Beauty and many birds

This is the first of my posts about places I love. This spot is north of Gascoyne Junction on the Lyndon Towera Rd. It is very unassuming and you would never guess the beauty here unless you stop and look, walk and listen.

Country looking upstream of  the tree. You can see it is quite arid. The giant tree is probably fifty metres behind me.

There is a giant of a tree here, not tall, but broad and enveloping, spreading out along the creek bed for metres around. It is kind of at the beginning of the visible part of the creek drainage line. It must be extremely old as rainfall is sporadic and averages just over 200mm a year. I wonder how many people have sat under its spreading branches over its lifetime? We were there last year after good rains and there were small pools of water in the creek. A creek here is usually a dry sandy drainline recognisable from a distance by the larger trees which grow along it. 

General view looking 'upstream'

Fantastic branches reaching out to touch the ground 

A tangle of branches

Because there was still water around there were plenty of birds. From my diary: Curious noisy miners hopped in close to have a good look at me. A grey heron flew off. After dusk when the sky was pink and blue the budgies settled in the big beautiful trees with a great budgie chorus, chattering away until they settled. Crickets calling after dark. Heard the pied butcherbird calling from first light onwards till sunrise.

Pool in creek around which the birds congregated

Distant trill of spiny cheeked honeyeater. Chirrups of willy wagtail, bun bun balala near and far, a few zebra finches. Budgies after first rays of sunshine - they headed straight off into the distance. Pink and grey galahs after sunrise. Whirs of crested pigeons and diamond doves and bronzewings. White naped honeyeaters. Rufous song lark doing his display call. White browed babblers and their nests, squarkling and mewling. Magpies feeding in the surrounding claypan and mulgas, mudlarks flitting about the creek bed and up into the trees, plenty of weiros sitting in flocks in the trees, grey heron, singing honeyeater, wedge tailed eagle hunting and disturbing all the other birds. A veritable smorgasbord of birds. Plus plenty of animal tracks in the damp red sandy creek bed. 

Leaves hanging in the morning light

Shadows on bark