australian grebe

Eastern Park Stormwater Harvesting Pond

December 31, 2015 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

On Thursday, Glenn and I went to visit the Stormwater harvesting pond. We were on a macro photography adventure and I wanted to check on the young grebes. I thought that Glenn might want to try his luck at leaf curling spider or dragonfly photography.

These photos are rushed because Glenn was feeling anxious and I made the call to just go to the gardens, where we had a blast. Will definitely be returning here to get clearer photos of the chicks.

One of the first things I noticed though was this great egret in breeding plumage. Yes! It had some feathers on its beak. I was able to get some photos of it fluffing its feathers before going to join Glenn. Next season I will definitely emphasis photographing other birds.

Grebes

As I’ve said, these photos are mediocre because I was in a rush. You can clearly see how its feathers and markings have changed as it matured.

I could only see three of the chicks. They are still being fed, although are considerably more independent.

White Ibis

One of the highlights about this time of year is getting photos of birds having a bath. They can look so much different! I’ll be creating a collection of photos later for these types of shots.

My next goal is to spend a couple of hours around the botanical gardens by myself, doing macro photography at my pace and also looking for birds. I did notice a blackbird nest hidden in a tree near where some bugs were hanging out. I’m also keen to find where the night herons are nesting, and whether you can still find bassian thrushes there. So many birds, so little time. And I’m crazy enough to be thinking about going back to uni 🙂

New Australasian Grebe Chicks at Eastern Park

November 4, 2015 by Jade Craven

On Tuesday, I went to see the recently hatched grebes at Eastern Park stormwater harvesting lake. I had observed young here earlier in the year and was excited to be able to see a new clutch.

These guys were a little bit too old to be carried on their parents back, which is something that is on my photography bucket list. They were young enough to require regular feeding though, which led to a lot of photo opportunities.

In the first set of photos you can see one of the chicks struggle to eat a large fish. The photos didn’t turn out as good as they could have but it was fascinating to be able to observe them as a more experienced birding. I noticed that the markings extend down the beak. I only ever saw one parent with the chicks.

Here is hoping the family does well and we learn more about them.

Easter Adventures at Geelong Botanic Gardens

April 5, 2015 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

Today marks the end of the first week of the school holidays. Other then the moth night, Sethy and I hadn’t gone on any adventures. We’d gone to the botanical gardens briefly on the Monday but I was feeling too sick to properly explore.

We decided to hit the storage pond to hunt for the pesky Ballions Crake, meander through the botanical gardens and end at Eastern Beach. Firstly:

We found the crake! We only saw it for a couple of seconds and it was a lot smaller then we expected. Sometimes Seth will say he’s seen a bird when he really hasn’t. He pointed to the exact spot where I had seen it and said it went behind the green grass. He also said how small it was. The above photo is the only photo we were able to get but I’m so glad we finally got to find the little bugger.

Now just need to find the lewins rail and I’ll have knocked off a lot of the ones that have taunted me thus far.

We saw just two grebes this time, and two pacific black ducks. I couldn’t tell if the grebe was from the previous or most recent clutch. We had a quick check again for the crake and, after dipping wandered over to the botanical gardens.

The main target at the gardens was the rufous fantail, eastern spinebill, pink robin and white browed scrubwren. Someone was a bit hyper and the gardens were pretty crowded. We did see a million bajillion leaf curling spiders, though – something I wouldn’t have known about if not for the local cadets group.

We did see this juvenile grey fantail, which I initially thought was a white browed scrubwren. It looked different. I’m quoting from Kevin Bartram in the bird ID page here, but “The buff tips on the wing coverts Is a characteristic of immature plumage, they are remnants of juvenile plumage.”

It was those tips on the wing that confused me – just little things, because I generally don’t pay attention to them in the field. I’m not a lazy birder but there is often so much going on that I have limited attention.

According to Graeme Chapman, there is a subspecies that migrates north from Tasmania in the winter. These often look darker then the other subspecies you find here. I never really knew that. Does the local subspecies migrate?

I’m not as confused anymore and more fascinated. We also saw a rufous fantail! I got good views of the colour and Seth saw the bird. Apparently this time of year is a great time to see them while they are migrating to their winter grounds. A mate says he doesn’t often see them so we were pretty lucky 🙂 I only went there because I had seen reports of them on ebird, I didn’t know they were that elusive. It’s fascinating how much you learn.

We went near the back where we spotted this sulpher crested cockatoo enjoying a sunflower head.

Limeburners Point

We then mosied over to Limeburners point, hoping to find a couple of pacific gulls. We were very lucky, Seth got good views of this Juvenile.

