balyang. great cormorant

Latest Balyang Shenanigans

November 4, 2015 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

It feels like all I’ve been writing about lately is nesting behaviour, willy wagtails and what chicks have hatched. I’ve been a bit obsessed. There have been other interesting happenings at Balyang.

Below is a royal spoonbill. I struggled to get a really nice, focused shot it of, despite trying for over an hour. They visit now and again but only spend a short time there at any given time.

House sparrow having a bath. It’s so easy to overlook sparrows, especially as they are an introduced bird. It can lead to interesting photos though if you just watch for a while. Bathing is a behaviour I’ve been trying to capture lately.

A ginormous spider we found, and its presumably deceased mate.

I’ve seen two separate large group of wood ducks that look like they are almost grown up.

Glenn got some lovely photos of these two cockatoos haven’t a snuggle. I don’t know if this is courting behaviour but I suspect it’s just mateship.

Bluetongue! I find it in the car park near Princes bridge. It is the second time I’ve seen them in the area this season, which is pretty awesome.

I also got two more photos for my ‘birds doing a poop’ collection. Here is yet another of a great cormorant. For a short while, I thought I had missed the shot completely. Until I zoomed in and saw this:

Seriously, who could time a shot that great? (Perhaps I need to look at shutter speeds too while I’m at it. Below is a photo of a darter doing one. I had such great luck with both shots that it has led me to become cocky. I’ve spent hours since then trying to replicate my success but have failed. 😉 Oh well, that makes it an ever more awesome challenge. Goal is now to get 20 bird poop shots by the end of the year.

It’s also worth reading Ian Smissens recent blog post about Balyang. Those darters are growing quickly!

Mating Tree at Balyang

November 1, 2015 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

There is a tree at Balyang that is very popular during the Spring. It is the ones that the cormorants have chosen for their nests – and it looks like many other birds have followed suit.

This tree is in the centre of the larger lake. Many birds enjoy hanging out here because they are safe from the plethora of young children who visit.

I’ve written before about the sulpher crested cockatoo nesting in this tree – and the cormorants that sometimes don’t enjoy their presence! You can read more about that here.

Last Wednesday, a cockatoo (it may not have been part of the pair) flew a little bit too close to this great cormorant. It certainly told him or her off!

Mud lark

This tree is a fair way away, so I’ve been photographing this little mudlark nest from a distance. I had assumed that they were incubating the eggs, despite both parents flying and swapping duties frequently. I zoomed in on the photos later and could see the tail from a younger bird. In the next photo, I could see a babies head! How awesome is that? The parents are doing a fantastic job. Of course, I’d love to get better photos but it’s not feasible here. I’m just happy to see babies 🙂

Barwon river mudlarks

Earlier in the week, I was walking to Balyang from Queens Park after looking for the tawny frogmouth nest.

I was keeping an eye out for any nests. A friend had seen a black faced cuckoo shrike nest and, me being me, I thought it could be fun to photograph. I had no luck finding it – granted, I wasn’t looking particularly hard – but I did see these mudlarks. I initially thought they were adults until I saw them from the front.

😉 I was hoping I’d get some mating shots but it looks like I’m a little too late in the season for that!

Cormorants

Interestingly, I also saw a couple of cormorants displaying courtship behaviour. It was odd, as I hadn’t seen any for two weeks. No idea what brought it on – maybe the heat? I didn’t have a brief “Glenn, I’m borrowing your camera moment” so I could take a video.

Below is the video I took the first time I saw courtship behaviour. I couldn’t find any videos or information online to show Glenn and Seth, so I decided to make my own.

Elsewhere

This teal has been taking advantage of the nest box, which is amazing to see. I haven’t really seen any baby ducks, or swamphens, this season. I’m not sure why. I have seen wood ducks that are several weeks old, which has been beautiful.

I can’t make sense of who breeds when, and why.

These two long billed corellas have been busy protecting their nest for a while. I usually only see just one in their but try to give them a lot of space. It doesn’t help that other photographers pretty much set up their tripods next to the tree – although they are fairly high up and should be safe 🙂 I mostly avoid this tree because there is a sulpher crested cockatoo nesting at about 2 meters high and it is very flighty. I’m not sure I like their chances!

Hot Balyang – in more ways then one!

October 21, 2015 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

Yesterday, I watched the little dude. One of my first thoughts when mum asked me was “Oh, what a shame. I guess I’ll have to check out Balyang again.”

I don’t know how often is too often when checking out on the nesting behaviour, but once a week is seeming like a good balance. Last year I would have said that was too much but now I am a lot better at observing behaviour I would have missed last year.

It was an unexpectedly warm day and hit early 30’s. The cormorants were definitely feeling the heat.

Last week I saw a number of birds hanging out at the nests together. This time, many of them were hanging out away from the nests.

