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Date: Monday October 14th 2024

Project:ÌýEastern Australian Waterbird Survey

°¿²ú²õ±ð°ù±¹±ð°ù²õ: John Porter (NSW DPE), Paul Wainwright (SA DEW)

°Õ°ù²¹¾±²Ô±ð±ð: Scott Henshall (Vic GMA)

±Ê¾±±ô´Ç³Ù: Thomas Clark

Despite some uninspiring weather forecasts we departed Sydney and headed south to Avon and Cordeaux dams near Wollongong. The conditions for counting were nearly perfect with hardly any wind and the glassy smooth surface of the reservoirs gave beautiful reflections.Ìý However these deep reservoirs have very little shallow habitat that many waterbirds prefer and we counted low numbers of piscivorous species including darters, Little Black and Pied Cormorants. Ìý

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Reflections on Avon reservoir

From here we headed to Lake Illawarra and found low numbers of Black Swans, cormorants, Pelicans, Silver Gulls and terns.Ìý

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Lake Illawarra

Our next destination was a series of coastal lagoons and lakes south of Narooma, which had low to moderate numbers of cormorants, egrets, herons and Pelicans. The weather continued to hold as we headed up onto the high Monaro tablelands and counted a series of natural shallow claypan wetlands. Many of these held water and there were high numbers of waterbirds – Grey Teal, Pacific Black Duck, Mountain Ducks, Shoveller and Wood Duck.

After refuelling at Bairnsdale in Victoria we continued on past Lakes Entrance to Seaspray before counting over a series of coastal lagoons around Jack Smith Game Reserve. Some of the lakes were dry but those with water supported hundreds of Grey Teal and lower numbers of Chestnut Teal, Black Duck, Mountain Duck and Australasian Shoveler. 

Heading west to Leongatha we continued to count along watercourses and small dams, finding moderate numbers of waterbirds, especially Grey Teal, Eurasian Coot, Straw-necked Ibis, herons, egrets and Pacific Black Duck. ThereÌý was a small colony of White Ibis and we found hundreds of Cape Barren Geese on the freshwater wetlands and adjacent grassy paddocks.

Curdies Inlet

Heading west from Aireys Inlet we counted a series of small dams and reservoirs with low numbers of waterbirds, passing across the top of the Otway Ranges and on to the green dairy pastures around Curdies Inlet and Warrnambool. We had plenty of work to do here with lots of dams to count, most of them with moderate to high numbers of Grey Teal, Chestnut Teal, Mountain Duck, Black Duck, Hardhead and Black Swans.Ìý