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Saturday, January 19, 2013

White-bellied sea eagles, Goodradigbee River

In the recent heat wave conditions the increasingly shallow waters of the Goodradigbee River lost their usual mountain stream chill. With water temperatures as high as 28 degrees celsius we started to notice that every 100 metres or so one or two dead fish could be seen and this appears to have attracted scavengers. White-bellied sea eagle are a familiar sighting around the Burrinjuck Dam 8km downstream and are known to nest in the area. While doing a spot of trout fishing along the Goodradigbee River near Micalong Creek we were surprised to see a pair of sea eagles on the river and this in one of it's steeper gullies.

White-bellied sea eagle gaining height after being surprised by fisherman on the Goodradigbee River, NSW
We caught nothing by the way and blamed the warm water! Most of the dead fish were small (15-20cm) but this magnificent Brown Trout was found floating in the Micalong Creek! Tragic!


River scene where the sea eagles were seen. The river bank also shows the damage from last year's floods 
More images of the Goodradigbee River near Swinging Bridge Reserve (Jan 2012)
Platypus photographed from across the river at Swinging Bridge Reserve (Jan 2012, before the flood, not seen this year) 
Two images from the flood plain (and sometimes bed of the Burrinjuck Dam). Currently much water has been let out of the dam which was full in recent months

Bird on!

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