FSP 2 May

["martin butterfield" <>]

I took myself out to the Poo Pits this morning to count the ponds (and more usefully the birds on them and in their vicinity). 

 

The best sight was a couple (in the sense of 2, but also probably In the sense of a pair) of whistling kites carrying small branches into a nest between the Pits and the turf farm.  A trio of passing Australian ravens harassed one of the kites but were more or less ignored. 

 

In terms of grebes my count was 76 Australian and 73 Hoary-headed.  Most of them were quite obvious as to species - I probably have a tendency to put the dubious cases into Australian, but it was still far from a preponderance of hoary-headed.  However pond 6 had 32 HHG and only 16 AG.  I counted the ponds at least twice for these species and found the biggest problem to be birds diving, presumably for food.  My counts from differnet corners tended to be very similar, with the later counts tending to be slightly higher than the earlier ones.

 

I recorded 15 blue-billed ducks including a surprising single male on pond 1.

 

It was also interesting to note that there was not a single bird on ponds 5 or 7.  Also interesting in terms of "where were they?" was my recording only 2 Pacific Black Ducks.  This was so surprising that I looked closely for them and couldn't spot them.

 

Finally, I was plaesed to see some open water in Kellys Swamp.  This was being patronised by 3 Masked lapwings, 1 White-faced heron and a single Purple swamphen.

 

Martin