Yanchep National Park

Visited: summer

Recommendation: This is a very popular area for family recreation but there is a huge amount of wildlife to see as well. It is a must do if you are in Perth.

Yanchep is just north of the northern suburbs of Perth. It is a pleasant township and just further inland is the National Park. It's one of the most commercialised national parks I've ever been to but it's done very well. There's a campground, an inn that you can stay at, tea rooms and numerous picnic areas spread all around the main car parks. All this human activity doesn't seem to disturb the wildlife too much - there are kangaroos everywhere. In the evening and the morning you can see them lounging around the lawn in the middle of the campground. If you're wanting photographs of western greys and this is the place to come. 

There are numerous walking tracks around the park and the best place to start is by the tea rooms. There are several water fountains here and outside the inn. You can see ravens, Galah, ringnecks etc come in to drink. Just in between these two areas are the Koala gardens. I got quite excited to know there was a Koala boardwalk, thinking it was through the forest and you could try and spot wild Koala. It is actually an enclosure for rehabilitated Koala so that didn't really do it for me. It was cool to see them though. 

Koala (Phascolarctos cinereus)

I stayed the night at the campsite and there were plenty of critters there that are not the most welcome kind. I had about six ticks find their way into my camper van which was quite disturbing. Maybe the number of kangaroo present was the problem. I didn't get bitten though thankfully. The next morning I was up and out at around six starting with the short walk from the campground over to the centre of the park. The track was very peaceful and pretty through woodland. It was relatively cool and I could see and hear the parrots, thornbill and fairywren 

Australian Maned Duck (Chenonetta jubata)

An unfamiliar call, which I had to search through the bushes to find the owner of, turned out to be a young White-breasted Robin. This was my first one of the season as I moved south. I was starting to see more of the western varieties birds, a sure sign the environment was again changing from the dry heat of the north. 

Moving back towards the inn I could hear Carnaby's Black Cockatoos calling on and off. I sat by the water fountain to see if they would come down to drink. I did get nice shots of the Galah and Ringnecks. 

28 Ringneck Parrot (Barnardius zonarius semitorquatus) 

Australian Magpie (Gymnorhina tibicen)

Eventually the Carnaby's come closer. 3 of them sat above me, then 10 and after 10 minutes, there was at least 25 of them. They took off, heading for the Koala enclosure. I followed them and sure enough, they were in the trees and coming down to drink from the water troughs. It was very special to watch them.

Carnaby's Black-Cockatoo (Zanda latirostris) 

I stopped off at Yanchep for a couple more nights on my way back into Perth and this time I was absolutely amazed at an early morning wake up call of well over a hundred Carnaby's Black Cockatoo. They were in the trees around the Koala enclosure, drinking at the lake and hooning around everywhere in between. The spectacle was quite incredible.