A day of waterbirds
A fairly quiet sunrise this morning.
In case we wondered how a streak of guano arrived on the window of the Jetta ...
After yesterdays epic 8km we decided to only do the first half(ish) this morning.
Once we had descended the Alpe du Karbeethong we heard a Superb Lyrebird exercising its voice, and then shaking its tail feathers. Hands up all those who remember Ray Charles in the Blues Brothers! On peering it was clear there were two of the species present. As walked down Lakeside Drive we saw another pair, and another single and then 3 ran across the road in front of us! They're everywhere - which is very far from a bad thing.
As we got close to the start of the houses of the village proper I remembered t take a snap of the most blossom laden eucalypt in the area.. It was getting a lot of attention from the Lorikeets.
Out in the Inlet was another large flock of feeding waterbirds.
I counted 42 Australian Pelicans in the flock as well as sundry Silver Gulls and Cormorants. For reasons unknown to me they suddenly all took off and flew about 300m to a fishing platform. They were still there when we arrived a few minutes later.
A single Crested Tern was on the platform and looking pretty miserable but it flew off quite happily.
Notice also the big pile of kelp. Sand was getting washed into it so it was becoming part of the beach.
As we walked back 3 more Oystercatchers arrived of which another also had a flag. Both have been reported to the Bird and Bat Banding Scheme.
After lunch and a rest we went to the poo pits. As we walked past the caravan storage we saw a flock of odd looking Starlings. Frances got her binoculars on them first and the oddness was explained: they were Crimson Rosellas - 78 of them!
The two little red arrows in that image point at two Jacky Winters perched on a fence.
There were good numbers of waterfowl on the ponds, although they were very skittish, which made estimating numbers difficult.
We added 10 species to the triplist today (which surprises me a little) giving a total of 80.
Once we had descended the Alpe du Karbeethong we heard a Superb Lyrebird exercising its voice, and then shaking its tail feathers. Hands up all those who remember Ray Charles in the Blues Brothers! On peering it was clear there were two of the species present. As walked down Lakeside Drive we saw another pair, and another single and then 3 ran across the road in front of us! They're everywhere - which is very far from a bad thing.
As we got close to the start of the houses of the village proper I remembered t take a snap of the most blossom laden eucalypt in the area.. It was getting a lot of attention from the Lorikeets.
I would describe this as a ruck, but in these days of wimpishiness if players in any code of football behaved this roughly they'd be cited by the tribunal for being Rough Boys and fined lotsa $. The Soccer Mummies who now run sport would be happy.
Our next walk was along Quarry Beach. We'd had a guessing game about how many Australian Pied Oystercatchers we'd see. I picked 4 and we found a group of the size at the far end of the beach. Here are half the group.
I spotted that the front one had been banded and was wearing a leg flag, which was quite exciting. It did of course conceal the flag when I tried to photograph it.
As we walked back 3 more Oystercatchers arrived of which another also had a flag. Both have been reported to the Bird and Bat Banding Scheme.
There were good numbers of waterfowl on the ponds, although they were very skittish, which made estimating numbers difficult.
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