We saw this adult on a light pole but it appeared to have an injured leg.

There were a number of terns and cormorants about but we were quickly distracted by a black shouldered kite that was hovering nearby. It was awesome that Sethy got to see that hovering behaviour, I was hoping we would see a BSK when we went to Lake Victoria in March.

We saw it grab its meal and fly off to a nearby pole. I’m assuming it was a rat or a rabbit based on it’s size.

The following pictures show some interesting behaviour we saw. The kite landed on a pole and two butcherbirds weren’t happy about it! They would continually dive at the kite – either to defend their territory or to get a free feed. The kite wan’t too happy about it.

Seth walked up the hill to get a closer look and the bird flew off. I knew that would happen but understood Seths desire to get a better look, as I was looking through the camera. Was glad to capture the behaviour

It was a fun twitch. Seth didn’t get as much time to play as I’d normally plan for, as we had an impromptu trip on Thomas the Tank Engine at Eastern Beach. Also saw an egret and another juvenile pacific gull near the main beach.

Will try to do another two adventures during the holidays. Glad I got to get the little dude another 3 lifers!

Dipping on the crake – AGAIN

March 20, 2015 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

These are a series of photos I took on March 4, when my granddad was first admitted to hospital. It has been a busy couple of weeks since then so I don’t remember any of my other observations for the day.

This post will be mostly picture based but I thought the grebe behaviour was different. The mum grebe was diving for fish to feed the current juvenile. The juvenile from its first clutch would seek food from mum, only or her to chase it away. I didn’t see the crake but I did see two pacific gulls when I went to Limeburners point afterwards.

Lovely day. Keen to explore the botanical gardens now that interesting birds are starting to return. Only female pink robins though for some reason?

Visiting the Storage Ponds at Eastern Park

March 3, 2015 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

Yesterday, we made an impromptu trip to Eastern Park. Seth had been really awesome at the doctors that morning and we (my parents and I) agreed that we could go to the storage ponds in search of the ‘mythical’ ballions crake.

Neither of us had seen it and, as these tales often go, neither of us would. We did see some gorgeous ducklings and a juvenile Australasian grebe. Seth loved being able to see it up close and we didn’t mind about dipping on the crake.

Ironically, we had seen an Australasian grebe on the way back from Balyang two days earlier. He initially ID’d it as a hoary headed and it lead to a discussion about the different markings.

I can understand why Seth made the mistake. It’s easy to tell them apart when they are up close but from a distance, it’s a bit more difficult. He loves the markings on the hoary headed.

It was skulking around the edges a bit. There was a lot of vegetation so it was difficult to get a clear shot.

Juvenile

There were four grebes there, including this juvenile which was following it’s parent. Look at how different the markings are! I could have easily ID’d it as a HH grebe if the adult wasn’t around. This is why I love birding.

We had walked around the pond twice and were thinking about heading to the playground when we noticed another person also looking at the pond. It’s hard to explain, but you can always tell when someone is a birder. They are always looking in the areas that others would consider boring.

He asked if I had photographed anything interesting and I spoke about the grebes. I asked if he was a birder and whether he had seen the Ballions Crake.

He was a birder! We had a brief chat about ebird (where I discovered the original report) and he told me where to find it. He had seen it on the weekend but was being a bit elusive. This was great news as it meant I wasn’t a moron.

He told us about the grebes. There were two juveniles from the last clutch. The one we saw was from the recent clutch. The male had recently left them. I recall being told about these grebes at the first field club meeting I went to but, as usual, I’ve been suffering from information overload.

I’m not sure of the gentlemans name but I asked if he was from the field nats. He was! He gave Seth a copy of the busy card and asked if we knew what the birds were. Seth opened up a bit and pointed out the banded stilt. He can be shy so that was awesome.

He said he hadn’t seen as many banded stilts around lately. He’d gone to the saltworks and saw black winged stilts and avocets, but no bandeds. He, like many others, reckons they’ve found somewhere else to hang out after heavy rain.

At this point, Sethy asked me to point out that he had seen 105 birds. The man asked what Sethys favourite was and he said Caspian. Bless his nylon socks.

I know it seems like a silly thing to blog about but Seth really loved the interaction. He was so proud to have a field nats card and really wants to come along on some of the excursions. I haven’t even become an official member yet and already feel so welcomed! It’s hard to imagine why I was so scared of joining.

So – we dipped on the crake but we got some fantastic photos. Mum got photos of bark on the trees (she loves plants and photography), and Sethy got to play in the playground. We even got fish and chips afterwards.