Listen to a storm Downunder! Kakadu National Park in Australia's Northern Territory

During a visit to Kakadu National Park in Australia's Northern Territory, it began to rain. The wind kicked up, and thunder rumbled in the distance.

Listen to the storm!

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For more one minute adventures around the world:
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Springtime Walk Through the Gardens of Versailles

Mongolia - Wind Across the Gobi 

Flying Foxes in Cairns, North Queensland, Australia

Baby Moose Loose in Alaska

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Experience Mamukala Wetland at Dusk - Kakadu, Australia

A healthy wetland teams with life. Australia's Northern Territory is the home of Kakadu National Park and Mamukala Wetland.

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As twilight falls, thousands of birds flock into the wetland for the night.  Life surrounds you in every direction.

Magpie geese are an iconic species of Australia's northern monsoonal wetlands.  Their black and white plumage is hard to miss, but on this day they were all smeared reddish-brown from feeding in the mud. 

An ancient species they diverged from the evolutionary branch containing all other modern water fowl in the late Cretaceous. They have a prehistoric look and as the only existing member of their primitive family, they are a living fossil. At the water's edge two pied herons hunt for small invertebrates and fish.

At the edges of the wetland wallabies forage. The droppings from thousands of birds nourish a rich green tapestry of plant life.

Kakadu is a treasure of wildlife diversity and human spirituality. 

Take a cruise on the Yellow Water 

and discover 

more Earth Minutes in Australia

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Meet The Platypus - Duck Bills and Fur from Down Under

2 unusual sisters swim in Sydney harbor's beautiful aquarium.

Ornithorhynchus anatinus - the platypus belongs to a sub-group of mammals (monotremes) that lay eggs instead of bearing live young.

Not much is cuter than the duck-billed platypus!

Watch their bright white eyelids close as they use their webbed front feet and beaver-like tail to dive and swim under the water! The platypus closes its eyes, ears, and nose each time it dives. 

 

Using electroreceptors on its bill, it can sense the faint electrical signals generated by muscular contractions of its prey- freshwater shrimps, tiny annelid worms and insect larvae.

Share another EarthMinute from Sydney Aquarium with a rare marine mammal, the dugong (Dugong dugon).

 

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Along with echidnas, Platypuses are grouped in a separate order of mammals known as monotremes - See more at: http://australianmuseum.net.au/Platypus/#sthash.kfACwoOf.dpuf

Along with echidnas, Platypuses are grouped in a separate order of mammals known as monotremes - See more at: http://australianmuseum.net.au/Platypus/#sthash.kfACwoOf.dpuf

Take a Wildlife Cruise on the Yellow Water, Kakadu, Australia

There are few places in the world with the primal feel of Kakadu. Take a cruise along the Yellow Water at sunset; Discover the birds and crocodiles that call it home.

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forest kingfisher (Todiramphus macleayil)

Kakadu National Park in Australia's Northern Territory is an area of humid forest and extensive wetlands. It is a sacred place to the Aboriginal people and a World Heritage Site.

Here thousands of birds shelter in the wetlands and forest, while saltwater crocodiles lounge along the river banks and fiercely protect territory.

female saltwater crocodile

In a two-hour cruise with an Aboriginal guide, we saw thirty-five species of birds, including: five species of heron/egrets and three species of kingfishers.

little kingfisher

 The little kingfisher (Ceyx pusillus) is the smallest kingfisher in the world. This tiny hunter is only the size of a hummingbird, yet it plunges down into the water to grab minnows with the same skill as its larger relatives.

Kakadu is a special wild place, one not to be missed. We planned our whole visit there using their amazing website http://www.parksaustralia.gov.au/kakadu/

More Earth Minutes with Australian birds:
Seabirds on Australia's Great Barrier Reef, Queensland, Australia

More Earth Minutes in Australia

Experience a New Earth Minute each Week

Meet the Dugong

Share a minute with a rare marine mammal, the dugong (Dugong dugon).

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Most Americans are familiar with the endangered Caribbean manatee (Trichechus manatus), a slow moving herbivorous mammal that swims in shallow warm waters from Florida and the Caribbean to coastal South America. The dugong is related to the manatee, but it lives in the Pacific Ocean from Micronesia and the Philippines to Taiwan, South East Asia, and Indonesia to northern Australia and the Pacific islands. Unfortunately, only the Australian population is monitored and there is concern that this gentle plant-eater may be disappearing across much of its territory.

Watch the dugong swimming and you will note that it has a fluked tail like a dolphin, rather than a spoon-shaped manatee tail. The dugong swims faster than the manatee and is known to travel further when migrating. 

However, because it lives across a wider area, little is known about wild dugongs except that they eat sea grass. They are important creatures in their marine ecosystem because their grazing encourages the growth of sea grass higher in nutrients. In captivity, dugongs are picky eaters, refusing more nutrient-rich greens and preferring romaine lettuce. 

Unfortunately, romaine is low in nutrients. It takes a crew of people to keep the dugongs healthy. They refill special feeding trays all day long that hold the lettuce upright underwater like sea grass. 

Like their closest land-relative, the elephant, dugongs can live to around age 70. They also do not reach sexual maturity until after 10 years old and mothers care for their offspring for several years, spacing calves three to seven years apart. They are very slow to reproduce. 

In 2014 there are only five dugongs in captivity in the world. The two pictured here are orphaned individuals that were unable to survive in the wild.  (more about Pig and Wuru at the Sydney Aquarium in Australia).

See more Australian wildlife:
Cape Tribulation, Queensland - Watch Green Tree Ants
See Natural Art on a Tropical Australian Beach (sand dabbler crabs)
Flying Foxes in Cairns, North Queensland, Australia
Sea Birds on Great Barrier Reef, Queensland, Australia  
Spotting a Lace Monitor in the Wild
Australian Great Barrier Reef Swim (parrot fish, zebra fish, giant clams, coral)

Swim over to The Earth Minute each week for a new one-minute adventure.