Last few days in Australia.

I managed another trip to Wonga Wetlands yesterday morning and caught up with a few more species I'd missed the previous couple of trips. With recent rain there seemed to be a few more birds around! Unfortunately a lot of the standing reed beds had been mown down. I can't understand this. The seed heads were providing food for a number of passerine species on my previous visits.

So here are the species I caught up with  I missed last time - Crested Shrike-tit, Hardhead (or white-eyed Duck), Hoary-headed Grebe and Australian Shoveler.

A real surprise was a juvenile White-bellied Sea Eagle! It panicked everything. Interestingly I saw an adult bird a few hours later and 10 km away as we were driving past a large dam.

Whistling Kites are fairly common here and I managed a distant shot of one perched in a dead tree.

As well as the birds I caught up with a couple of new mammal species for the trip. A Black Wallaby (Swampy) and the native Water Rat or Rakali.

The Rakali has had a bad reputation and was hunted extensively for its fur but is now protected. This one was happily foraging along the shore of one of the lagoons in the morning sunshine. With webbed feet and a tail like a beaver its superbly adapted for an aquatic life.

Our daughters house is on the edge of nature reserve and gets a good selection of species viewed from the balcony and its become my routine to sit out early morning with a mug of tea and the binoculars. Eastern Rosella's are common but wary and rarely stray within camera distance so I was pleased to get these shots after 2 weeks!