Alysse's Travel and Birding Adventures: 2021

Sunday 5 September 2021

Byards Road Wetlands - Early Spring 2021

The weather is starting to get a bit warmer, and the days a bit longer. There is still plenty of water filling the ponds. The birds were out and active today, with flocks of Lorikeets and Galahs flying around, and New Holland Honeyeaters and Noisy Miners were aggressively defending their territories, and perhaps nests!?

Little Pied Cormorant

Australian Wood Duck

Grey Currawong

21 bird species today:

Australian Wood Duck

Pacific Black Duck

Grey Teal

Australasian Grebe

Spotted Dove

Dusky Moorhen

Eurasian Coot

Australasian Swamphen

Little Pied Cormorant

White-faced Heron

Galah

Musk Lorikeet

Rainbow Lorikeet

Noisy Miner

Red Wattlebird

New Holland Honeyeater

Australian Magpie

Grey Currawong

Magpie-lark

Australian Reed Warbler

Welcome Swallow

Monday 1 February 2021

Laratinga January 2021 - Crested Critters and more

Today, Erin and I headed out early to do some birding and geocaching around Laratinga Wetlands at Mount Barker. We arrived at 9am, and the first birds I spotted were a group of Crested Shriketits - one of my main targets for the day, and one of my favourite species. The shadows didn’t allow for great photos, but it was fantastic to watch these little cuties hopping about among the branches, searching for food.

Crested Shriketit

Crimson Rosella (Adelaide)

Grey Teals

Hardhead

Australasian Grebe

It wasn’t long before we came across the second main target for the day - A Great Crested Grebe. This single bird had been sighted at Laratinga by many local birders over the last few days, and I was hoping to find it myself. I had only seen this species once before, from a distance, on the Coorong. We found it exactly where it had been reported the day before - what an obliging bird. Although it wouldn’t come any closer for a better photo!

Great Crested Grebe

One of the rather friendly and always seen species of Laratinga are the Superb Fairywrens. They seem to be a bit more willing to stick around for photos here than at other locations, probably due to being used to many people passing through everyday!

Superb Fairywren

We saw plenty of birds along the path, including a friendly Common Bronzewing, and a few Little Wattlebirds. We headed down to the water treatment plant, hoping to see some of the special ducks that Laratinga attracts. We spotted Pink-eared Ducks and Australasian Shovelers, but dipped on the Blue-billed Duck that had been seen by others.

Common Bronzewing

Little Wattlebird

Dusky Moorhen

We kept walking to another lonely little pond past the treatment ponds, mainly to find a geocache down there, but while Erin was retrieving the geocache, I spotted a little bird skulking by the edge of the reeds - a Spotless Crake!

Spotless Crake

Black-fronted Dotterel

By this time it was nearly midday and it was getting warm, so we headed back to the beginning. I revisited the pond where I had seen the Great Crested Grebe earlier, hoping it might be a bit closer to the edge. Well it wasn’t much closer, but the light did seem a bit better for photos.

We went and had some lunch, and then found a few more geocaches nearby, before heading home. We found a total of 12 geocaches including 9 at the wetlands, 1 at Littlehampton and 2 at Blakiston. We visited the Blakiston St James Anglican Church which is the oldest existing and still used Anglican Church in SA (Built in 1847).

St James Anglican Church, Blakiston

Bell Tower, St James Anglican Church, Blakiston

I ended up with 42 species recorded, including 13 additions to my year list, bringing it to a total of 83 species (I picked up Sacred Kingfisher and Eastern Spinebill yesterday, not blogged). While I’m not really “going hard” I would like to try and beat my previous best of 202 species in SA for the year. Interestingly, my 202nd bird record in that year (2017) was a Crested Shrike-tit at Laratinga in November!

SPECIES LIST

Australian Wood Duck
Australasian Shoveler
Pacific Black Duck
Grey Teal
Chestnut Teal
Pink-eared Duck
Hardhead
Australasian Grebe
Hoary-headed Grebe
Great Crested Grebe
Spotted Dove
Common Bronzewing
Crested Pigeon
Australian Spotted Crake
Dusky Moorhen
Eurasian Coot
Australasian Swamphen
Spotless Crake
Masked Lapwing
Black-fronted Dotterel
Silver Gull
Little Pied Cormorant
Australian White Ibis
Royal Spoonbill
Yellow Spoonbill
Yellow-tailed Black-Cockatoo
Galah
Crimson Rosella (Adelaide)
Superb Fairywren
Little Wattlebird
Red Wattlebird
White-plumed Honeyeater
New Holland Honeyeater
Black-faced Cuckooshrike
Crested Shrike-tit
Grey Shrikethrush
Australian Magpie
Willie Wagtail
Magpie-lark
Australian Reed Warbler
Welcome Swallow
Common Blackbird

Wednesday 20 January 2021

Byards Rd Wetland - January 2021

Despite living around the corner, I hadn’t been for a walk around Byards Rd Wetland for quite a while - until this morning! I got a later start than I should have, and it was already getting hot. Several of the ponds were completely dry, while others had plenty of water. I quickly started seeing the usual wetland species. It was nice to see a pair of Royal Spoonbills feeding in Pond 9, and a couple of Silvereyes flitting about, one of which seemed to be feeding the other. A group of magpies surrounded me at one point, but they seemed friendly.. I think people might feed them and they were hoping for a snack. A group of wood ducks approached me at the edge of Pond 9, possibly with the same idea.

I hadn’t visited for a while, but the last few times I did was when a family of Tawny Frogmouths were hanging out just outside of the wetlands. I wandered out to the road, not really expecting them to be there, but there was 3 of them roosting in the exact tree I remember seeing them in last, probably over a year ago! I ended up with a total of 29 species, including 7 new additions to my year list.