COG visits the dry dry hills of Googong

8 members gathered at the foreshores carpark near the dam wall at Googong.  Presumably most potential attendees had seen the BoM weather forecast  (8-20mm of rain and thunderstorms).  Or perhaps they had looked at a weather site on the internet last evening, showing massive a massive band of storms stretching from Charleville to Albury.

 For those of us looking forward to some rain, the radar this morning looked more like SNAFU: a dribble going down the far side of the Brindabellas and the main body heading for Sydney.

 Driving down the hill into Queanbeyan the murk made me think the radar might have got it wrong and a deluge was approaching.

To get the weather chat out of the way, the radar was spot on and the forecast was FUBAR.  No rain fell during the outing.

The queue of traffic coming out of the suburb of Googong was appalling.  It was reminiscent of Jerrabomerra or Gunghastly at their worst.   I was able to ignore all that - but after leaving the houses behind, didn't ignore the two roos that went across my bows at warp factor 7.  I noticed the typical Icon Water welcome to the area.

 This shows the route we took on the walk, with the outwards  leg sticking close to the water.

It was obvious that the dam is way below full.  According to Icon's website it is  67% of capacity - and I don't fancy their chances of filling it from Angle Crossing any time from now!

There were some good sightings close to the start including a Dusky Woodswallow building a nest in the slightly eroded top of a fence post.  A Whiskered Tern was seen flying across the water and a Pied Stilt wading on the edge.

In contrast to my dry run last Saturday there were good numbers of waterfowl visible on the dam including Pacific Black Duck, Australian Wood Duck, Grey Teal, Hardhead and both small Grebes.  Little Pied, Little black and Great Cormorants were mainly decorating dead trees on the bank.

Some eucalypts were flowering and were attracting some insects.

 This didn't seem to be attracting many birds although we did record several species of Honeyeater (Yellow-faced; White-eared and Fuscous Honeyeaters, Red Wattlebird, Noisy Friarbird and Noisy Miners.  The Apple tree was not attracting any wildlife.

 Neither was this Acacia rubida.

 A small flock of Dusky Woodswallows were also in the dead trees

 There were quite a few clusters of Stackhousia monogyna ...

... and a few Bulbine bulbosa (Bulbine lilies).

Overall the group scored 52 species as detailed in https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S49242141 with a few extras seen by members who arrived early or stayed on.