Birds at the Test Cricket in Adelaide

The current Test Cricket match between Australia and England is being played at the beautiful Adelaide Oval in South Australia. Since England won back the coveted Ashes Trophy last year in England there has been great interest in this current series. Usually my daughter and I attend at least one day of the Adelaide Test Match every year. Because of the intense interest in this series I, along with many tens of thousands of other cricket enthusiasts, was unable to get any tickets.

So I am confined to the comfort of watching the cricket from my favourite chair in the lounge room. That is no excuse for not doing some birding. The Adelaide Oval is well known for the hundreds of Silver Gulls that congregate on the grass during the match. The numbers seem to increase as the day progresses. I guess they come to help clean up the mess left by the crowd, things like dropped chips, meat pies, bits of rolls and other items of food from the fast food outlets.

Other species have noticed during the telecast of this test match are Welcome Swallows and Magpie Larks. On my various visits to the oval for cricket matches I have seen the following species:

• Silver Gull
• Pacific Black Duck (the River Torrens is just a few metres south of the oval)
• Rock Dove
• Spotted Turtle Dove
• Crested Pigeon
• Galah
• Rainbow Lorikeets
• Adelaide (Crimson) Rosella
• Yellow Tailed Black Cockatoo
• Welcome Swallow
• Tree Martin
• Willie Wagtail
• White Plumed Honeyeater
• Red Wattlebird
• Noisy Miner
• Magpie Lark
• Australian Magpie
• Little Raven
• Common Starling
• House Sparrow

This certainly is a good list. Many more species could be added if I included the nearby River Torrens and the parklands. Watching the birds during slow periods of play maintains one’s interest, to be sure. The photo below was taken several years ago during and interstate match. The white patch on the grass centre right is a large flock of Silver Gulls.

Adelaide Oval, South Australia