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Date: ThursdayÌýNovember 7th 2024

Project:ÌýEastern Australian Waterbird Survey

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

Trainee:ÌýShelley Thompson (MDBA)

±Ê¾±±ô´Ç³Ù: Thomas Clark

We left Goolwa pretty early and headed northeast towards the Lower River Murray to do our second count. The sun was just coming up over the Coorong and Lower Lakes.Ìý

Coorong sunrise

First on our list of wetlands to survey was the Ramsar listed Banrock Station on the lower River Murray. It has walkways and bird hides for the public and is one of the lagoons of the Murray. It was pretty dry today with only about half the usual area flooded. And there weren't many waterbirds, apart from a few coot and Pacific Black Duck.

Then it was on to the main channel of the River Murray. This mainly had fish-eating waterbirds, including cormorants, Pelicans and Darters and quite a few small flocks of Wood Ducks.

The River Murray is a really impressive landscape here, with its spectacular sandy cliffs overlooking the main river channel.

River Murray cliffs

Our river channel surveys were conveniently separated by the locks along the lower Murray. This shows one of them being repaired with a crane on a boat.

River Murray lock repair

We had to leave the main river channel and floodplain of the River Murray, heading east to the Noora salt evaporation basin where salt is dumped from the river.

Noora salt evaporation basin

Most of the Noora salt evaporation basin was too saline for waterbirds but the northern section had quite a few Grey Teal, Black Swans and Red-necked Avocets.

Then we went back to the river to survey a few of the billabongs and lakes just south of the main river channel and then we flew over to Berri evaporation pond. This wetland just south of the town always has a high diversity and number of waterbirds, probably up to 10,000 birds, including large numbers of Grey Teal, Pacific Black Swans, Red-necked Avocets and Australian Shelduck.

And then we went back to the main channel of the River Murray with its magnificent cliffs overlooking the main channel.

River Murray cliffs

We then surveyed the main channel and its billabongs, where there were reasonably large numbers of Pelicans.

Pelicans on River Murray billabong

Then we left the river and headed north up to the Chowilla floodplain. We had already done two counts of some of the lakes on this floodplain when we surveyed earlier in the week, but we still had to do second surveys of some of the horseshoe-shaped billabongs like this one.

We then headed along the river east, before heading north up to Lake Victoria, which acts as a major storage for the lower River Murray. Water is stored in here at artificially high levels for downstream supply. We surveyed along Frenchmans Creek which is the main source of water into the lake.

After this we kept heading along the river to the east, until we finished the survey at the town of Wentworth. We then landed for a break and refuel at Mildura.

Lake Victoria

After a break for lunch, we headed south to the big lakes which have their own catchments and the River Murray. This included Lake Albacutya, a Ramsar-listed lake which is usually dry and today was no different. It’s dark grey dry colour, without water, contrasted the adjacent grain fields.

Lake Albacutya

From there we headed south to Lake Hindmarsh. This usually has low diversity and abundance of waterbirds because of the high water levels. Today was a complete contrast. The lake was drying back and had tens of thousands of waterbirds.

Lake Hindmarsh

It was spectacular surveying around the edge of this huge lake. There were thousands of Grey Teal, Pink-eared Ducks, Australian Shelduck and large flocks of Pelicans, cormorants and coot.Ìý

The lake had dried back from the northern end and edges, reflecting the shallowness of the lake, making more habitat accessible for waterbirds to forage. This made it a really productive wetland for waterbirds today – a fantastic wetland.

Lake Hindmarsh

We then headed across to Lake Tyrrell, a vast salt lake which very seldom has enough water for waterbird habitat.

Today, it had a shallow film of water in the southern part of the lake which was too salty for waterbirds.

Lake Tyrell

We then headed across to the Kerang Lakes. This is an extensive system of freshwater and salt lakes which are part of the River Murray system. We started with Lake Bael Bael which is often dry but today was full. There were thousands of waterbirds, mostly coot, Australian Shelduck, Grey Teal and Black Swans.

The most western part of this system has a series of three lakes. They often have large rookeries of Straw-necked Ibis, with smaller White Ibis and Royal Spoonbill ones. Today there were only about a 100 White Ibis and Straw-necked Ibis nesting.

Western Kerang Lakes

The most northern lake, Third Lake, which was surprisingly almost dry, apart from a small amount of water in the creek which fills the lake.

Third Lake

There were thousands of waterbirds on many of the salt lakes, including Lake Cullen and Lake Tutchewop, contrasting the permanently filled freshwater lakes which just had a few fish-eating birds, including cormorants and Pelicans.

We finished up at Swan Hill, completing the 2024 survey after almost a month and a half.

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