Australian Shoveller, Laratinga Wetlands
2 Comments »7th January, 2011; Category: Ducks Geese and Swans, Good Birding Sites, Plants, Waterbirds
Australian Shoveller, Laratinga Wetlands, South Australia
Last Sunday I spent about three hours birding at the Laratinga Wetlands at Mt Barker in the Mt Lofty Ranges near Adelaide. It was a pleasant summer’s day with a cooling breeze. Overall I made quite a long list of birds seen. It was the first time I’d walked around all of the ponds in this wetland. The ponds drain the nearby treatment plant, purifying the water so it can be reused for nearby irrigation.
The wetlands are usually good for a large range of water birds, but the extensive planting of native Australian tree, bushes, grasses and water plants over the last 10 years has produced an environment suitable for many bush birds like wrens, honeyeaters and parrots.
On my visit earlier this week, possibly the best sighting was a solitary Australian Shoveller, a species of duck shown in the photo above. The photo also shows two Pacific Black Ducks in the background. The Australian Shoveller (also known as the Australasian Shoveller) is found in suitable habitats throughout eastern Australia and much of southern Western Australia.
Laratinga Wetlands, South Australia
Happy New Year
2 Comments »1st January, 2011; Category: Garden birds, Nocturnal birds, Owls Frogmouths and Nightjars, Parrots and Lorikeets, Ravens and Crows
Galahs at nesting hollow
Happy New Year.
I hope that 2011 brings you many interesting and wonderful birding experiences. I am certainly looking forward to getting out birding a lot more in 2011 than I did over the last few years. Now that I’ve completed the requirements for my Master of Arts Creative Writing degree I am determined to get back to more birding. It has been an intensive time of study, writing, staring at the computer monitor and generally late nights. This New Year has so much promise and so many possibilities. I hope to continue to share my interest in Australian birds here on this site and to encourage my growing readership to participate through the comments section of each article.
New Venture
This year might see a completely new venture on this site. Our daughter is planning on spending half the year teaching overseas. My wife and I are hoping to visit her few a while and I will be taking plenty of photos of birds to share here on this site. We haven’t planned our itinerary yet but let me assure you that we are planning on visiting some very exciting birding parts of Africa. More news on this in coming articles.
First birds for 2011
The New Year is nearly 12 hours old as I write this, but I still haven’t been out birding. After our celebrations I needed to sleep in a little. Just after midnight I heard a solitary Galah flying over our house. What it was doing flying around in the dark I don’t know; perhaps it was on its way home from New Year’s Eve celebrations! I thought I also heard an Australian Owlet-nightjar calling but it didn’t call a second time so I’m not sure about that one. Then at first light there was a Little Raven calling raucously outside our bedroom window. So much for trying to sleep in!
Little Raven