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australasian pipit

First Visit To Werribee Treatment Plant

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The Werribee Treatment Plant was the place I wanted to get to this year. I contacted someone from Birdingpals in January, asking if they could help. He forwarded my address onto a local but nothing came of it. I was going to hire a guide for the day but that requires money I don’t have. I’d accepted that I probably wouldn’t get there anytime soon and decided to find affording birding destinations close to public transport and camp grounds. I know I’ll be doing that next year.

I asked for advice on the Facebook group – and got an offer to visit Werribee Treatment Plant for the morning. We only got to visit a small part of it but I loved it. Birding is the only time my brain gives me real peace.

Raptors

I love raptors. Normally I have to work really hard just to get a glimpse of one. Here, they were everywhere. So many species. So many calls. It’s worth coming here just for the plethora of raptors.

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I was called a sick bitch for getting this photo. Well, I am one. 🙂 I’m not sure what species it is but LOOK! It’s doing a poop!

It sounds silly, but getting decent poop shots has become an obsession of mine. I was photographing a new holland honeyeater and accidentally got a photo of it doing a teeny one. Glenn was jealous, and we both have been trying to top my original shot. It didn’t help that we saw some hilarious bird poop shots online. This… is was the culmination of a lot of work and hoping.

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Was so honoured to see this white bellied sea eagle. I think that they are a magnificent bird and could spend all day watching them. I become enamored with them during the 2014 breeding season via EagleCam. I was devastated when the chick died. I just think they are so beautiful – I’m particularly fond of eagles.

We saw this guy and both got out of the car, carefully so as not to scare it away. I had trouble focusing. Then it turned around and hung out above as for a while! Got some interesting photos with lens flare. This alone was the trip.

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Another highlight was hearing the call of a whistling kite in the wild. Glenn fell in love with the bird after hearing a captive one at Jirrahlinga. I loved it.

Pipit

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I think this is a pipit, although we all know how easily confused I get. Loved how it wasn’t as skittish as the one I saw elsewhere.

Sandpipers

We went to a bird hide and saw a number of shorebirds. The tide was out a fair way. There were a LOT of sandpipers, and one red necked stint. Lots of swans and avocets. I saw a couple of sharpies being territorial

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Also got photos of a curlew sandpiper! Only a couple of sandpipers left to see. Finally feel like I’m making a dint. I know I’m at the annoying stage of just list building, but I’m trying to learn as much as I can. Once I’ve learned as much as I can about the birds in the area I can focus on just watching them.

Other:
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A nest. Was wondering whether it was the sea eagles?

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Zebra finch. Was so excited to see. I love robins, wrens and finches. I think they are fascinating. I love the markings on this guy.

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A chat. I want to see other species of them 🙂

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This is more then just a buff banded rail. We saw something run across the path and were a bit confused. It looked a bit unusual – almost like a rufuos bristlebird? We waited for it to come closer. We saw that it was a rail but didn’t understand why. I looked at the photos and that was when I noticed that there was a tiger snake in the frame!

Think I may become a herper?

Dipped on any other crakes and rails, not for lack of trying. They are now a group of bogey birds that vex me so.

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Loved the reflections here. Totally worth coming back just for photography. We saw musk ducks, Great crested grebes, shelducks. It was beautiful to see them up close.

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Common greenshank or mash sandpiper. Can’t instantly tell them apart yet.

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A much better shot of a golden headed cisticola. Not bad for something taken through a windscreen!

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Had such a fab time and am so grateful to those that have been helping me lately. I’d love to return. Feeling a bit crazy because I haven’t birded for 5 days 😛 Silly work.

Visiting Truganina Swamp

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Yesterday, I visited Truganina swamp for the first time. I recently joined a Victoria birdwatching group of Facebook and asked for advice about birding locations close to public transport. This was one of the locations mentioned and I’m so grateful it was. It was so close to the train station!

It was a fantastic session, probably one of the best I’ve had. So many new species and I was able to learn so much. Will definitely be returning. I’m cranky about the weather in Victoria currently as I want to return, despite the sunburn I received yesterday.

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BANDED STILT BANDED STILT BANDED STILT.

I know I will probably look bad on this blog and be embarrassed by my excessive use of capitalization/exclamation marks but I don’t care. I’ve been trying to find banded stilts for a while now. You can find them in locations close to Geelong but not in places that are easily accessible. There is a known location off a highway but I was uncomfortable with the idea of standing on the side of the road.

I’ve now seen all species of stilts. I think they are more beautiful then black winged. It was hard to find up-to-date information about whether they were there or not, there were lots of reports about them being there in 2013. Regardless,

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Bog standard white fronted chat. I’ve seen them multiple times but I think there is something adorable about them.

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Black shouldered kite. Was hoping for other birds of prey but it was nice seeing one in flight.

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Obligatory swan photo for Glenn and Seth. I saw a lot of them yesterday and am enamored with their call.

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This little guy (or lady) is an Australasian (Richard’s) pipit. I initially had trouble identifying it as I had it confused with a little grassbird. When you look closely, however, the pipits markings are isolated to it’s breast and not over it’s tummy like with the grassbird.

Very thankful to Luke Shelley for asking the right questions to help me figure that out. It is common/moderately commmon and loves open country. There are four subspecies; the one I saw is Anthus Novaeseelandiae which is the one you find most often in Australia. Can be confused with Eurasian Skylark and Horsfield’s bushlark.

🙂 Do you see why I find identification so overwhelming at times? Sometimes it’s easier to ask for a straight ID and then use the information to work backwards. I’m finding that birding in new locations requires just as much time away from the field to understand what I’ve seen.

Right now I feel happier then I have in a long time, though. Well, since the last concert I went to.

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This is a little egret. Which means that I’ll eventually find my arch nemesis, the intermediate.

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Common Greenshank. I was right with a lot of my guesses yesterday but didn’t trust my gut. I was feeling sick and exhausted afterwards though so am blaming it on my brain, and the sunburn.

Sandpipers

The following images are apparently all sharpies. I can’t tell them apart. They are meant to look different according to age and gender. I find sandpipers to be too overwhelming. You can get other ones in the area so I’ll be double checking my photos now that I have confirmation on the clearer ones.

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It was a fantastic twitch and is a place that I highly recommend people go to. It’s close to Westona train station. If coming from Geelong, it can be a bit of a bitch to get too. I had to get off the train at Werribee and catch a train to Laverton. I then had to catch a separate train to Westona. A bit of stuffing around but it was so worth it.

The walk was very quick and easy. It was surprising to see such a wide variety of birdlife so close to suburbia. I saw a blue tongue lizard (striped) while walking there. It was on the footpath and a number of birds (common mynas and house sparrows) were attacking it. It was hissing at them, and me, a lot. I tried to pick it up but it lunged at me, so I wrapped it in my cardigan and put it in someones front garden. It was trying to get there anyway but couldn’t fit through any gaps in the fence.

I struggle to know when to intervene with nature. In this case, I figured it was a wild animal in an artificial environment and I should give it a small helping hand. A local said they were quite common in the area. It’s amazing, and depressing at times, to see how wildlife survive in suburbia. I found a squashed blue tongue on a road near the river recently, which was sad.