As has sort of become the custom, I spent today, my last full day in the area, trying to track down the things that Ihad missed so far. Pretty much at the top of this list was the Bower's Shrike-Thrush which just wouldn't cooperate as well as a number of species that I have seen but not photographed. The first stop of the day was at Granite Gorge, home to some amazingly tame Rock Wallabies that are an attraction for many visitors who feed them. After spending about an hour just after sunrise photographing these cute little wallabies, Iheaded off to Hasties Swamp where I was able to photograph the huge flock of Plumed Whistling-Ducks. These birds seem to always be in flocks, but this particular flock included at least 500 birds. From there it was off to do some more planning and then off to try for the shrike-thrush one last time.
I headed down to The Crater where I had seen the cassowary the other day hoping to have another opportunity at photographing him as well as the reasonably tame Bridled Honeyeaters in the parking lot. From there I headed down the road a bit and walked an old track that headed uphill through the rainforest. Just after starting up the track I finally stumbeld upon my Bower's Shrike-Thrush but not much else was around. On the way back to town I stopped in at Wongabel State Forest for a brief walk and it turned out to be the highlight of the day. As I was wandering through this nice bit of forest I rounded a corner and coming at me down the path was a Tree Kangaroo. We both froze, about 8 meters apart and just stared at each other for a couple seconds. I ever so slowly started to raise my camera, but he turned and hopped away as it was about half way to my eye. While Ihad seen one at night their striking features are hard to see so I was thrilled with this face to face encounter during late afternoon, a very rare experience. That sort of topped off my day so I returned back to the campsite very content.
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