Waterbirds of Lilypad Lagoon, Kununurra

By early August we had crossed the border and were staying at Kununurra in northern WA . We were ready for a powered site but the caravan park staff were only able to offer us an unpowered site in the overflow section:

Compared to the powered site gridlock this was brilliant and we happily went without power for another few nights!

The Comb-crested jacana were a family favourite. We loved watching them walk on top of the lily-pads and other vegetation of the lake.

This Intermediate egret hunted near our van quite happily. 

Intermediate egret

Straw-necked ibis 

Here are a few shots showing the acrobatics of Australian reed-warbler:

Masked lapwing - this northern (nominate) race has considerable variation from the race we have down south (which was previously commonly known as Spur-winged plover) 

Whiskered tern

Buff-banded rail (seen while searching for better views of the lifer, White-browed crake, below) 

White-browed crake - there were several of these in our corner of the lake

Great egret contemplating his claws

This water lizard (?Merton's monitor) was lazing within metres of our caravan.

Lily-pad Lagoon, Kununurra

A bit of filter fun on a photo of my brother's campsite

 Bird on!

Jabiru at Newcastle Waters

I don't know how many places like Newcastle Waters you pass on Northern Territory's Stuart Highway unaware that only a few kilometres off the bitumen lies magnificent birding habitat. I hope there's not many because I'm really disappointed to have missed them! I doubt we would have stopped had it not been for my brother-in-law Richard's "heads-up" about the place.

In a tribute reminiscent of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy's entry on Earth ("Harmless .... mostly") Wikipedia carries just three lines on Newcastle Waters including the sentence: "Newcastle is virtually uninhabited".

The Age Traveller supplement carries some more background here. It indicates that the water flows north from Lake Woods near Elliot (God knows how it gets there). I gather it is prone to drying out. On 25th July 2012 we visited en route from Banka Banka to Mataranka (gotta be a John Williamson song there!) and were thrilled to immediately spot jabiru from the car.

I have since learned that the female has the yellow eye! 

Having not seen any sort of stork before, I had only seen birds adopt these postures (above & below) in Northern Hemisphere story books! (& I'm not referring to the ibis here folks!)

Intermediate egret, stilts, jabiru .... heaven!

Setting the scene - the flavour is of a wetland which is drying out. It is easiest to park at the picnic area at Drover's Memorial Park.

White-necked heron just, well ... reflecting

Straw-necked ibis

Immature Whistling kite (gorgeously spotted)

Large flock of Little black cormorant

White-winged triller 

Black-fronted dotterel

Here's the Eremaea list of our little visit.

Bird On!

Skein

People have a lot of fun with collective nouns for birds. I would prefer to say that this is a picture of a skein (skayn) of ibis. I suspect I would be howled down on two counts:

1. When used as a collective noun the word skein seems most commonly applied to geese or ducks in flight.
2. I suspect that the correct plural of ibis is ibises.

So this is a probably a picture of a flock of ibises. When they land they would become a colony.

Photographed from the car at 100kmh (yeeees .....passenger seat!) on the South Gippsland Hwy at Bass last Saturday evening. About 250 Straw-necked ibis(es) heading south west (in the direction of Phillip lsland I imagine). There may be a few white ibis thrown in.

But I still think skein of ibis sounds better!

I've not seen ibis look this good before!

Several weeks of wet, gloomy days have transformed the landscape in many parts of Victoria. This applies particularly to SW Gippsland including Phillip Island. There is water just everywhere and locales such as Koo Wee Rup and Lang Lang have been flooded with a few evacuations.

Birds that like to be close to water are able to disperse. This may mean reliable go-to birding spots are less "productive". On the other hand new, temporary habitats are created in the form of drowned paddocks and gardens.

A mixed flock of australian white ibis and straw-necked ibis exploring a large Silverleaves garden attracted my attention this morning.

Straw-necked ibis (Threskiornis spinicollis)

Australian white ibis (Threskiornis molucca)

I was actually on my way to Oswin Robert Sanctuary. However upon opening the car door on arrival, the misty rain recommenced. I persisted for a while (missing a shot of what I believe was a collared sparrowhawk) but ended up photographing wallabies once again!

The trails have become creeks at Oswin Roberts Sanctuary, Phillip Island