This lake, a couple of minutes drive from the house, is stocked with fish for kids to catch and I'd promised our grandson I'd take him fishing whilst I was here. Given that most of the local water sources have dried up we called in on the way back from a trip to the shops. Sadly the lake is almost completely dry but the remaining water had attracted a huge number of waterfowl so I took the opportunity to go back with the camera.
I'd seen Yellow-billed Spoonbill at this site previously but today there were 7 and they'd been joined by two Royal Spoonbills.
 |
| Royal Spoonbill |
 |
| Yellow-billed Spoonbill Among the spoonbills, Australian Ibis, Straw-necked Ibis, White-necked and Pacific Herons was a solitary Australian Pelican dwarfing everything around it. |
 |
| Straw-necked Ibis The few patches of water were teeming with other waterfowl with Maned Duck and Pacific Black Duck being the commonest with a few Grey Teal among them. |
With all the birds congregating in the limited open water available it was a good opportunity to study Dusky Moorhens that were sharing the space with introduced European Coots.
On my previous visit I'd seen some small waders distantly on the muddy margins around the island in the centre of the lake and today, with the binoculars, I could see they were Black-fronted Dotterel.
After an hour and a half I'd had enough of the midday heat and with the temperatures hitting 40 C + I headed for the air conditioned car!
No comments :
Post a Comment