royal spoonbill

Fabulous Day at Werribee Treatment Plant

January 8, 2018 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

Today, I was so fortunate to be invited to Werribee Treatment Plant. I hadn’t been here in ages: I’d stepped back from birding and was craving something different from the usual Barwon River birds.

I’ve been actively working on getting out more and getting my life in order but the WTP is a place I can’t visit independently: It’s so darn large and I won’t be getting my licence for a while. So, when a friend asked if I wanted to come along, I jumped at the chance. I love hanging out with fellow birders. It was one of the first times I’ve been around nature loves and haven’t felt like there is something wrong with me.

We ended up spending about 4 hours here. I’ve found this is the perfect timeframe if you have let to learn the art of discreet peeing.

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!

Lake Lorne with the little dude – again!

May 22, 2015 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

This trip took place on May 6th

Lake Lorne 🙂 It’s quickly becoming one of my favourite accessible birding locations. It can take a short while to get out via public transport – especially when compared to my local haunts – but it has a lot of diversity.

Sethy and I had gone to Lake Lorne in February. He enjoyed it, but was a bit disappointed. I had promised him freckled and blue billed ducks. We had gotten a bad view of a blue billed and the freckled were in small numbers.

Earlier this month, Carolyn invited me to both Ocean Grove and Lake Lorne. We had a fantastic twitch. I was so impressed with the birds I had seen there that I decided I should take Sethy up there ASAP. I don’t know the area intuitively yet, nor am I knowledgeable about bird movements on the peninsula. I wanted to get there quickly to hopefully see the same amount of birds. Was so glad I did!

Yes, swans are boring. I don’t care though, I always love seeing a family of swans.

Black fronted dotterel. Really need to find us a red kneed for Sethys list!

An unknown plant type that looked interesting. I’m going to start printing out some of these photos to take to the field nats, to help us figure out what we’ve seen.

Whistling Kite

I was hoping the whistling kites would show up in similar numbers to last time. The ducks here were fantastic but we were too busy looking at the kites.

We were able to observe their behaviour most of the time we were there and I got some really clear photos that will be able to help when teaching the little dude about ID’ing.

Spoonbill

I was able to get some beautiful photos of the spoonbills feeding. Sethy was getting a little bird bored and wouldn’t let me spend too long watching them, which was a shame.

Ducks

Blue billed, male and female.

You can see the decent number of pink eared ducks here, which I always love. Someone one ebird recently reported 150!

Small group of freckled ducks.

Shovelers.

This account is a bit rushed because there really isn’t that much to say. I’m not knowledgeable enough about this area to provide any real commentary.

Both visits this month have been great for photography. I don’t know if that is a seasonal thing. I’m thinking of returning soon by myself to see what photos I can get.

Sethy loved it, because the birds were accessible. I’m running out of places to take him to! Fortunately, people at the field nats are helping out with ideas and even things to pass onto him.

I’m feeling a bit unsure about what birding adventures I’ll go on next, especially with the impending move. Hopefully it wont impact me too much and I’ll get back into the birding/hiking scene.

Seths First Visit to Lake Lorne

February 20, 2015 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

Visiting Lake Lorne

This was my second visit to Lake Lorne. The first involved my boyfriend… and the realization that my boyfriend prefers places like Balyang, where the birds seemingly sit and pose for us. It’s actually a great place to take kids birding. The walk around the Lake is relaxing and, because it’s rural, has lots of opportunities to find bugs. It’s half way along the Bellarine Rail Trail, which is interesting if your young cohort loves trains. Plus the playground is awesome!

The first priority was taking a walk around the lake and seeing what was there.

Shit.

I’m all for seeing ibises and egrets, especially in flight. However I’d promised a four year old that we’d see a couple of new species. I looked every along the inner islands and couldn’t see anything. At this stage, I was starting to panic. We’d dipped on the blue billed at Jawbone before. I didn’t know how long he’d be okay for.

I was matter of fact. I said that I couldn’t see the ducks and that I didn’t know why. We’d walk around the lake and then go to the waterhole were I had seen the freckled before. There was still a good chance we would see other birds before we got there, though.

And see them we did!

We accidentally flushed a flock of about 30 masked lapwings to a nearby paddock when we walked to close to them. There were a number of black winged stilts hanging out in that area.

We saw what I’m assuming is a juvenile black kneed dotteral.

Plus a pair of Australasian shoveler! It was a lifer for Sethy and only the second time I had seen one. I was able to get a better view and make a much more confident ID. So keen to see a northern shoveler now.

We saw a couple of Eastern Rosellas, which was lovely. I find there are more Easterns in that area of the Bellarine.

