Wonderful as are the “giant” trees in WA’s southwest, their forests’ understorey is every bit as splendid, and is also unique.
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Eucalyptus Jacksonii is one of three Tingle species; the other two are less gigantic, but still very substantial.
All have very thick “skins”, as pictured.
They occur only within the “Walpole Wilderness”.
Like their “biggest brother”, a Rate’s tingle (Eucalyptus brevistylis) or a yellow tingle (Eucalyptus guilfoylei) can live for 400 years.
It appears increasingly likely that no 21st century “newborn” is even remotely likely to attain such a lifespan.
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The photo shows part of the base of a Red Tingle, Eucalyptus Jacksonii; no other Eucalypt attains a greater girth.
The pictured example is not as “obese” as the nearby “Giant Tingle Tree”, but it is also several hundred years old, and massive.
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You are looking at new growth on a very old, very large tree.
The Red Tingle – Eucalyptus Jacksonii – is a survivor, just, from a much wetter time.
Its “suitable habitat” has shrunk to a tiny portion of Western Australia’s south coast; almost all of it within Walpole-Nornalup National Park, which contains the wettest part of southern Western Australia.
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Mandalay Beach is near Walpole, in Western Australia’s “Deep South”.
I have seen many wild ocean beaches – on every continent, bar Antarctica.
Mandalay Beach – named after a ship that was wrecked there in 1911 – is one of my all time favourites.
It is really wild (do not swim there) but easy to reach; any able-bodied, sensible driver of a 2WD vehicle will easily “manage” both the track that leads off the South Coast Highway and the short walk from car park to beach.
In every direction, the vistas are splendid.
However, you should never forget, also, to keeping look down to the sand at your feet. (ditto the rocks, any clefts therein, and the rock pools)
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Lustful, too!
East of the Nullarbor Plain, when an Australian talks of “blue wrens”, chances are they are Superb Fairy-wrens, Malurus cyaneus.
Superb Fairy-wrens do not exist on the WA side of the Nullarbor.
There – at least in WA’s southern half – the (equally superb) blue wren in question is usually the Splendid Fairy-wren, Malurus splendens.
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Anyone who pays close attention to small birds surely cannot fail to marvel at their hyperactivity, their agility, and how radically and swiftly their appearance changes.
From one nanosecond to the next, the very same individual can appear remarkably different in shape, colour, size…and attitude.
All photos feature New Holland Honeyeaters attending the very same Grevillea, adjacent to the eastern wall of a house in Walpole, in Western Australia’s “Deep South”.
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This post is a teaser: each subject of its four photographs will soon be explored further, in its own particular post.
All photos copyright Doug Spencer, taken in February 2022.
The first two images were both taken just a few steps outside of the house in which we stayed in Walpole.
Above, feeding, (& probably pollinating the Grevillea) is a New Holland Honeyeater Phylidonyris novaehollandiae.
Immediately below, flaunting, is a male Splendid Fairy-wren Malurus splendens.
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It is pleasingly hard to believe that such wonderfully wild, unspoilt shoreline could be so very easy to reach.
All photos copyright Doug Spencer, 14 September 2020.
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