The lake is very forlorn. It does not take miraculous powers to walk across it these days.
This poor pelican is desperately trying to pretend that he is in a real water course. Some people have been very worried about him, but I'm sure that when he's ready to move on he will do so.
We are more fervently praying for rain than any time I can recall. The weather is increasingly looking like it might rain soon, but we now need something like a flood to put everything back to normal.
I was very surprised to see this kangaroo hop across our street just up from my house. It seemed to be coming up from the lake and took off across the railway tracks.
One thing leads to another! I was searching for Narrabri on google maps to see if that poor peican was near enough the ocean to be able to fly to more suitable conditions when I found that the Australia Telescope Compact Array is close to you. How very interesting. Have you ever been there?
ReplyDeleteYes it's a fascinating place.First pelicans though. Australian pelicans are not limited to the coast. As you would have found we are a long way inland. They basically fly right across the continent to anywhere there is water. There is a big salt lake in the middle of the country called Lake Eyre which a few times a century fills up with water and literally millions of pelicans flock there to breed and then fly out when it dries out again.Our little fellow just has to travel a kilometre to the Namoi River. From there he can make his way upstream to the mountains where there are several dams and then its all downhill to the coast!The telescope is a wonderful place. It's a radio telescope with 6 or so dishes on a railway track which they can move either close in or far apart depending on the radio frequencies and the resolution they want to achieve at a particular time. It also links up with the radio telescope at Parkes (about 400 km south- the site of the movie "The Dish" was instrumental in bringing to earth the first images of Neil Armstrong on the moon) and at Coonabarabran about 120 km south to produce an effective antenna size of 400 km length. There are also other facilities for studying the sun, cosmic rays etc.There is a photo of the dishes at http://www.new-life.org.au/images/telescope.gifWe also have cotton research and wheat research facilities near the town so many scientists living here and passing through.
ReplyDeleteGood to know about the pelican. Ours seem to stay muh closer to salt water, but then the state is pretty narrow, it's hard to be here and not be close to salt water.I saw that movie some time ago - very interesting! Narrabri sounds very diversified.
ReplyDeleteIt's an amazing place!
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