The Western Mosquito Plant

 We took ourselves out to the Western Treatment Plant (WTP) at Werribee, mainly because we hadn't been for a while and the Summer birds should be around.  I will comment that some of these photos are straight from Crap Bird Photography (CBP)  because the mosquito population (not standard mosquitos, as a bit bigger and apparently didn't bite) so perhaps better to just say Diptera) at times was reminiscent of a swamp in Canada.  

We started at the T-section ponds well down Port Wilson Rd.   Here is our route for that site.

We soon found a few waders, mainly tiny Red-necked Stints but also some larger Sharp-tailed sandpipers (with orange arrows).
Mozzies were very bad here so this pic of a Yellow-billed Spoonbill was taken through a closed and dusty car window
2 Cape Barren Geese.
A male White-fronted Chat.  They were present in many areas today.
Whiskered Terns were also a constant presence.  Despite appearances these are not perched on the backs of passing dolphins.
Our second site was the Western Lagoons.
Our main hope here was Brolgas and we eventually found two of them.
Too many Brolga photos are never enough.
I wish I could bend my neck - or indeed any part of my body - like that.
I am expecting an over-achievement award from CBP for this Great Egret.  But I do like the blowing aigrettes on the breast.
A Little Egret posed nicely, showing its nuptial plumes
On to Lake Borrie.
Good to see some Pink-eared Ducks, especially as the pink-ear is visible of the LH bird.

Another award winning shot of a Whiskered Tern flying by the car.  On the Eastern part of Lake Borrie they were in swarms.
A skulking Great Egret.
The 4th site was Paradise Road.  The stretch North of the road was very quiet
I got very excited looking at some ducks which looked to have ski-jump beaks.  Then the telescope was deployed and they became more Pink-eared Ducks.
We ended with a reasonable score of 53 species for the day.  There were few waders or crakes around the ponds and not many raptors.  2 or 3 birds of prey were but too far away or going too fast to ID.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A birdy walk at Albert Park

Image
 I hadn't been to Albert Park for a while and having paid for a tram ride to town and back in the morning it would cost me nothing to ride the rail to MSAC.  Well, nothing except a lot more time than expected and a rise in blood pressure.  The 16 tram took forever to arrive at 505 and then, at St Kilda Junction, the driver announced that as he was running late he was avoiding St Kilda and going along Dandenong Rd.  So half the passengers, including me got off and climbed on another #16 which was following. The #96 to get to MSAC turned up on Fitzroy quite quickly. Here is the route of my birding walk. The driving range was well covered with balls, but no indication how many shots were birdies. As soon as I got to the edge of the Lake (point1) I spotted the cocked tail of a Black-tailed Nativehen. A very good addition to my year list. The I spotted another bird of the same species. Eventually I got the two together. With some coots for comparison. Moving on around the...
Read more

Sparrows-R-Us

Image
 A birding friend recently sighting a Eurasian Tree Sparrow (ETS) in Woolworths at Altona.  This frustrated me as I had recently seen a sparrow in the store but had assumed it was a House Sparrow.  So today I went back loaded for Passerine, as ETS would be an addition to my Australian List.   I wandered up and down the aisles and round and round the store for 40 minutes.  Despite my atypical attire, equipment and behaviour no fellow shoppers queried me and security staff were not deployed.  Perhaps everyone assumed I was on day release from Collingwood?  They didn't even question me in the canned vegetable aisle - which is where I think my friend got her tick - when I played a little call back .  After about 40 minutes I left, pausing only to pay for some groceries. So I thought I would check out the car park area assuming the bird was was not an obligate shopaholic.  And there was a Sparrow! Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) my com...
Read more

Mentone and nearby

Image
 In my last post I mentioned getting my binoculars back from the zoo. I subsequently found that they had a problem focussing, such that they needed to visit binocular hospital.  For Swarovski, in Melbourne, that means Mentone Optical so we headed off there down the Nepean Highway.  Frances had found an Historic Walk around Mentone so we planned to do that once the patient had been ministered to.  The material for the walk included: "Parking is located at Mentone Railway Station and at the rear of Mentone Shopping Centre behind Mentone Parade " What the note didn't say was that nearly all the parking at the station and nearby would be taken, presumably by commuters and people going to the school!  We found a spot in a side street about 400m from the opticians (see X in map below).  Our approximate route is the yellow line. At the small station we noticed a memorial horse trough telling a sad story.  The trough was relocated here in 1990: one of the hors...
Read more