The spring rains have continued to relentlessly fall, and the great thing about this is that the waterways will most likely not dry out over summer, which is great news for waterfowl.
For the sake of communities in northern Victoria, I hope that the mighty Murray River does not flood any more than it has already.
Meanwhile there’s been some lovely birdwatching opportunities on the Bellarine Peninsula. In the ponds behind Woolworths on Shell Road there is a family of purple swamphens, where one of the adult birds has a broken wing and can not fly. There are at least four hatchlings that seem to be thriving in the small pond.
Across the road in the Tareeda Way ponds there are two dusky moorhen hatchlings that also seem to be flourishing.
The little egrets that have nested in a colony at Queenscliff over the past few years are back in the nesting tree, so I imagine they will be preparing for the breeding season.
I’ve also been watching a family of Australian magpies in the street near my house. Fortunately, the parent birds and two fledglings live in a quiet street where there is a scarcity of car traffic. The parent birds have been very diligent in teaching the fledglings to feed and fly and look for danger. Many fledgling magpies do not live long especially if they live on a busy road.
The family of tawny frogmouths that I watch in Ocean Grove also have two hatchlings in their nest that are growing rapidly and I have my fingers crossed that all goes well for them.
I received a lovely email from Phil and Sandy from Ocean Grove, who noticed a pair of spotted pardalotes in their carport. Phil has a workbench in the carport and the pardalotes are nesting under the workbench. They must negotiate a small gap in the draws under the bench to get to the nest. I paid a visit to Phil and Sandy’s house and watched the parent birds flying in and out of the carport carrying food to the nest. They seemed to know that Phil and Sandy were not a threat and seemed not to worry about their presence in the carport.
I received an email from Carole, who told me some good news in that she spotted nine ruddy turnstones on the beach near St Leonards pier. They were so well camouflaged that in Carole’s photo it was difficult to differentiate between birds, seaweed and rocks.
Ruddy turnstones are migratory shorebirds that have arrived from the Northern Hemisphere so it is so important that dogs are kept on leads on the beaches to protect these birds.
I received an email from Kevin, who with the help of a local named Donna, had a lovely time photographing and locating blue-billed ducks and other waterfowl and Lake Lorne in Drysdale.
Kevin also observed chestnut teal, Pacific black ducks, eurasian coots, hoary-headed grebes, black swans and dusky moorhens, many looking after hatchlings. Kevin also photographed a brown falcon at close quarters on Winchelsea-Shelford Road and commented that it wasn’t often that people are able so come so close to a raptor in the wild. Many of the hooded plover nests on the beaches around the Bellarine were washed away by high tides on the Melbourne Cup weekend, which was such a crying shame. These birds have such a difficult time nesting and rearing their young. I wish them better success with their next nesting attempts.
