Friday, December 4th, Phillips Island - Koalas and Penguins
Bob: I was awakened at dawn by the loud and enthusiastic squawking of birds that sounded like it came from right outside the door to our motel room. I surmised it was some the flock of Galahs I had seen perching on the nearby phone wires the previous night, but resisted the impulse to get up, go outside, and check on them. Then I heard some slow, low-pitched "coo-cooing" that resembled the call of mourning doves back in the United States but may have been some Australian species. Then I heard a very pretty soft warbling song that rose and fell through a 10 note series, but sometimes degenerated into a squawk at the end, and that turned out to be produced by a large black-and-white bird that looked like a European magpie. Finally I heard a rough "cheep, cheep" like young chicks make, only pitched much lower and pronounced in a throaty voice that sounded like it came from a parrot. Since I had not seen any sign of a hen or chicks anyplace around our motel, which was in the middle of the city of Cowes, and parrots are known to reproduce sounds make by others, I concluded it was just another cheep imitation! (ta-dum-bum!) Fully awake by now, we gave up trying to get back to sleep, showered, and sat down for breakfast. The juice and cereal courses went fine, but when Monika burned some toast, the fire alarm went off. Embarrassed and hoping sincerely that all our neighbors were already awake, we opened the door in front and the bathroom window in back to try to get enough cross-ventilation to clear the smoke. Eventually it did clear and I sat back down to enjoy some tea and well-done toast with honey with my (alarming!) wife. Nothing seemed to be going normally, but that was somehow par for the course in Australia and it was, after all, a very pleasant sunny morning so my mood slowly brightened. |
Monika: We had decided to spent this day doing touristy things. We were awakened early by birds squawking, cawing, and making other funny noise. I added to all that noise, by burning the toast and setting off the fire alarm (yes, kids, I can do it in Australia as easily as at home). Bob finally figured out how to shut it up, and we finished our breakfast. |
Bob: Our first stop of the morning was the Information Centre where we asked about places to walk on Phillip Island, and the portly gentleman there recommended several loop trails on Cape Woolamai Faunal Reserve, a park with protected nesting places for shearwaters and other native wildlife. That sounded interesting so we took a map showing us how to get out there and then bought tickets for the Koala Conservation Centre and the Penguin Parade. Our first stop was the Koala Conservation Centre. We arrived just as they opened for the day at 10 o'clock and I was surprised to see the parking lot already filling up with cars, and I was even more puzzled when all the men were wearing suits and the ladies had fancy dresses on. But it turned out that 99.9% of the people parking were just there to celebrate the opening of the brand new main building for the conservation centre, which was, by the way, quite nice. Besides the ubiquitous ticket office and gift shop that one would expect, a small but high-quality exhibit area included two (stuffed? animatronic?) adult koalas plus various displays about their habitat, life, and diet as well as small displays for other animals that could be found in the conservation centre. |
Monika: Our first stop was tourist information. We found out that the National Park Service had three major attractions in the area: the Koala Reserve, the Penguin Parade, and the old homestead on Churchill island. The first two were of course what we were here for, and we bought the tickets. We then asked about hiking trails and were told that the walks out at Cape Woolamai were very nice. So our day was set: Koala Reserve in the morning, then lunch, an afternoon hike, after that a siesta and finally in the evening watching the Penguin Parade. It was 10 minutes to 10 and the Koala Reserve opened at 10. So we drove over there and were surprised by the number of cars in the parking lot. When I noticed that most people had name tags and there were seats arranged in a row with a speakers platform in front, I inferred that Something was Going On. Indeed today was the day for the opening ceremony for the new visitor's center. The people with name tags got coffee and finger foods while us poor folks who had paid entrance were allowed to pass through and look, but not touch. The new visitor's center was indeed very nice. It had a lot of information about Koalas and the birds in the woods. We started to read it all, but the name tag crowd came in and it was getting just too crowded for my taste. So we repaired to the heart of the Koala reserve, two boardwalks, that walk past the trees with the Koalas. |
