Wet places of Northish Canberra

I have used the term Northish since none of the material herein is from North Canberra SSD.  In fact a couple of items refer to places South of Lake Burley Griffin.  However since the Southern end of Canberra these days seems to be outer Cooma, all these areas are well North of the Southern bits.

Driving out to the Northern extremities (Forde again) I noticed fire "prevention" was happening.  I guess it keeps the firies off the streets,
Entering the suburb I was taken by this sign,
There were no unusual Rails etc visible at the Pond, although some clucks and squawks were coming from a dense patch of reeds.  This male Hardhead was more obliging, showing its white eye.
A pair of Masked Lapwings gave me a fair swooping before one of them got back to the business of brooding!
 This Dusky (note colour of the back) Moorhen got reproduced under the 'spiffy image' rule!
 I then moved a bit South to Mackellar Pond where this Little Pied Cormorant posed nicely ..
 .. as did a White-faced Heron.
My next stop was Lake Ginninderra in an unsuccessful hunt for Night-herons.  I was successful with Red-rumped Parrots!  These images are both of males, proving that Ocker Psittacoides are very colourful!  The females are rather drab - but in both cases can be very hard to spot in shady grass.
 Click on this next one to get a bigger pic: really spiffy and shows the red rump (again).
This very pleasant carving was in the area where I saw the parrots but I couldn't find out any info about the work.
I passed Norgrove Park which was pretty much devoid of birds- the developments in the area seem to have made it unattractive to them.  So I moved on to Jerrabomberra Creek at the Tadorna Hide.  The best sighting there was a pair of Masked Lapwings with two fluffballs,  One of them is in the bottom of this image!
 Going to Fulica Hide I finally got to see Nankeen Night-herons - note the two plumes!
 If you click on this image there is a Night-heron at each edge, approximately in the middle vertically.  There are a couple more lurking further back in the mess - congratulations to Steve from COG for picking those up in this low quality image! I am used to seeing them quite high in trees rather than in flood debris close to the water,
My outing finished at the National Gallery of Australia where this Pacific Black Duck was flashing its green speculum in the pool around the Turrell!

Comments

Denis Wilson said…
Firies in Heaven.
'Twas a day for the Burn-offs, everywhere, it seems.
Great photos of the Hard Head, Red-rump Parrot and White-faced Heron.
Nice work.
Denis
5 September 2012 at 01:02:00 GMT+10
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