Over the past few weeks, I’ve been lucky to have spent the majority of my time up north in Darwin exploring a few great birdwatching spots including one of the greatest spots of them all, namely Fogg Dam.
I’ve also been to Bathurst Island, which is one of the Tiwi Islands. I enjoyed experiencing some warm weather, and I managed to spot around 110 species of birds, but for the first time in Darwin I did not add to my Australian bird species list.
The highlights of my trip included seeing three barking owls (two at the Darwin Botanical Gardens and one at Howard Springs), and two rufous owls at the Botanical Gardens.
I also heard a few Barking Owls at night, which is the advantage of staying near Howard Springs.
Also, at Howard Springs a black-breasted buzzard, which is a species of raptor, flew overhead.
I initially thought it was a wedge-tailed eagle, but realised that it didn’t have a wedged tail, and from a photo I was able to identify the bird.
I saw a few species of kingfishers including the red-backed, forest, sacred and collared kingfishers.
I drove to a spot known as Corrobboree Billabong that I’d read about in the birdwatching book, and this was a beautiful spot, and there were many birds including two Australian pratincoles.
I didn’t see many birds at Bathurst Island, but on the ferry trip from Darwin I spotted a striated heron, five grey-tailed tattlers, some gull-billed terns and a few brown boobies.
I’ve only received one email from Voice readers over the past few weeks, and that was from Lynne, who has been keeping me informed of birds that have been seen at Yalukit Willam (formerly Elsternwick Park) Nature Reserve, in Melbourne.
This park used to be the Elsternwick Park golf course and has been developed into a biodiversity refuge with the aim of bringing nature back into urban areas.
The park includes a chain of ponds, wetlands, a grassy woodland, visitor facilities, and indigenous gathering places.
Lynne informed me that the following bird species have been seen and photographed in the newly created wetlands at Yalukit Willam: spotted crake, spotless crake, buff-banded rail, painted button quail, brown quail and the Baillon’s crake.
There is a Facebook page for the Yalukit Willam Nature Reserve where there are reports and photographs of these birds. Thanks, Lynne, for pointing this out to me.
Carla and Brian from Ocean Grove spotted a black-faced cuckoo shrike at Blue Waters Lake and sent in a photo.
