Have you ever had sparrows, pigeons, seagulls, or even peafowl scrounging around you and annoying you while you're having a picnic? Here in Australia we have some slightly more disconcerting birds that can take to scrounging for crumbs and scraps. We recently visited Tower Hill (it’s near our Warrnambool housesit) in south-west Victoria for a walk and a picnic, and encountered some scrounging native birds that we don't often see – emus!
Here they are:
These guys weren't so much looking for crumbs or scraps, as for your entire sandwich in one beakful!
Emus are big birds - pretty much eye-to-eye with a human being, especially if you are sitting down, and they get a very intent, even obsessive look in their eyes when they are on the prowl!
Emus can be dangerous birds if they are unfamiliar with humans and feel threatened and in need of defending themselves. They are big, around one-and-a-half metres tall and forty-five kilograms, and have powerful legs with sharp claws. However, these particular birds were very confident and unthreatened by us, and were surprisingly easy to shoo-off. It's fun to watch the international tourists interacting with them. I was expecting some northern Europeans who were there to toss their lunch at the approaching emus and run for their lives, but they bravely defended their sandwiches and stood their ground, although, I think it was a stressful meal for them!
Tower Hill Wildlife Reserve
Tower Hill is an extinct volcano crater that last erupted 35,000 years ago. It consists of a partial crater rim with a central cone, and a lake in the space between them. Here’s a part of the rim and the lake viewed from the road on the way down into the crater:
This is the view of the crater rim and the lake seen from the central cone, with some black swans and other water birds:
There are plenty of walking tracks in Tower Hill Wildlife Reserve – we walked out to the Last Volcano, a small crater lake that was the site of the last volcanic activity in the area.
There’s plenty of wildlife around in the reserve – including at least one koala (asleep, as usual):
The local geology isn’t all volcanic – here’s a picturesquely eroded sedimentary bank:
And here’s a close up of those layers:
The layers of ancient igneous gravel looks like you could just scoop them out!
Tags
Previous post:
< Previous post
Next post:
future post >
Share this The Journey and the Destination post using your favourite social media:
Would you like to add something, or ask a question? Add a comment below (you can leave the 'Website' field blank):