Surf Coast – Page 5

Guess who is 28! Technically, I’m now 28 and one week old. One would hope my advanced age would bring more wisdom and maturity. Alas, I have to disappoint.

I normally hate birthdays. They often trigger my anxiety. For the past 7 years, I’ve tried to go on an adventure with the family on my birthday so I don’t get too stressed out. On this day, I was planning to bus it out to St Leonards and explore the nature reserve there. Then it got to the night before and I decided that I couldn’t be arsed getting up that early.

My friend Carolyn offered to take me adventuring around the Otways for the day and I immediately took her up on it. I love the Otways and the Great Ocean Road. I love the wildlife diversity there. The places I’m keen to visit aren’t really need bus stops.

It was such a brilliant day. It was borderline spiritual. Our first stop was Point Addis to find the elusive rufous bristlebird.

We ended up stopping at multiple points along the road. I’m not too familiar with the area so can’t describe where we stopped. Fortunately, I’m only too aware of my lack of skills when it comes to directions and took photos of every single sign. Hey, it helps.

As soon as we got out of the car we found the bristlebird! It was amazing, I’d love to spend a couple of hours here just photographing the bird. Other friends have said they were unable to spot the bird on their visits but it’s hard to feel sorry for them as they got great views of an albatross.

The bird seems to have such character. In a weird way, it reminded me of a bush turkey. I did a quick dance when I saw my first ‘birthday lifer’. Apparently that can make them more cautious. It did come back out briefly for a few more shots. I’m very keen to return, perhaps with Sethy, to watch it again.

It was ironic. Last year, on my birthday, I had tried to get to the Aireys Inlet lighthouse in the hopes of seeing a bristlebird. We didn’t even make it to the lighthouse, we were so busy exploring the marine reserve below. It was lovely seeing it from afar and reinforced my desire to walk the surf coast walk.

Another sign. Because you need them.

This bird as a struggle to ID. Carolyn had seen a couple of species of honeyeater – white eared, yellow faced and possibly singing – but it didn’t look like the ones that she had named. I thought it may have been a crescent and it turned out I was right. Someone did comment that it looked like a scarlet but that was dismissed.

The crescent isn’t as obvious as the images in the field guide, which is something that confused me. Pink robins are also found in that car park. Tim Dolby commented that they move into the area in autumn/winter when the ironbark is flowering.

I need to learn what Ironbark is. Like all twitches though, I learned a lot.

The following pictures show some of the fungi and signs along the main road to the Point Addis lookout. We hadn’t even gotten to the awesome part yet.