Well, another blog post after being away in the southwest Kimberleys at Camballin for two weeks, down south of Perth for a fauna clearing and a computer crash that wiped out the hard-drive.
This was our camp at Camballin for about two weeks. A basic public camping area on the Fitzroy River about 2 hours east of Derby, with fly nets as home, a small caravan as kitchen and 42 degree temperatures most days.
The Camballin Barrage Dam, one of our main washing and water obtaining areas while at camp. At night with a light you could see all the Freshwater Crocodile eyes shining. It seems that there would be no reason why you could not get to big Saltwater Crocodiles below the dam!
The story goes that you should not go to the same spot at rivers up north, because the saltwater croc, the first time he sees you, second time he plans, third time he gets you!
A story also goes that the northern Aborigines, if they did cross in the same spot a number of times, would cross a river with the old people going last, because the croc would usually grab the last person. If you lost an old person, it was no big deal!
One of the many beautiful Boab trees in the survey area. These trees when in flower are one of the best place to see birds, with many of the nectar-feeding birds, like honeyeaters feeding here all day.
The small silvery acacias had huge amounts of seed pods, attracting large numbers of cockatoo and parrot species.
We caught over 40 species of reptiles in the survey area. This is one of the beautiful small burrowing snakes of the Kimberley area, a Northern Shovel-nosed Snake (
Brachyurophis roperi).
Another nice inhabitant of the area, often found basking on fence posts as you drive along fencelines. A Central Netted Dragon (
Ctenophorus nuchalis), who managed to give a good nip to a finger when being caught!
Once caught, he's happy just to sit around and get some more warmth.
