Parry Creek Lagoons - 1st visit

(The bones of this post were lifted from shanleylife blog featuring our family holiday!)

Those of you “in the know” would have been very surprised if there was not a blog entry about Parry Creek Reserve. I don’t like to disappoint so…

Our trip to Parry’s was a late afternoon day trip from Kununurra. We mucked around determining the best track in from the Great Northern Highway. We wound up getting too close to Wyndham and came in from the north. We had two sightings of brolga in the surrounding bush as we approached. 

After leaving the bitumen, the track cuts through flat grassland where we saw our first Australian pratincole. Nankeen kestrel and kites also featured.

Australian pratincole from the car

The remaining pictures are taken at Marlgu Billabong which has boardwalks and a viewing platform. There was a steady trickle of visitors – at any time there was one or two other cars with us.

Fancy not having enough binoculars to go around! Ellen is clearly disappointed! Well not everyone can have a huge camera lens and a funny hat!

Birding highlights were seeing pied heron and pygmy goose for the first time among several other “lifers”. Four lifers in four seconds without even turning the car engine off doesn’t happen often!

This handsome pelican fed right in front of us – getting down low then dipping his whole top half under the water then sorting out the muck from the dinner. Jacanas looked great walking around on the lily pads.

Comb-crested jacana

 A sheepish looking Magpie goose mixed up with the Plumed whistling-ducks

There was a huge flock of plumed whistling-duck as well. After Marlgu we explored locally looking for the other Parry Creek lagoons but these turned out to be dry.

The trip was also punctuated by some close range experience of the Kimberley on fire. This shot taken from the car window as we drove along the highway north-west of Kununurra. The impression was of a controlled “cool burn” but there was no overt supervision. When we returned to Kununurra it was dark and the rows of flame made for a dramatic scene.

We were treated to a typical east Kimberley sunset as we drove past the ruins of a telegraph station near Marlgu Billabong. 

Another memorable afternoon!

Bird on!