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Folks,
Very limited opportunities to get out lately, but I
made a couple of brief visits to Melbourne Water's constructed wetlands in the
Scotchmans Creek valley immediately east of Huntingdale Rd, about 14 km SE
of Melbourne CBD, firstly on late Saturday afternoon and again early this
morning. There are lots of dense reed beds which make it hard to see the
birds among them (which probably suits the birds perfectly). There are
also some more open expanses of water and some open shorelines where the
waterfolw are obviously used to being fed. Best birds included Grey
Currawongs (seem to be establishing themselves as residents in this part of the
world), Little Grassbird, Black-fronted Dotterel, Little Falcon and, on Saturday
only, a single Buff-banded Rail. The Rail was near the north-eastern
corner of the complex, poking quietly along the shore among the reeds then
making its way into the overflow creek-bed. Minimum numbers of waterfowl
included 63 Pacific Black Ducks, 29 Chestnut Teal, 2 Grey Teal, 6 Australian
Wood Ducks, 15 Coots, 5 Purple Swamphens, 3 Dusky Moorhens, 9 Australasian
Grebes, 2 Masked Lapwings and 6 mongrel exotic ducks.
Regards,
Jack
Krohn
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