Yesterday, Australia Day, seemed a good time to pay some attention to this splendid Australian Duck. During the morning a few assembled on the west side of Kellys where you could pick them out from Cygnus Hide with a
scope or good pair of binos. I have noticed they tend to use the same rather limited number of roosting points. The attached graphic more or less indicates where seven were at 1115. Two had pink bills, a pink star awarded here to the oft-reported more coloured
one, PS1 for reference. Of the five black-bills, 3 had noticeably blackish heads so probably males without the breeding bill colour. The black-bill with yellow arrow is probably a female which when snapped was in motion, on its way to become one of the 4
at the southern end. The blue arrow indicates a black-bill which departed at 1045, making 8 individuals. This morning I might have been too early, but there were fewer ducks, the shovelers in particular being scarce. Only 3 FDs seen including 2 from the
boardwalk, one being old reliable PS1.
