Hi Peter,
I guess it's not surprising that you saw those species given the proximity
to Cherry Lake and Point Cook Coastal Park (although the Curlew is probably
a little unusual). I have not thought to use Google Earth/Maps to find new
birding spots! That being said, I may take a look at these sites in the next
weekend or so...
All the best,
Paul Dodd
Docklands, VIC
-----Original Message-----
From:
On Behalf Of Peter Shute
Sent: Monday, 15 October 2007 12:24 PM
To:
Subject: Mystery swamps - Altona, Vic
I was browsing around the satellite view of my local area at
http://maps.google.com.au when I noticed a couple of ponds at the
northern end of Altona. I had a look on Sunday morning, and I'm
wondering if anyone else has visited them:
http://maps.google.com.au/?ie=UTF8&t=h&om=1&ll=-37.854627,144.797251&spn
=0.01208,0.020084&z=16
Both ponds appear to be man-made, but I don't know if they're old farm
dams, for floodwater control, or something to do with the nearby
refineries - perhaps to catch spillages, or for fire fighting?
The smaller one is on the south side of Modal Place, which runs off
Burns Rd. Not sure if it's in the latest Melways. It's visible on
http://www.street-directory.com.au, but won't be found in a search.
Search for Burns Rd, Altona, instead. I think its Melways reference
would be about 53 J6. It's fenced, so I couldn't see in very well.
Very reedy, and I could see Chestnut and Grey Teal, Pacific Black Duck,
Purple Swamphens, Red Wattlebirds and White-plumed Honeyeaters, not much
else. I could see a nest box in a tree in there, so someone's looking
after it.
As I was leaving this one, a Black-fronted Dotterel flew out onto the
road in front of my car and did a diversion display in the middle of the
road. Not sure why, as I hadn't seen it when I walked along the fence
line.
Then I went to the bigger pond. This is at approximately 53 K7. I
turned left at the giant truck turning circle at the very end of Modal
Place, onto a dirt track. After a couple of hundred metres, I parked
beside the pond. Over the next couple of hours I saw:
Red Wattlebird
White-plumed Honeyeater
Willy Wagtail
Skylark
Rufous Songlark
House Sparrow
Hoary-headed Grebe
Australasian Grebe
Purple Swamphen
Eurasian Coot
Golden-headed Cisticola
Hardhead
Pacific Black Duck
Grey Teal
Black-fronted Dotterel
A fox, sitting watching me from about 5m away in the reeds at the end of
a little peninsula.
Masked Lapwing
Some kind of curlew - it departed while I was trying to get closer.
Richard's Pipit
Silver Gull
Superb Fairywren
Common Mynah
Common Starling
Black Swan (with juveniles)
Little Raven
Welcome Swallow
I didn't try it, but there's a huge mound at one end one might be able
to set up a scope on.
What I saw wasn't spectacular, but if a curlew will visit it, then who
know what else? The accessible pond is very reedy, and has lots of
reedy islands, inaccessible to cats and foxes (do foxes swim?), so there
could easily be shier birds in them.
Has anyone else been to either of these ponds? Or know who owns them?
The fenced one is obviously closed to the public, but the other is
easily accessible and I didn't feel like I shouldn't be there. There's
only a low, completely collapsed fence around it that looks like it was
to keep stock out, not people. The Melways shows it as being part of
Qenos Resins, but perhaps that's no longer true. It looks like an
industrial estate is planned around the turning circle, so access may
soon be impossible.
Peter Shute
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