I had received word that Pink-eared Duck had been seen at the Arundel Wetlands so took it as a good opportunity for a quick morning visit to my local patch.
As I arrived there were the usual birds around with the highlights being a Spangled Drongo and a Olive-backed Oriole.
One of the easy access waterholes provided the Comb-crested Jacana, Little Egret and Intermediate Egret.
Moving to the main water area there was the usual assortment of Pacific Black Duck, Hardhead, Grey Teal, Chestnut Teal, Dusky Moorhen, Eurasian Coot, and Australasian Waterhen. The Little Black Cormorant were around along with the resident Royal Spoonbill.
A not so common sighting for the Arundel Wetlands is the Straw-necked Ibis.
Other larger water birds included the Black Swan and Australian Pelican.
Scanning through the various water fowl on the main water body I was eventually able to locate my target with three Pink-eared Duck working the middle of the water area. They unfortunately never came any closer to the edge so I had to settle for some long distance shots with a fair bit of cropping.
Coming back to one of the other waterholes the lighting was still a little dark due to some cloud cover, and combined with some heavy shadow I got some interesting shots of a Pacific Black Duck.
Returning to the first water point a Comb-crested Jacana was situated nicely and I got down low for some good shots.
A Dusky Moorhen and Grey Teal also provided a nice shot together.
I decided to head around to the river side of the wetlands and as well as the commonly seen birds I was rewarded with a Striped Honeyeater.
Along with a Striated Pardolate and a Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike.
A quick mornings trip with 45 different birds photographed in about 2 hours was not a bad effort. No new ones but some more shots of the Pink-eared Duck and a few upgrades for the galleries made the morning a success.
- World Bird Count: 443
- Australian Bird Count: 296
Birds Photographed:
- Spangled Drongo
- Olive-backed Oriole
- Comb-Crested Jacana
- Intermediate Egret
- Little Egret
- Little Black Cormorant
- Straw-necked Ibis
- Royal Spoonbill
- Eurasian Coot
- Grey Teal
- Chestnut Teal
- Black Swan
- Australian Pelican
- Pink-eared Duck
- Australian White Ibis
- Pacific Black Duck
- Dusky Moorhen
- Australasian Grebe
- Spotted Dove
- Grey Fantail
- Masked Lapwing
- Australasian Darter
- Willie Wagtail
- Hardhead
- Silvereye
- Lewin’s Honeyeater
- Grey Shrike-thrush
- Rufous Whistler
- Red-backed Fairy-wren
- Magpie Lark
- Scarlet Honeyeater
- Noisy Miner
- Noisy Friarbird
- Scaly-Breasted Lorikeet
- Striated Pardalote
- Brown Honeyeater
- Superb Fairy-Wren
- Rainbow Bee-eater
- Striped Honeyeater
- Torresian Crow
- Bar-shouldered Dove
- Australian Wood Duck
- Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike
- Common Myna
- Pied Currawong