Survey day.
Jan 26th, 2008 by Duncan
Mid January, time to do the bird surveys at Swallow Lagoon NCR, a nice day for it too, mild, sunny and calm, should be birds everywhere. Or so you’d think, but in fact it was the quietest day for birds that we’ve struck in a couple of years surveying. Never mind, as always there were some good sightings, a nice flock of Varied Sittellas that have been scarce for a while, and even better, a flock of Buff-rumped Thornbills, which we’ve probably recorded only once or twice. Everything else except Eastern Rosellas, Sulphur-crested Cockatoos, Noisy Miners and a couple of other species was scarce, and some we were expecting to tick didn’t show at all.
Never mind, there was something else in abundance that kept me straying from the straight and narrow, Odonata. Yes, dragonflies and damselflies galore, the former right through the 200 hectares of bush, the latter on the three dams which are now holding a nice lot of water and are fringed by newly grown rushes. When we started on site six we walked into a small clearing about the size of a room, and it was alive with circling dragonflies. I couldn’t resist, and after completing the survey and eating a quick lunch I took the camera back to try my luck. One dragonfly kept landing but was very wary, I eventually got a good picture from about six feet away, it was an Australian Emperor. Another was much more co-operative, and allowed me to get quite close, this is it, a Tau Emerald, Hemicordulia tau.
I entered the survey data on line a short time ago, but that’s not the end of the matter, we’re going back very soon for a day hunting dragons and damsels, first calm sunny day, bring it on!