Alice Springs Desert Park

Our second day in Alice Springs we travelled a bit farther afield and took a few hours at the Alice Springs Desert Park. This is an amazing place. It is a little like a zoo, but only in places; a little like an open piece of desert, but only in places; and an all around great place to go. Mornings are best because it really does get hot.

Above, is the Spinifex Dove, a colorful relative to our old friend the crested dove. You'd be amazed to see how easily these animals disappear against the red desert sand and rocks.

At several locations, a shelter was built and in front of it was a large netted area filled with animals, mostly birds. These viewing stations had a source of water inside and made for a wonderful place to see the local wildlife without having to chase it for kilometers across the open desert.

One of these gentle enclosures contained Orange Chats. These are striking birds that really catch your eye.

Another brightly colored bird here is the Red-Capped Robin. I found him to be captivating to watch.

A relative of the Masked Lapwing that is so ubiquitous is the Banded Lapwing. Even without the mask, the facial bits are still distinctive. You can just tell at the bottom of the image that the bird has purple legs.

There was an enclosure for Red Kangaroos. There were, quite sensibly, resting in the shade to stay cool.

At mid-morning, there was a demonstration at a small covered amphitheater where we were treated to a display of agility and cleverness by several birds of prey. First up was the Whistling Kite. This fellow demonstrated something that the park ranger explained was a self-taught trick. This bird could open an Emu egg. He was given a fake egg and he showed how he did it. Pretty amazing. These birds aren't really known for doing this in the wild, although I suppose they could be doing it and no one is aware. This one seems to have taught himself.

One of the stars of the show was the Barn Owl. A skilled flier and a beauty to watch in action.

At another one of the sheltered oases, we saw the White-Winged Fairy Wren, another relative of the many blue fairy wrens we see around the country.

Finally, just for good measure, we saw good selection of lizards (no, Frilled Lizards are found here). Among them was the Spiny Tailed Australian Skink. This guy reminds me of the cartoon that we see that showing critters crawling out of the muck as part of the evolutionary shift. He just seems to be a skink caught in mid transition.

We saw lots of other animals here, too many to catalog. However, by noon it is getting really darned hot and we retreated to the air conditioned cafe for a bit of lunch and some ice cream.