Albert Park and Nearby

On Bastille Day I took myself for a walk along the North Shore of Albert Park Lake and past MacRobertson Girls School (which seems to be referred to, for efficient use of breath, as Mac Rob) to the tram stop at Toorak Rd.  It is about 4.5km including the stretch from 505 to the Pavillion.  Here is the route.

For those interested in other sorts of efficiency than use of breath, the sight of these 4 cranes all set up on the Pits (and it is metaphorically 'the pits') site offers scope for thought.  As nothing on the site is more than 3 m high why do they need 4 cranes with a lift of about 20m each?  (Possible answers include: the rain might cause buildings to grow very suddenly; and someone's brother-in-law had 4 cranes not otherwise engaged.)

There must have been more recent rain than I was aware of as the water level in the Lake seemed to be a bit higher than it has been recently (good) but the water - especially in the SE Conservation Ponds appeared to be more turbid than usual (bad).

The reeds in the more Northern parts of these ponds seemed to have taken a bit of a dive.  These Dusky Moorhens seemed to be enjoying the higher than usual view.

Here is the Big Tree newly entered on the Heritage Register.  It really is impressive.

A small, but very vocal, flock of Long-billed Corellas were exploring the palms for some reasons of their own.  The long bill is quite obvious in this snap.

There were quite a few Coots in the Southern Part of the Lake (I guessed 150) but a very large number in the Northern half.

I put a dot on each Coot in the image, changing from orange the pink after 100.  This lets me avoid missing birds or duplicating and I arrived at 134 Coots in the image.  As a guess this was about 1/3rd of the Coots I could see, so I estimate there were 400 Coots in the Northern half of the Lake and its surrounds.

Australian White Ibis seemed to be everywhere, including a number setting up home on Gunn Island.  I didn't look at the Southern side of the island but wrote down a count of 86 that I could see.  (My ebird list for the South is here.)

I thought there was something like a neologism with the phrase 'stealing golf' in this sign.    I am advised it refers to folk playing on the course without rendering unto the lessees the relevant shekels.

After passing Mac Rob and scaling the footbridge over Kingsway I came across this very pleasant example of Street Art.  Google lens advises the work is a 20-meter high mural in Bowen St, South Melbourne (heading from Mac Rob to the Toorak Rd tram stop,  honoring Boonwurrung matriarch and trailblazer for Aboriginal rights, Louisa Briggs: a very feisty lady indeed.  The mural was painted by street artist Pete CTO.