A couple more walks

Every morning we go for a walk around Nerang Pool.  We actually walk from our apartment but I only start recording birds once we've crossed Parkes Way. 
In the first week I have recorded 40 species on these walks, including Pied Cormorant, Latham's Snipe and (this morning) Superb Parrots.  8 Superbs flew over from the direction of City Hill - quite possibly some of the ANU flock - heading towards NGA.

 A point of interest on the walks is a conifer for which we have no idea of the species.  However a friend with more knowledge of exotic tree species than us (not hard to improve on zero) has suggested Dawn Redwood as a possibility

After crossing the footbridge we went to check this puddle for signs of the large carp we noticed there on the 27th.  It was almost out of water but we couldn't see it this morning.
Perhaps:

  • it had burrowed down into the mud?  
  • the RSPCA had rescued it?
  • someone had carp'n'chips for tea last night?
  • a predator had got it (although they would have trouble eating a fish that size).

We also noticed these holes in the mud which like prime yabbietat.
As the temperature had dropped by 10oC we decided to go and take a walk somewhere interesting.  Frances suggested West Belconnen Ponds which seemed like a good idea.  
The pond was well supplied with water and Eurasian Coots.  In total we scored 30 species here - more or less the usual suspects.
The hills in this view are across the impenetrable boundary of the NSW border
Our final stop was a little further South at Parkwood where we managed to crash the car through the barrier - shown as the red dashed line.
The aim of going there was to catch up on the grassland birds and raptors recently seen in the area.  We dipped on the raptors but got nice views of Brown Songlark....

... Australasian Songlark ....
... and Australasoian Pipet and heard a Sky;ark singing while ascending.  I decided that the Songlark was Bird-of-the-Day being less likely to be around in the middle of the year.

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