It has been a wonderful start to the year, mainly due to the delightful summer rains that we have experienced around Victoria.
I feel sorry for all the holiday makers camping in tents, especially those with young children. This time last year it was relentlessly hot and dry and I recall thinking that it may never rain again, so this year’s summer weather (so far) has been much preferable.
I have been driving to work via Moolap, mainly because on Moolap Station Road there has been a decent sized flock of around 40 magpie geese hanging around for about the last week. The rain may have brought the geese to the paddock on Moolap, as they feed around swamps, grasslands and in floodplains, where they consume blades of grass, seeds and bulbs.
Also, in Moolap I had a close encounter with a black-shouldered kite, which was lovely. I watched it expertly catch a mouse, which was not so lovely for the mouse.
Nearby was also a large mixed flock of little corella and long-beaked corella. There would have been over 100 of these birds feeding on grasses in a paddock, and the next evening they were gone and I have not spotted them since.
On Horseshoe Bend Road near the new Oberon High School there is a large, shallow pond by the side of the road, which has attracted shelducks, Pacific black ducks, pelicans, royal and yellow-billed spoonbills and black-fronted dotterels. A few (originally three but I only saw two) wood sandpipers, which are beautiful migratory waders have also been spotted in this pond.
I have made a few trips to the pond to try and take some decent photos of the wood sandpipers, but have failed, as they were a few hundred metres away when I saw them.
I have been watching a family of purple swamphens raise some hatchlings in the small pond behind Woolworths on Shell Road. The parent birds are very practiced at shepherding the juvenile birds off the grass, into the reeds around the pond whenever there are people or dogs around. Despite the heavy traffic the youngsters are thriving.
I received an email from Andrea Dennett informing me that two hooded plover chicks hatched a few days ago on the beach at Point Lonsdale, just near the lighthouse at 2W. The parent birds are tagged with the initials HY and MD.
There has not been great success over the past few years around the Bellarine and Surf Coast for the hooded plover chicks, so I have everything crossed for this pair.
I received a photo from Patrick, who spotted an unusual bird at Portarlington, near the pier.
Patrick wrote that the bird attracted a lot of attention from people walking on the pier. The bird was a nankeen night heron, which are mainly seen feeding at dusk or at night rather than in broad daylight.
During daylight these birds usually hide in dense vegetation in trees, so are rarely noticed. Nankeen night herons are striking looking birds, as they have rich cinnamon upperparts, white underparts, a black crown, and yellow legs and feet. The bird in Patrick’s photo has a nuptial plume, which develops during breeding season, where three long white plumage feathers grow from the back of the head.
I also received an email from Bob, who lives in Wallington, telling me that he has had three wedge-tailed eagles flying near his house. I was happy to hear of this, as it indicates to me that the Bellarine wedge-tailed eagles may have successfully raised a fledgling again, although I would love to actually lay eyes on them as juveniles are mid brown in colour with reddish-brown heads and wings, whereas the adult birds are dark blackish-brown.
I think I will be driving to work via Wallington for the next week or so to see if I can spot them.