Bob: I learned for example that the koala's diet of eucalyptus leaves was both poor in nutrition and highly toxic. Fortunately evolution had equipped the koala with a digestive system and liver capable of handling the toxicity and I suppose the toxicity explained why no other animal was competing for that food resource. The adaptation to the low nutritional quality of the diet seemed to be twofold: sleeping for 20 out of 24 hours in the day in order to conserve energy, and then moving very slowly when awake pretty much like a ground sloth would. The conservation centre had elevated walkways that allowed us to walk along closer to where the koalas were perched in their trees. Sure enough, most of them were asleep. It was surprisingly difficult to discern a gray furry bundle up in the branches high above us, but fortunately some of the koalas were nearer our level. We even saw one adult male (slightly larger size, less tufted ears, and a big Roman nose typify the males) chewing away on eucalyptus leaves, which is one of the major activities for the 4 hours a day a koala is typically awake. Grooming, including scratching, also occupies quite a bit of those 4 hours and we saw a reasonable amount of that also. Koalas are marsupials and we did find one baby still in its mother's pouch that was awake and poked its head out to watch us. When too big for the pouch, the babies cling to their mothers' backs they move around and are thus called "back babies". When yet a bit older and bigger, the young still hang around with their mom and are at that point just slightly smaller versions of the adults. |
Monika: I had been looking in Gum Trees all along, but Bob finally spotted our first Koala, a big brown lump against a brown gum tree. Koalas are never very active, since their diet of gum tree leaves does not give them very much spare energy. Now that we knew what we were looking for, we saw several more Koalas. Most of them were asleep. But then we found one Koala with a joey in her pouch. The little one was very much awake and looked around with great interest (being still fed on mother's milk, it probably had more energy than his mother). Walking a second time around, we found that a few more of the Koalas were active and enjoying a snack of yummy eucalyptus leaves. A second boardwalk showed us some more Koalas. One had a young one by her side who had outgrown the pouch. They were sleeping cheek to jowl. We also finished a loop through the bush all around and saw some beautiful Rainbow Lorikeets, a gorgeous multi-hued type of parrot. We even managed to spot another Koala high up in a tree |
Bob: While we were wandering around taking pictures, we saw a bird that looked like a fuzzy, indistinct version of a kookaburra sitting atop a sign and singing a kind of partial version of the full kookaburra song, the initial "who who who" part. Shortly thereafter a large, brilliantly-colored male kookaburra hustled in, gave the youngster some food, and then hustled out again. The male, however, gave the full-bore complete version of the laughing kingfisher sound, something like, "who who who who, HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH!". I was fascinated as I'm not sure I've ever heard the real thing in the wild before; it was LOUD and really reverberated around the forest. After the male left the youngster kept giving his "who who who who" part of the song until finally a full-sized kookaburra with slightly dowdier plumage who I think was his Mom called back from a nearby tree. The fledgling then fluttered over in her direction, landing awkwardly atop another dead snag. She fed him and was still kind of standing guard over him when we finally left the conservation centre. |
Monika: Back at the boardwalks I saw a somewhat larger bird fly by and settle down. I said to Bob, that's a Kookaburra. We hurried over to take pictures, hearing its distinctive laughing call. There were actually two of them, baby and Mama. Mama flew away for more food and baby settled on top of one of the signs, calling out regularly. Finally Mama answered and they met in a nearby tree. Before Mama could feed the baby, however, she had to chase away another bird (a thrush, I think) that had settled nearby. The whole thing was enchanting and we enjoyed trying to take pictures and movies. Of course, there were other birds we enjoyed. The brightly plumaged Eastern Rosella was singing high in a treetop and a Gallah was working on a hole in a tree trunk, presumably creating a nest. After a couple of hours, we decided to move on. The Koala Reserve was well worth the price of admission. The name tag people were still there. I was getting hungry and was wondering what would happen if I snatched one of the canapees. Well, I know, that at the very least, Bob would have been upset with me so I desisted. Instead we went to Subway for a healthy sandwich. Sigh. |
Bob: After making a quick detour back to Cowes to have a Subway sandwich, we drove out to the Cape Woolamai Faunal Reserve for an afternoon walk. The first part of our walk took us along the beach where a heavy surf was crashing on shore and then back up on the bluff to a very picturesque rock formation called The Pinnacles. The formation is called The Pinnacles probably because eons ago the slow-cooling rock crystallized into hexagonal shafts. Uncovered by centuries of wind and water erosion, those shafts now stick pretty much perpendicularly out of the ocean. The shape as well as the contrast of the ruddy orange color of the rocks with the deep blue color of the ocean, plus the dramatic crashing surf producing an ever-changing landscape of white foam, all made for a very intriguing scene. |
