Water birds from drive from Alice Springs to Papunya - 2 Mile campspot on Finke River near Glen Helen

I have seen a couple of strange Pelican poses, and this one was keeping its bill warm in its back feathers.

Pelican hiding its bill with a Little Black Cormorant

Australasian Darter

Dusky Moorhen

Little Black Cormorant

Little Pied Cormorant

Purple Swamphen

White-faced Heron

Lake Nash late afternoon - White-necked Heron, Brolgas and others

Spent a lovely late afternoon sitting by the water and had some beautiful fly-bys from a number of birds. By far the most graceful was this White-necked Heron:

And a pair of Brolgas were on the far side of the lake:

and later flew past while I was sitting near the crossing

There were a few other birds around:

Little Corella feeding near the road next to the crossing

Whistling Kite flying in the late afternoon sun over the lake

White-plumed Honeyeater who continually dunked themselves in the water having a bath

White-necked Heron getting a late afternoon snack

One of the highlights was listening to the pair of Brolgas "honking" just before sunset, and then doing a fly-by, honking after they had past me.

Happy Birding!

Wiggly's Waterhole

It has been a quiet few weeks with work and home life keeping the bird watching to a minimum. I decided to spend a long lunch out at Wiggly's Waterhole as the 13 - 15 hour work days were keeping me either inside an office or inside the car and I needed to get out to the rocks, hills, trees and birds, if only for a short time.

Driving into the Waterhole area, the grasses are still quite long and very dry, and some of the insects are as big as the small birds fluttering around the flowering trees. 

I hung around the first part of the waterhole for a little while, listening mainly to Grey Shrike-thrushes calling and singing to one another. Grey-crowned Babblers, Australian Ringnecks and Brown, White-plumed, Singing and Spiny-cheeked Honeyeaters were abundant.Willie Wagtails and Magpie Larks were also very friendly and noisy. As I walked along the north side towards the larger waterhole, both White-faced and White-necked Herons flew off from the shallows below the bank. The White-faced flew accommodatingly parallel to my position:

I also managed to spook a Grey Teal and then as I rounded the last few trees at the larger waterhole, Little Black and Pied Cormorants flew off. A Great Egret also didn't last long as it flew off to the top of a nearby tree:

I wandered down to the waters edge on the opposite bank from where the cormorants and egret had flown. Some Magpie Larks didn't seem to fussed about me, and thankfully, neither was a Yellow-billed Spoonbill. It was a few trees along from where the Egret had flown and seemed fairly happy for me to take photos of it sitting quietly, then having a yawn and finally it must have thought I'd had enough photos and it flew off:

I continued on "up river" and came across a group of fairy-wrens. One of the young is in the middle of a moult towards adulthood, a scruffy looking Variegated Fairy-wren:

It was all too soon time to return to work, but a very pleasant long lunch was enjoyed.

Canberra Birds 5 - White-faced Heron

I saw a flock of around 10 White-faced Herons soar around and then settle on a nearby tree-top before heading down to the swamp to feed. They were both majestic and then quite comical, before returning to their elegant best whilst fishing:

White-faced Heron and some frogs