I ventured into Brisbane's food bowl yesterday to see if all the rain
had resulted in any inflows to the local dams. There was some heavy
showers on the drive out, the roads were covered in water, the farm
dams had water ... but the creeks were full of grass and both Lake
Atkinson and Lake Clarendon were bone dry. Perhaps it's because the
farmers have pumped out so much groundwater that there is no water in
the creeks.
I drove on to Lake Dyer - a more reliable dam. A few optimists were
fishing, but there were relatively few "fishing birds" there - the odd
Darter, a lone Sea Eagle, a pair of Caspian Terns and a couple of
silent Kites. I didn't see or hear any grebes. There were relatively
few ducks - Hardheads, Aus Teal (one pair had 10 chicks) and Pacific
Blacks, as well as a couple of Magpie Geese. Waders were also thin on
the fringe. Other than the Black-winged Stilts scattered round the
dam, there was a flock of twenty Marsh Sandpipers near a little island
at the dam wall end, a lone Black-fronted Dotterel and four Snipe -
three flew high and erratically while the fourth tended to fly low and
more directly to its next roost. There were the usual hordes of
e-chipping Cistacolas, Grassbirds, Fairywrens and Finches [CBM and PF]
in the fringing vegetation. Interestingly, there were a number of
turtle skeletons on a little sand bar - perhaps they like to haul
themselves out of the water before they expire. There were also quite
a few live ones - I could see their noses moving around like
water-boatmen.
I moved on to the Apex Lakes in Gatton - guaranteed to have plenty of
water from the town's stormwater runoff. Indeed the lakes were full,
but with relatively few waterfowl. There were, however, many hundreds
of Cattle Egrets nesting in the trees on a couple of islands.
Regards, Laurie.
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