Devils Marbles

Visited: dry season

Recommendation: As well as being culturally significant, the region is beautiful and there is a lot of wildlife. I'm not sure I would make a trip specifically to the area but I would certainly stop there again if I was travelling around Tennant Creek. 

The Devils Marbles are a unique geological formation located south of Tennant Creek. They are a group of large, smooth, spherical boulders scattered across a red sand plain. The marbles are made of granite and are believed to have formed millions of years ago through erosion and weathering.

You have to spend a few days at here to really appreciate it. It kind of just looks like a collection of these rounded rocks when you first get there. But there is quite a lot more to it than that. There are lovely walks in and around the marbles. There are some very attractive lookouts where you get great views of the marbles themselves, particularly at sunrise and sunset. The campsite is basic, but it's perfectly fine. I spent several nights here and I went from thinking, I'm not going to have enough to do any kind of post for my blog, to having too much stuff. 

The Slater's Ring-tailed Dragon is very small and it's got that kind of distinctive rounded mouth of like the Netted Dragon. The colours are quite variable, but I really did like how the rich redness of this one that I found. The Gilbert's dragon was another new species for me. It's part of the two-lined dragon family and I think they're reasonably common. 

In the air, the Black-faced Cuckooshrike were wheeling around in a familial group. This one I found to be quite a dark grey but very attractive nonetheless. They are adaptable birds, found in various wooded habitats across Australia, including forests, woodlands, and even suburban areas. Known informally as "Shufflewing", they have a peculiar habit of shuffling their wings upon landing. 

There were lots of bush birds here, which surprised me because there wasn't an awful lot of bush just low-lying scrub. But the ubiquitous fairywren were there in numbers. I only saw the Purple-backed and as usual, I had to chase them around for a while to get the male out in the open. It led me to one of the lookouts, where you can actually scramble up onto the rocks and look out to the north of the site. 

Down on the ground by one of the car parks, I found the Red-browed Pardalote and I always think these guys are just fascinating. They actually raise that crest while they're calling. And you can see in this photograph, this bird is just starting or just finishing doing just that. I actually think the spotted crest is actually more striking than the red brow.  

There were Weebill calling all over the place, and their little two-note call always gives them away. They're Australia's smallest bird, supposedly. I'm not totally convinced of that. They're certainly not that much smaller than the Red-browed Pardalote.