Lamington National Park

Ben and I spent some time at Lamington National Park recently, located about an hour from Brisbane. We went on a 18K hike. There were sick leeches that attacked us. Besides those, there is some superb wildlife there. We got to see a Satin Bowerbird. The male bower bird constructs an elaborate nest, called a bower, to attract females. There are 17 different kinds of bower birds, all with different ways of decorating their nests. The Satin Bower Bird, like the one we saw at Lamington, finds items that are blue to decorate with. They will use feathers, pen caps or anything blue they can carry in their beaks. The reason we spotted it was because we first heard its call:
http://lamington.nrsm.uq.edu.au/MainMenu.html
Paste this link into your browser and click on the ear to hear it! Do it. To learn more about bower birds, go to this website:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/bowerbird/
The photo of the crustacean below is a Lamington Spiny Crayfish. They are so cute! When they feel threatened, they face you and snap their claws.