Great Cormorants

There were two great cormorants there, both panting, which led to some interesting opportunities. Was able to get great detail shots of their mouth.

I got this awesome shot. I’m actually getting quite good at pre-empting what was about to happen. Of course, it is easy to know when a bird is about to poop. They raise their tail and squat a little bit. If you’ve had a pet, you know it. But it’s so difficult to actually get because you have to watch forever to actually notice the original behaviour.

I now have an official page for photos of birds pooping. This is the best photo I have so far because it is the clearest. I only have three but I now want to collect ‘the set.’ I want to get as many photos of birds pooping as possible.

Parrot nesting behaviour

Normally I don’t really pay attention to birds clearing out hollows or poking their heads out of them. It could mean anything.

I got intrigued in July when I saw the cockatoos clearing out a hollow. I developed this obsession with nesting. I’m glad I watched.

The above photo is pretty tedious. The below series is awesome. I got a photo of this cockatoo leaning out of the tree. I *knew* there would be another nearby and it could lead to some interesting photos. I was right.

The cormorant went to the hollow. Then it flew to a try to, well, be a cockatoo. The nearby cormorants weren’t too happy!<

Mating house sparrows

I was so lucky to get the following series. I saw movement near the trees and thought ‘they were going to mate!’ It was incredibly difficult to see. It was about 1o metres away on the little island. They were specks against a similarly coloured background. Incredibly difficult to capture. But I did it! The photos are mediocre but that is okay considering.

Other:

White plumed honeyeater. I’m in love with this lens.

Arguing silver gulls.

I’ll be returning here frequently over the coming weeks to get more nesting/mating behaviour. The narrative isn’t as creative as it could be but the behaviour certainly warranted a post! 🙂

Balyang Mid Spring, 2015

October 16, 2015 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

Woo! Finally getting to the last of this weeks posts.

The little pied cormorants were definitely a highlight of the past week, but there are definitely other highlights.

Walking to Balyang

I got a lift from dad to Queens Park so I could check out what birds were in the region. I probably could have walked further if I had packed proper shoes but I didn’t trust my thongs. It was a good decision; by the end of the visit to mums house my legs and butt were really aching. This may have been partially due to my decision to weed mums overgrown veggie garden but I digress.

One of my goals is to capture as many photos of bird nests, and birds nesting, as I can. I am learning so much from it. I try to be as quick as I can so as not to disturb the birds. This currawong nest was photographed really quickly. It is surprising how many birds nest right next to a busy path, although this was a fair distance away.

There were a decent amount of baby magpies about. And some over protective parents who are overzealous about people who are just trying to walk up stairs. Below, I discovered this magpie eating some kind of bug 🙂 Part of me wants to research and figure out what it is!

The hard headed duck, or A hard headed duck, has made a reappearance. Months of nothing and finally, NOW the area starts to get interesting. This reminds me… I should probably go to Drysdale and see how the lens works there!

Parrots drinking

A highlight of the day was also being able to get photos of a sulpher crested cockatoo and a red rumped parrot having a drink. I think that is my new photographic obsession.

Turns out I have seen a little corella!

I have no self confidence when it comes to ID’ing birds. I was fairly certain that these were little corellas but was uncertain, because one of my bird books listed them as being moderately common instead of common. It listed two locations where you could find them in Melbourne. I assumed that this meant there was isolated populations locally.

Wrong! I was right in that most of the corellas I’ve seen in the past have been long billed. So, hi five for me there.

This is me quoting directing from the comment thread on that group. I know this is bad form, but it is primarily for my learning moreso then anything else.

West of Geelong Long-billed is very common. Littles tend to be in bigger flocks that cruise around large areas.
Long billed have expanded their range into the Melbourne area, not through escapees, but through the clearing Little Corellas are more of an inland species, but again they have increased in number & have come down to Melbourne & Gippsland etc in their large flocks.

Fascinating. It is curious that I’ve mostly seen long billed – and makes me wonder what two littles would be doing at Balyang? I know there are open paddocks a couple of km away. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out and may try to teach myself their call. It’s probably I’ve seen the littles around and just ignored them. Regardless – it is a lifer!

Great cormorant

The photos may be generic but I was able to get this great cormorant that was just floating about. There is usually one there on each visit.

Reed Warbler

Was so hoping this was a little grassbird as I’ve been trying to knock that off my list for awhile. The tail was too short and the markings on it and the chest weren’t right. I was hoping that it was, regardless. Mostly because the noise was different.

I went to the playground near Balyang with Seth later that day and ended up seeing several reed warblers, including ones making this sound followed by the warble I’m used to. Again, I learned something. Again, I dipped on a fairly common lifer. It is a bit weird how these guys popped up outta nowhere!

Little black cormorant

On the Tuesday there was a couple of little black cormorants there, which was awesome. I was hoping to get some photos of some small spats but it never really worked out. That is okay, I think the photos turned out well.