Beez Neez now Chy Whella

Wildlife Park

Big Bear and Pepe Millard

Wed 5 Nov 2014 23:27

Waterways Wildlife Park

No sooner than we were through the gate of Waterways Wildlife Park than we were greeted to these cheeky visitors helping themselves at the dripping tap.

I fell big time for this galah, he was smart, pretty and didn’t scream. I went so far as to think he could ‘be the one’ Bear could have when we leave in Beez as I think our teak may survive as his beak wasn’t an armoured threat. The next two chaps were a definite ‘no’ because of their shouting, the paradise parrot and the cockatoo.

The parrot family here covers so many bright pyjamas, beaks and noises.

The white and red-tailed cockatoos were indeed the loudest of all, and my, did they inflict damage to their homes.

This has got to be the weirdest chap we have ever met. The tawny frogmouth. He may look a bit like an owl because of the shape of his head and night time hunting, but, his nearest relative is the nightjar. His Latin name is podargus strigoides. He lives in forests, woodland and trees along water courses. He eats invertebrates including scorpions, spiders, centipedes and also frogs. His voice is a pulsating “omm oom” repeated quickly ten to fifty times in succession. His nest is a flimsy ten to thirty centimeter in diameter platform of crisscrossed twigs on the horizontal fork of a tree.

It was lovely to see a masked owl and one hiding. Then Katy kookaburra but she was a little loud.

“Do you want me this way” asked the skittish ostrich, to be honest I was far more intrigued by his foot, absolutely prehistoric.

This bad-tempered ostrich dwarfed the fallow deer next door and the emu across the way.

What the emu lacks in height compared to the ostrich he surely makes up for in other ways........................

...........................I was just admiring their jackets when one leant forward and what shot out was nothing short of rude, wet, huge and frankly offensive, then carried on drinking with a look of complete innocence. Huh.

An odd line up.

Cute looking dingoes but not to be taken for granted.

The massive and very imposing wedge-tailed eagle has a wing span of eight feet and can weigh up to sixteen pounds. Aquila cudax live throughout Australia and Tasmania. They are found from arid desert, savannah, subalpine and littoral regions. They take carrion from rabbits, hares, foxes, reptiles, birds even sheep and joeys. They are a very common sight but are protected in most places.

Some tired and sleepy things that didn’t rush over to see us.

The faithful ‘guard dog’ strutted his stuff making a lot of noise.

Lady Amherst’s pheasant reminded me of the ‘daytime, night time’ chap when he put up his collar.

Some ‘one careful owners’ for Bear to try out.

To Colin & Nancy Small and all their friends and supporters for sharing this great ‘little zoo’, a real treasure in New South Wales, thank you. Our final creatures are of course the ones we have to say “a very big thank you” to for bringing us.

After our thrilling time with the koala bears, I just had to nip back and say ‘bye bye’ to my new friend, as I was off in a rush he didn’t raise his hat for me but he did give a cheeky whistle.