7 months later I was back at the wetlands with a stronger passion to find and photograph new bird species.
Early spring showed lots of activity with nesting and raising young.
I was patiently sitting in the hide when a Welcome Swallow flew straight towards me and up to it's nest above my head. I discovered that two breeding pairs had built nests - one in each hide.
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| Welcome Swallow, Hirundo neoxena |
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| White-browed Scrubwren, Sericornis frontalis |
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| White-browed Scrubwren, Sericornis frontalis |
Black Swans pair for life and both help raise a brood each year. The chicks are covered in fluffy grey down and are able to swim and feed themselves as soon as they hatch.
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| Black Swan (with Cygnets), Cygnus atratus |
This kite looked like it had had it's wings clipped. I later found out this is a normal look when molting. Obviously they can't molt all their primary feathers at once otherwise they wouldn't be able to fly, so it happens in stages.
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| Whistling Kite, Haliastur sphenurus |
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| Whistling Kite, Haliastur sphenurus |
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| Eurasian Coot, Fulica atra |
I did get a little carried away taking shots of the swans but they were such poses for the camera! This is the 'blue steel' look I believe.
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| Welcome Swallow, Hirundo neoxena |
Away from Swan Lake, I discovered another little haven for birds. It's another small "wetlands" but I'd never seen water in it and it was always quite barren of life. On this occasion it had a few puddles and the spring air had given it a new lease on life.
Numerous New Holland Honeyeaters were flying about and I found 3 new spottings - a Finch, a Cuckoo and a Thornbill.
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| New Holland Honeyeater, Phylidonyris novaehollandiae |
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| European Goldfinch, Carduelis carduelis |
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| Yellow-rumped Thornbill, Acanthiza chrysorrhoa |
It took me a while to work out what this next bird was. Now I know that we have Cuckoos in Victoria - I had no idea! I was very excited and started to find out more information of this very vocal little bird. Then I came across some horrifying information that changed my views of this cute little bird.
They are NEST PARASITES. That means the female lays a single egg in someone else's nest (usually a fairy-wren, thornbill or chat). She may also remove one of the hosts eggs at the same time. The unbeknown host mum will incubate the cuckoo egg and feed it until it fledges. The nasty newly hatched cuckoo will immediately eject the other eggs or hatchlings of the host.
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| Horsfield's Bronze-Cuckoo, Chrysococcyx basalis |
I'm going to finish on that shattering note.
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