91³ÉÈ˰涶Òô

Date: Tuesday 5th November 2024

Project:ÌýEastern Australian Waterbird Survey

°¿²ú²õ±ð°ù±¹±ð°ù²õ: Richard Kingsford (UNSW),ÌýJohn Porter (NSW DPE)

Trainee:ÌýShelley Thompson (MDBA)

±Ê¾±±ô´Ç³Ù: Thomas Clark

We headed northwest of Mildura towards the town of Wentworth where the Darling River comes down with its muddy waters to meet the River Murray. This is also Lock 10, one of the locks to help boats move up and down the river.

It was a lovely morning, with hardly a breath of wind - a great day for surveying the River Murray. The main channel had its usual complement of great cormorants and pelicans mainly fish-eating birds.Ìý

The river is punctuated by a series of locks, useful for boats but also important for our navigation and counting and identifying waterbirds in different sections of the main channel of the river, like the Lock 8 to Lock 7 section. We survey between Locks 10 and Lock 3 downstream of the town of Berri.

Fish eating waterbirds near Lock on River MurrayÌý

All along the River Murray’s main channel, there are a series of billabongs. These are often shallower and have more waterbirds, including large flocks of Pelicans and Australian Shelduck. At times, there are also lots of Grey Teal, and today we saw more than we usually see along this part of the River Murray.

As we fly along the main channel of the River Murray, there are some spectacular cliffs making up its river bank, underling the river's long history, carving its way through this landscape.Ìý

River Murray cliffs

Then we headed up north of the river onto the Chowilla floodplain, where there are a series of swamps and lakes. These have held water in the last few years. Lake Littra is one of the more important ones and today it had hundreds of waterbirds, including Grey Teal and Pelicans.

Then we headed west to Lake Limbra. It was buzzing with waterbirds, probably up to 1000 or more. Diversity was really high with everything from Red-necked Avocets to Pied Stilts and lots of Grey Teal, Pacific Black Duck and Hardhead. There were also lots of Black Swans and Pelicans. A really exciting wetland to survey.

Then it was west to Coombool Swamp which looked to be drying up until we got close and realised the water was just getting there, environmental flows creeping in.Ìý Interestingly there were no waterbirds just the odd emu as we flew over. It was probably too soon for waterbird food to come in or breed up.

We then went on to survey Lake Merreti, a lake which often supports lots of waterbirds. Today it had dried back to a puddle. It was very shallow but had flocks of Red-necked Avocets and migratory shorebirds, as well as a flock of Pelicans and Austrlaian White Ibis feeding on dead carp stranded in the middle.

We then surveyed the River Murray, downstream of the town of Renmark, a popular part of the river for houseboats just upstream of one of the locks.

River Murray, downstream of Renmark

Then we headed down to the lower River Murray where it headed south towards the Lower Lakes and the Coorong. Here the cliffs are big where the river had carved a deep channel through this ancient landscape. We did a small river survey along the way. Usually there are not many waterbirds on this part of the river but some of the wetlands were drying back alongside the main river channel where there were hundreds of Grey Teal.

Big cliffs, along lower River Murray.Ìý

We then flew along the northern edge of Lake Alexandrina before landing at Goolwa. After lunch we headed around the rest of Lake Alexandrina and surveyed all of Lake Albert. The rain had arrived but luckily was not too heavy to stop surveying.

Lake Alexandrina was full of fish-eating birds, perhaps even more than usual. There were tens of thousands of Great Cormorants and thousands of Pelicans. Surprisingly, there were only a few small rookeries of ibis, unlike previous years. And we saw very few broods of Black Swans which is always a telltale sign of a good season.

We finished up the survey in the early afternoon at Goolwa.