Last Sunday, Sethy and I went to Balyang after our visit to Eastern Beach. The main goal of the trip was to see if there was enough interesting behaviour to justify Glenn travelling an hour to photograph birds. I quickly learned that no, there wasn’t. The nesting behaviour I saw last time was a fluke and we would be better off going to an environment with a larger concentration of birds. Seth and I still had fun, though
This is what remains from the heron nest from last year. I do want to return and see if a heron nests here this season.
Swamphen.
Cute darter flying away. The following images are all of pardalotes. Sethy found these in a tree, based on the last visit. Last time, I took a photo of a little bird in a tree and dismissed it as a thornbill. It was dark, rainy and I didn’t really care. Later, I looked at the photos and lightened the image. Sethy and I worked out that we had actually seen a spotted pardalote, which was a lifer for him. The main difference, for us, was the tail was shorter. He was so stoked. It really made me think about how many birds I had dismissed in the past that may had been something else. I didn’t really care about them before but these guys changed me mind. They were quite low down and easy to see. They let us get really close views from all angles. I think they were eating the leaves of something on the leaves. Possibly lerps?
Cute fungi
Spider underneath a possum guard.
~
I don’t know how often pardalotes are at Balyang. It could be seasonal. Or, they could be in the lower branches because it’s nearly nesting time. It’s certainly something to research. I’ve never noticed them before because they aren’t as visible as some of the other birds.
All the ducks there at the moment are boring. Oh! And there was wedding photography being done here during our visit. There may have been a dog wearing the top half of a tuxedo.