Hanging Out At Kingfisher Park

For a few (often soggy) days, we’ve been hanging out here at Kingfisher Park Birdwatcher’s Lodge. It is a place that I love. Lynn has had some much needed down time and I know she has been enjoying that. I have been getting out and doing some birding and wandering in the mornings and I need to do that, or I go even more crazy than I already am. I am grateful when we can reach balances. That is sometimes difficult in this journey.

Carol and Andrew Iles, the owners of KP are delightful. These are funny, fun, smart, caring and very knowledgeable people, who I consider friends. I know that Andrew would hate for me to tell people how nice he is, but he will probably never read this so I am safe. We will be heading north tomorrow to areas again where there will probably be no internet or mobile signal, and I wanted to post some photos from our few days here. I sometimes find myself just looking, more than photographing, and that is both good and bad. I do want to share the visuals with y’all, so I try and remember to take some pictures, but sometimes I forget. Anyway here are some photos…
 

I was walking up Mt. Lewis when this little bit of gorgeousness hopped up beside me. I love me some Double-eyed Fig-parrots! 

Looking out off Mt. Lewis.

The road up the mountain.

The old man on the mountain... rainforest selfie.

Spotted Catbird on the mountain.

Spectacled Monarch

Another of the insanely cute Double-eyed Fig-parrot

Another walk not far down the road from KP 

Beautiful but filled with mozzies!

Little Shrike-thrush is not bothered by mozzies.             

At the end down there is where we saw Fig-parrots last year and to my right and behind me is where we saw White-browed Crakes last year. It was a bit quiet this year, but lush, green and lovely.         

The cane fields next door viewed from the creek.

I love this track.

There was a family of Brown Quail, but I only seem to have photographed one.

One of the family of Brown Quail 

Keeping it real. Ugh. As I’ve mentioned in several previous entries, things aren’t always all shits and giggles out here. Life is complex, more complex than life birds and selfies. I am grateful, but. There’s a sentence for you. Years ago I read somewhere that when you add “but” to a sentence, you are negating everything that came before it. But… I AM grateful. I am also struggling every day (particularly during that deadly awake time just before actually getting up) with depression and anxiety. Yes, as I am experiencing these magnificent areas, there is often a massive, metaphorical cloud above me. Part of this is my natural tendency toward anxiety and depression, but I am also struggling with the fact that we have to return to the US in September and we have no settled plan for what we’re going to do, or how we are going to do it. No, I am not sure what the future holds and I am not good with that kind of not knowing. But… (I cannot not use that word) as John Lennon said, “It will all be okay in the end, and if it’s not okay, then it’s not the end.” I am grateful for those words and for that thought.

Peace. Love. Birds. Truth.