Monika: For our afternoon walk we went to Cape Woolamai, the cape that is next to the bridge from the mainland. The beach at Cape Woolamai is facing the ocean so it is what they call a surf beach. In this pre-vacation time, lifeguards were out only on the weekend and there were very few people in the water on the day we visited. Three walking paths originated at the end of the parking lot and we weren't quite sure which was which, but they all meandered along the beach towards a cliff called the Pinnacles. After about 1 km, there were stairs up to the top of the cliff and we started walking along the cliff towards the Pinnacles. We had some great views both of the Pinnacles and of the beaches along the ocean side of Phillip Island. We were amused by the warning signs about not falling off the cliff that were posted all along the path. We finally reached the Pinnacles and took some great pictures. |
Bob: We continued walking on a further trail out to the highest point of Phillips Island, Woolamai Hill, at the very tip of the peninsula. Along the way we saw some absolutely beautifully carved cliffs with the surf crashing into them far below. We were also, however, bedeviled by flys who seemed to find either us or our sunscreen lotion quite irresistible. Since I had brought the insect repellant with me, we tried using that but these flies were so motivated that it only gave us about 15 minutes of relief from them crawling around our faces when we used it. For some reason the flies rested on the back of our shirts, and we each collected quite a coterie of them on our walk up the hill. I later saw a woman with netting hanging down from her Australian-style hat and given how irritating the flies were I could well understand why she went to that extreme. That said, unlike the "black flies" I have encountered in the U.S., these flies did not seem to bite or sting. They merely walked all over you buzzing happily until they nearly drove you nuts. I learned to quickly close one eye when they went walking across it but to keep the other one open so I could see where I was going. Thus, I could still shuffle along, but it was distinctly unpleasant! Monika had the unfortunate experience of inhaling one when we opened her mouth for a breath, which was even more unpleasant, but she quickly spat it out. The outward bound part of the trail ended at the top of Woolamai Hill where there is a navigational beacon up on a framework. We had great views from the top and enough of a breeze to keep the flies at bay, so it was very pleasant. On our way back down the hill we saw another echidna apparently burrowing his way slowly back into the ground for the day. We decided not to take the turn off for the Quarry as it was apparently only available at low tide and we weren't sure what time low tide was, and instead we returned back along the beach. Back near the parking lot we saw three teenage boys frolicking about in the surf while some bored parents lazed about on towels well above the surf line. |
Monika: We kept walking on towards the highest point on the island, a light beacon of course. Along the way we passed several coves with rather dramatic cliffs. From the beacon, we could look over to the bridge and the mainland, but also all across the island. It was really a great view. The walk back was through more scrub brush and some smallish trees. We even saw another one of the Echinads that was busily digging. The main problem, however, with this walk was that flies were pestering us all along. We tried to keep them out of our face, but could not keep them from catching a ride on our backs. At least these were the non biting type, annoying but not harming. Of course, I did manage to get one in my mouth, but I noticed it immediately and did not swallow the fly... We did, however, enjoy some other wildlife. A heron was walking around looking for something, and an echidna was busily burrowing into the ground. |
Bob: Not having the energy of teenagers, we were tired by then and plodded slowly back to our car. After driving back to our motel room, we gratefully stretched out and rested for a couple of hours before it was time to have dinner and drive over to the Penguin Parade. The Penguin Parade is based on the daily return of tiny "fairy penguins" coming back to their shoreside burrows after a long day of feeding out in the ocean. This natural event has been extensively commercialized and the tourist center there sold every imaginable gimcrack and geegaw with cute little penguins on them. Nevertheless, we both thought that seeing the daily migration of the penguins home to their nests that evening was really very intriguing. Unfortunately no photography was allowed and although Monika and I both saw several people violating that prohibition, we just couldn't bring ourselves to do so. [I'm already obnoxious enough with my camera to not be breaking any laws