And all on our way back from the shops yesterday. We had to go to Gatton for
essentials. It has to be done, but of course we always take along
binoculars, camera, maybe telescope - just in case.
On the way home, there was just time for a quick look at Lake Freeman, a
shallow somewhat ephemeral lake just behind Lake Apex in Gatton. Just now,
it's alive with vegetation and birds. Ten or so Cotton Pygmy-geese (they
bred there this year), a couple of dozen Wandering Whistling-ducks (they
bred too); both very scarce in these parts, in fact Lake Freeman is the only
reliable site for them in the Lockyer - and for some very considerable
distance beyond; Royal Spoonbills, Plumed Whistling-ducks by the hundred,
Magpie-geese, numerous Comb-crested Jacanas, and literally scores of other
species, too many to list. Coots, moorhens and swamphens all have young, as
do Black-winged Stilts. A Black Swan is sitting on a huge nest.
When a place is in balance like this, everything seems to flourish, and
Welcome Swallows and Fairy Martins were sweeping past us the whole time
feasting on the abundant insect life over the lake. Even those hard to find
nomadic White-backed Swallows were there, joining in, sometimes flying right
over my head challenging me to try to photograph them in flight. But just to
watch those strikingly beautiful birds is enough, I didn't need to frustrate
the experience by bringing any fiddling with the camera into it.
Well, pleasure enough after an afternoon's shopping.
But, about a kilometre from home, six big heavy-winged birds crossed our
path, heading in the same general direction as we were. One of the five was
huge with black separated primaries - had to be a raptor. The other five
were Red-tailed Black Cockatoos, and as the raptor peeled away from them it
revealed itself as an immaculate Spotted Harrier. While the cockatoos
continued to head west, more or less along the line of Lockyer Creek in the
general direction of Abberton, the harrier dropped into his more typical
activity of cruising the adjacent fields just two or three metres above the
ground, huge grey-blue wings set in that distinctive shallow v.
Enough.
(For those who receive this note off-line from birding-aus, I'll attach a
couple of photographs that I did take at Lake Freeman yesterday - but not
White-backed Swallows!)
Bill Jolly
"Abberton",
Lockyer Valley, Queensland.
Visit our website at www.abberton.org
email:
ph: (+61) 7 4697 6111
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