Wildlife on Kangaroo Island

 Here is a selection of some of the wildlife photos I took on Kangaroo Island. 

Firstly kangaroos. With an estimated million on the island it’s not difficult to find a roo to photograph. We stayed in a lodge close to the Cape Willoughby Lighthouse on the eastern end of the island. Roos were around the lodge all day and as the island is currently desperately dry they come to drink out of the bowls of water put out for them. Late afternoon roos came to the bushes outside our room to feed and we could watch roos feeding as we ate dinner.



 

 

Also one afternoon a Rosenberg goanna with its distinctive very long tail came out. A nearby roo kept a watchful eye on it but as roos are herbivores the gonna was safe.

Despite the fact that there so many koalas on the island-although thousands sadly died in the 2019 bushfires which swept the island-spotting them is not easy. Koalas don’t move fast! In fact they often don’t move for hours. They eat gumtree leaves- but only leaves from particular species of gumtrees-and the KI koalas are eating those leaves faster than the trees can grow them.

Now gumtree leaves are not very nutritious -or some I am told-so each koala has to consume a lot of leaves every day and then not rush around because they don’t have reserves of energy. All of which explains why koalas do f… all all day!



Because they are usually static and well camouflaged in the bush it’s not so easy to spot them but we did well here.

The appropriately named Seal Bay on the south coast of the island is the home to a very large seal colony. The seals live in the sea, on the beach and in the surrounding dunes. Visitors used to freely wander the beach and surrounding dunes but that was not good for the wellbeing of the seals and particularly the pups which have to wait for 3 days every 6 days for their mothers to return with food after 3 straight days at sea.

Now visitors have to be with a National Park Ranger/Guide, stay in a tight group and can only access a small part of the beach by the boardwalk. Life has definitely improved for the seals and their pups but photographers now need long lenses.
 

Click go the shears

 

I'm back from Adelaide in South Australia and  Kangaroo Island which is off the coast of the South Australian mainland, 75kms south of Adelaide

I'll put up most of the photos from Kangaroo Island over the next two weeks but I'll start with photos of sheep shearing which I shot there.

The photos were taken with my Leica Q3 43 and although they were shot in colour I feel that monochrome better suits the subject although I'm not 100% convinced this was the right call.

Along with an estimated one million kangaroos, eighty thousand koalas and thousands of seals, sealions and birds, Kangaroo Island is home to hundreds of thousands of sheep. Sheep farming, is the major industry on the island followed by tourism.

The sheep are predominantly Merinos bred for their highly prized wool. Eighty percent of the Australian wool clip is exported to China.

The photos show the farmer with one of his working dogs, an Australian Kelpie, mustering sheep and shearing.

 "Click go the shears" is the title of a traditional Australian bush ballad which describes a shearer's work using hand shearing scissors in the days before shearing cutters were electrically driven.

In the photos the shearer is putting on his shearing mocassins which protect the sheep's legs when the shearer stands on them to keep them down during the shearing.

Back problems were, and still can be, the bane of a shear's life but the development of the Back Aid, seen in the photos, significantly reduces but does not totally eliminate, the strain on backs.

The shearer removes the fleece in one piece and an expert or "gun" shearer can shear a sheep in under three minutes. 

The shorn sheep look naked but it is said they are relieved to lose their thick coats as they can hear better, feel lighter and are generally more comfortable.

After the fleeces are shorn they are individually assessed for wool quality and then pressed into a bale in a mechanical press. Details of the contents of the bale are stencilled onto it and then it is ready to be shipped most probably to China.

 

Light and shade

 We are experiencing the far edges of Cyclone Alfred today-very strong winds, driving rains and heavy seas. Not a good day to be out photographing and anyway I'm packing ready to head off to South Australia on Sunday. So this one is from the archives. An overlooked shot from a wonderful trip to Oman in 2018.

Taken in Nizwar, Oman. It was a very hot day and I spotted this man hurryng across the courtyard to get out of the burning sun. I particularly like the shadow of the palm tree on the wall.

The early surfer

 

A lone surfer heading out for the first surf of the day on Terrigal Beach although the surf was almost non existent. I guess he decided that he'd got out of bed really early so he'd give it a try anyway. Nothing ventured nothing gained.