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Bangalley Headland
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Introduction
A relatively hard walk, 45 leisurely minutes return on a loop route. Highlights: a rugged climb to the highest point on Sydney's northern coastline, with spectacular views and an abundant variety of native wildlife.
Urban wildlife
As our cities grow and grow, our local wildlife finds fewer and fewer wild places to live. Some have taken refuge in our roofs or under our building debris. Most have been driven away by the aggressive nature of domestic and introduced animals. Fortunately for us, many bushland areas in Pittwater have been conserved as valuable refuges for native wildlife. A quiet walk through any of these will reveal the wild delight of the sights and sounds of native animals.
The wildlife wonders of Bangalley Head
Bangalley Head stands as the highest point and one of the largest bushland reserves on Pittwater's coastline. This large size together with the great variety of native plants in the reserve, makes Bangalley Head a virtual paradise to many forms of wildlife.
Native birds - such as honeyeaters, spinebills, finches and wrens - feed, breed and shelter amongst the dense thickets of coastal scrub and pockets of rainforest plants. Small mammals, including the long-nosed bandicoot and the brown marsupial mouse, shelter in rock overhangs and crevices, or in dead logs in the eucalypt forest. Lizards and snakes sun themselves lazily on the open rocky platforms, although always wary of any hungry kestrel which may be soaring overhead.
Wildlife walking
To give yourself the best chance to see wildlife slow down and walk quietly. Occasionally stop, sitting down to look and listen, as often curious bush birds will come close to you. Be creative, if you try to imitate some of the wildlife sounds you may be rewarded - by practising some kissing sounds you may find a feathered partner.
Flower power
Spring means a profusion of flowers on the coastal heathland, and flowers mean sweet, sweet nectar. Luckily there's always plenty to go around, as the insects, birds and mammals all find the nectar irresistible.
Sharing is made easier since the insects are attracted to the green or white flowers while the birds and mammals prefer the orange or tawny ones. But birds and mammals like a balanced diet, and so they supplement their sugary nectar meals with the protein-rich insects.
Be a shape detective
Look carefully at the shape of any flowers you see around you, and you may discover its secrets. Banksia flowers, for example, are shaped so that their nectar - which is produced throughout the day and night - is easily reached by most mammals. Others, like the native fuschia heath, have tubular flowers which can only be fed upon by long-beaked birds such as the eastern spinebill, or by insects, like the native bee, small enough to climb right down inside. Of course, these plants are not really trying to provide a free meals service, but are attracting animals needed to carry pollen from one flower to another.
Birds in the bush
A walk in the coastal heathland will almost certainly be accompanied by the constant flight and chatter of tiny native birds such as fire-tails, finches and superb blue fairy wrens. These are well suited to the thick, bushy vegetation, as their small size enables them to move quickly through the dense foliage. They dart among the bushes chasing insects, or sit lightly on thin branches sucking nectar from the flowers, or escape into the tree-tops of the eucalypt forest if predators appear.
Working the night shift
You may be forgiven if, after a daytime walk, you think there are no mammals around Bangalley Head. But don't be fooled! By day, most of the local mammals - brush-tailed possums, long-nosed bandicoots, echidnas and brown marsupial mice - sleep cosily in the hollow of dead trees. But at night they're busy indeed, searching for insect adults or grubs, seeds or fruits, or the nectar from sweet-scented flowers like banksias. Then, at dawn, they disappear again. They do leave traces, though, in the form of their droppings shown below.
Keep your eyes open, and perhaps you'll see some of these clues to Bangalley's nocturnal wanderers.
Life's dramas at your feet
Don't forget the soil! All the dramas of nature - birth, death, capture, escape, survival - are repeated in miniature among the millions of microscopic animals that busy themselves in the bushland soil. They all play a part in breaking down and recycling nature's debris, keeping the soil, and in turn the plants, alive.
But not all soil creatures are microscopic. Look closely at the sandy soil under a rock ledge and you may find a funnel-shaped hole, about 5 centimetres wide. This is the home - and food trap of an insect called an ant-lion.
Ants venture or fall into the hole as they wander on the soil surface. Unable to climb up the slippery, sandy sides of the funnel, they slide down into the waiting jaws of the ant-lion. The fierce ant-lion later evolves into a delicate and beautiful dragonfly-like insect, called a lacewing.
Related Info
- Brochure 'Bangalley Head - Self Guided Walk' (PDF)
- To find out more about Bangalley Headland, read its Plan of Management