A random bug which I’m keen to ID

We also found numerous noisy miners, which Seth loved. Another lifer! He was fascinated them and loved their calls. I’m keen to teach him more about miners and show him other species, probably starting with the bell miner. One step at a time.

Mcleods Waterhole

We took our time and walked over to the waterhole. It’s a short but really lovely walk. In one section we were surrounding by trees and it really felt like we were in a forest. We didn’t see anything in the main waterhole so settled down to watch the activity in the smaller one.

SUCCESS! There were numerous freckled down – and a juvenile hoary headed greet being fed by it’s parent.

Seth loved it around here. There was a horse nearby that we got to get close to. We walked down a street, and some of the houses had farm stuff in their front years. It was a lovely escape from the city.

Now, I know we saw freckled ducks here. And at some point during the day we found a female blue billed duck. I just can’t really remember which photos are from where. So, in terms of ‘story, let’s just say that all photos from now on are from our return to Lake Lorne. If some look like they are from the waterhole, then blame my obsession with taking photos of everything.

This is a photo of a male freckled duck. I was really interested in this photo because the bird had a crimson colour at the base of the bill. I’ve since learned that his happens during breading season.

The reason we didn’t see them earlier was because they were resting in dense cover for most of the morning. Many freckleds and pink eared ducks seemed to leave the cover when we returned around 1pm for some reason.

I love this shot because the duck at the back has its bill open and it looks adorable.

It was a bit of a difficult twitch. I’m comfortable going to new places by myself but there aren’t many tips about Lake Lorne online. I was flying blind with a 6 year old that asks a lot of questions. Fortunately it all worked out and we ended up learning a lot.

I’m starting to miss birding by myself. I tend to stick to familiar spots west of Melbourne when I’m adventuring with him. I’m very keen to visit places further afield and meet up with more birders. I’ve been so exhausted this past month that I only have energy for one adventure a week – and try to take Seth out once a week as it’s therapeutic for both of us.

Suspect I’d have more energy if someone didn’t sneak upstairs and play bird calls on his ipad to wake me up 😉

Jerringot + School

January 29, 2015 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

Today was the nephews first day of school. I try to keep most of my nephews life private, but this is relevant to the story. We try to encourage good behaviour with what we’ve named ‘adventures,’ This is mostly me taking him for a walk somewhere but often has a birding element. Today, we promised that we’d go to the wetlands after school. And, Nan would come too!

At 2pm this afternoon we were in the bird hide at Jerringot. Fortunately there were no drunks in there, but someone had made a fire outside of the hide and left multiple beer cans there.

One of the first birds we saw there was this little egret. Seth was so excited, it was nans first time she had seen that bird. I don’t think I’ve seen one there before, it’s usually just great egrets. I may be wrong with the ID.

There wasn’t much else in the area in front of the hide which was disappointing. Many birders have reported seeing crakes and rails in their local wetlands. I don’t think the water at Jerringot is quite low enough yet. It’s meant to be awesome for Ballions crake. I don’t know if the birds have changed their habits. I don’t know whether I should look elsewhere for them. It’s incredibly confusing.

I decided we should walk along the side and back to see what was around. I’d also read that rails love crossing that path.

Meh!

However, we did see several black winged stilts in the area opposite us. They weren’t pleased about us being there and quickly flew off.

Nan also ‘saw’ her first Lathams snipe. She’s visually impaired and snipes are difficult to see at the best of times, so that may be a bit of an overstatement. But Seth really loved sharing his hobby with nan.

After this, we got a bit distracted looking for rabbits.

In the back area we saw 3 spoonbills and a couple of ibises. We flushed more snipes and stilts by accident. We walked back along the path and Seth pointed out ducklings in the adjoining pond

I don’t know how that kid does it. He always sees stuff that I miss! At first I thought he was joking because they were that well hidden. The mister is really skilled when it comes to birding.

It was a good twitch. Seth really appreciated being able to share it with his nan. Even better, she is knowledgeable about a lot of native plants. Seth will often ask me questions about things and I’m honest about my lack of knowledge in that area. He loves learning and he loves nature. It sounds silly, but it feels like it has a healing effect on him.

I’m getting a bit exhausted with the constant birding. Everything is a gazillion times harder with a little dude around. Packing extra, slowing down and resting more.

Yet I’m doing considerably more birding then I would be otherwise. I don’t have much money to go further afield. It’s helping with my agoraphobia. I think I’m mostly antsy to return to the wet rainforest 🙂 Or find a bloody shrike tit.

Planning to slow down slightly but also go further afield if we can. Need to see how we can involve his nan.

Now, this tired aunty needs some sleep.