with it!] However, we had both taken our binoculars and that turned out to be critically important as the fairy penguins are quite small, only about a foot high, and a kilogram (American = 2.2 pounds) in weight. They wait until dusk to come in from the sea apparently because they are afraid of being swooped down upon by large raptor birds and carried off to become an evening meal. Certainly that was plausible given the very hesitant, cautious approach the penguins showed when coming back up the beach. It seemed clear to me that they were using the rocks as cover to avoid aerial attacks as well as they could. At times they bunched up in the lee of the rocks and waited for a good moment to bolt (waddle quickly) across the stretches of open beach, and I could almost see them "screwing their courage to the sticking point", as Shakespeare would put it, in preparation for the final dash to the nesting complex. I saw some apparently lose their nerve and head back to the relative safety of the water, although I suppose they ultimately did make it ashore as they were responsible for feeding the new chicks, and that parental duty probably over-rode their inherent caution. When all 1,000 or so penguins were back in the complex of burrows we left for the night, taking our time to observe them from the elevated boardwalk. We saw moms or dads feeding chicks by regurgitating small fish or pieces of squid. But when the children chased the hapless parents around, trying to get them to cough up even more food, the scene quickly became comical. The babies, you see, are just about the same size as the adults and since they are still covered by a soft, fuzzy down they look even larger than their moms and dads. Try to picture two squabbling, screeching, fluffy over-sized youngsters running after Mom or Dad while flapping their completely useless wings and trying to get another tidbit to eat. [It would be, I am sure, just as funny if Homo Sapiens was the species performing that little scene!] After the performance was all over for the night, we drove back to our hotel room and quickly slipped into bed as it was well past our usual bedtime by that point. |
Monika: Back in our room, we both rested and then had an early evening meal, before heading out to the Penguin Parade. We had been told to get there early to get good seats. I also suggested, that we both bring our binoculars. Photography was not allowed, so Bob left his camera at home. The Penguin Parade is THE major attraction of Phillip Island. When the sun goes down, thousands of Little Penguins come out of the sea, cross the beach and go up in the dunes into their burrows to feed their chicks. The Park Service has set up bleachers along the beach alongside the dunes. It was low tide and the Little Penguins had to walk farther than usual. They wait till sundown since they are afraid of birds of prey and even in the dusk they are very wary about crossing the beach. We got good seats at the side towards the dunes, but we had to wait an hour before sundown. But then the first little guys came waddling out of the water. With our binoculars, we could see better than most how the first ones were reluctant to get out of the water but then started to forge ahead. They waited in the shelter of some rocks, before attempting the last dash over the sands usually following a brave soul. The Little Penguins are the smallest of the Penguins. They are also known as Fairy Penguins, a name that seems to be no longer Politically Correct. This was the same type of penguin I had seen in the water when we left Napier, New Zealand. Looking down from Promenade Deck of the cruise ship, that little guy had seemed even smaller, and I surely can understand where the name "Fairy Penguin" came from. But I guess Little Penguin is more descriptive. The Park Service had some overhead lights and we could see quite a few penguins making their way across the beach up to the dunes. Walking back along the boardwalk, we went straight over the area were the burrows where. We saw chicks sitting there anxiously waiting for the return of the parent and other ones that were being fed. They did not seem to be intimidated by the low lights and people at all. Here we really could look at them rather closely. We talked to a ranger, and found out that each pair has the same burrow each year and knows exactly where it is. Both parents care for the young and only one of them goes out each day to bring back the food. Although the visitor center had a rather commercial look to it and the prices were somewhat high, the experience of seeing the nightly march of the Little Penguins is still a true wildlife experience. I started admiring the courage of the little guys who had to walk quite a distance across the dangerous beach and up the hill to feed their young. Before driving off, we checked, as advised, underneath our car to make sure no penguin had taken refuge there, and then Bob drove home carefully since all the Aussie "Bumper Thumpers" were out. |
| Index |
| Prolog | Map of Cruise around New Zealand | Map of Drive through Victoria | Epilog |
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