An afternoon at Werribee Treatment Plant

Camera, binos, food, drink - time to go. Picked up Pete about 1 pm and we headed off to Werribee. Dreams of a nice warm day with a light breeze were quickly dashed upon arrival as the wind rushing through the windows when we slowed for the first birds blew Pete's cap off. We decided to head down to Gate 4 and come back to Gates 1 and 2 later.

There were a few target species for me, mainly the ducks that don't visit Alice Springs - Musk and Blue-billed, as well as Freckled which we occasionally get in Central Australia. Pete had brought his scope, and our first stop inside the gate using the scope confirmed suspicions of Freckled Ducks sitting on an small boulder island. Tick, we were away. The wind made it difficult to use the scope but we did manage to I.D. a few others with the scope including the Bar-tailed Godwits which were too far away for binoculars or cameras to correctly I.D. One of the highlights was watching a male Musk Duck display and whistle for a nearby female. The bird hide was at least open, but the nearby seaweed aroma made birding for too long at once a bit of a challenge.

In all for the day were 70+ species, and probably a few more if we had been better with our wader I.D.

Here are a few of the better photos, as the wind made even photography quite hard for most of the time.

Musk Duck - weird sound, weird head, weird tail, just weird really!

Blue-billed Duck

Freckled Duck

Cape Barren Goose was a nice surprise

Pete on the hunt for a Whiskered Tern in flight shot

You Yangs

Straw-necked Ibis in their hundreds at sunset

A beautiful sunset to finish the day

Phillip Island Water Bird photos

Have spent a bit over a week at Phillip Island in Victoria and our time is coming to an end. We have had a great time with family and friends, and have seen some unusual and wonderful sights.

The bird life on the Island is varied with a number of habitats, but I have gone with a generalist group, namely water birds.

 Fairy (front) and Crested Tern

Cormorants (L-R)

Black-faced (3), Great, Little Pied

Cape Barren Goose

Crested Tern with fish

Crested Tern take-off

Fairy Tern

Pacific Gull take-off

Purple Swamphen backing away from rival

Yellow-billed Spoonbill

Photos of Waterside birds of Phillip Island

Had a good day that started at Fishers Wetlands near Churchill Island. There were a lot of birds on the wetlands themselves, as well as a few in the nearby woodlands and the inlet rocks/water's edge.

The behaviour of some of the birds was unusual, with the first photo one of these:

Great Egret

Eurasian Coot were there in numbers and here is a large group all huddled up to the shoreline:

Then there was the duelling Spoonbills, not the best shot but I don't normally see them together:

Royal Spoonbill

Yellow-billed Spoonbill

A fly-by by a Pied Cormorant

and a family of Pied Oystercatchers on the rocks near the Churchill Island bridge

Australian Spotted Crake was one of the species I had hoped to see and thanks to Pete (see his blog here ), I had the good information on where to look and be successful

and finally, what would a blog about Waterside birds of Phillip Island be without the iconic Cape Barren Goose!