Eungella’s Favorite
November 2006
The creature everyone wants to see at Eungella National Park isn’t a bird but its name sounds like one: Ornithorhynchus anatinus (“bird-nosed duck-type”). Plus it lays eggs! Of course it’s the platypus.
Most places platypus are active at dawn or dusk, but at Eungella’s Broken River section they’re often swimming around foraging all day long. You simply need to be watching at the viewing platform long enough and one will eventually show up. Photographically, it’s something of a challenge. The river below the viewing platform is shaded apart from the middle of the day, so I was shooting at noon—harsh light with lots of distracting reflections. In addition the water was rather muddy and the surface was covered with fine dust, probably pollen, as well as some leaves. I used a polarizing filter on my 300mm IS lens to cut the glare for this shot. The most distracting surface particles were removed in Adobe Photoshop.
Of course there are plenty of birds at Eungella too. Biding my time until the light was right for the platypus, I wandered around the picnic area nearby. There I found a pair of Sulphur-crested Cockatoos checking out a large hole in a tree as a possible nest site. These noisy cockatoos are common nearly everywhere we’ve been. I was pleased to watch them doing some interesting natural behavior.