G,day all,
Just returned from the Kerang district where I spent Saturday working the
opening to
the duck murdering season. Unfortunately, this ludicrous activity continues in
this
state but fortunately, numbers of hunters were way down from previous years.
In
fact, many NRE staff believe it is one of the 'quietest' opening weekends they
have
ever seen.
On to brighter matters. I really didn't expect to get any ticks over the
weekend,
but was pleasantly surprised on Saturday afternoon where, in the space of only
a
couple of hours, I got two! I was at the north end of Lake Cullen, just east
of the
Koorangie marshes, observing groups of Common Greenshank and large flocks of
Black-winged Stilt, when my attention 'terned' to 5 terns flying towards me low
to
the waters surface. Half expecting them to be Whiskered, I was most excited
that
they were White-winged Black Terns - 1 in breeding and 4 in non-breeding
plumage.
Tick number one.
Later in the evening, a storm was rapidly approaching from the west providing
good
'swift' conditions. Two parties of Fork-tailed Swift (tick number two) were
seen
foraging quite low. Around 20-25 in total. Interesting that none showed their
forked tails. The most distinguishing features were the white rumps, the long
pointed tails and the small size compared to the oodles of White-throateds I
have
seen before. Top stuff!
Chris
Birding-Aus is on the Web at
www.shc.melb.catholic.edu.au/home/birding/index.html
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