounter then:

Thief video on youtube

Some more impressions from Kangeroo Island:

Pretty nice also to watch the New Zealand fur seals swimmign in the ocean and resting on the rocks. It does not look too easy to get onto the rocks though ..

Video of NZ Fur Seals and the coast

Heath Goanna. They are really long - up to a metre and kind of saved the island by killing rabbits. Rabbits have been introduced to Australia somewhen and are a real plague destroying local vegetation and competing with local animal species not adapted to them. It's the same story with many other foreign plant and animal species and led to strict measurements at the customs when entering the country. Trying to get rid of those alian species to save local ecosystems is an importand part of the work of Australian nature conservists.

Sleeping koalas and scarlet robin.

Cool is also the show of Raptor Domain with their tame falcons, eagle, owls and frogmouth. Apart of having the show one time per day the company also takes care of the rehabilitation of sick or wounded birds of prey. Most of them are released into the wild again after threatment (when/if they fully recover).

The barn owl Casper was that tame that it went to sit on my knee as well. After the show it got a mouse as reward.