My first full day in Australia was partly spent seeing the sights in Canberra, but the morning was (of course) dedicated to some time in nature. Nikki and I took a bus out to the Jerrabomberra Wetlands, a nature preserve just a little bit out of town that's supposed to be one of the best birding (and general wildlife) spots in the Australian Capital Territory. Even though we were in the quiet (and cold!) winter months, it proved to be excellent, with an introduction to yet more strange and beautiful Aussie wildlife, including some surprises.
Even before we entered the preserve, there were some new birds seen along the entrance road, including a group of
Straw-necked Ibises chasing each other around in a field, a
Willie Wagtail (Australians have the best bird names) watching us from a fence post, and a
Yellow-rumped Thornbill foraging on the ground.
 |
| Straw-necked Ibis |
 |
| Willie Wagtail- actually a type of fantail. Australians are better at creative names than they are at accurate taxonomy (see also: Australian Magpie, Magpie-lark, Koala bear) |
 |
| Yellow-rumped Thornbill |
Once we figured out how to get inside Jerrabomberra, we first stopped by one of the small ponds, which held some of the slightly less-common Australian ducks like
Grey Teal,
Cinnamon Teal, and
Australasian Shoveler, as well as
Red-kneed Dotterel, a type of endemic plover, and
Australasian Swamphen, one of the former Purple Swamphen splits. Best of all, there were a couple
Pink-eared Ducks swimming around, easily the strangest-looking duck I've ever seen. Australia is known for getting a little crazy with evolution, giving us things like kangaroos, Spiny Echidnas, Wombats, and of course the Duck-billed Platypus, but it turns out that the local birds also somehow got way weirder than anywhere else in the world. What a weird and glorious continent.
 |
| Grey Teal |
 |
| Australasian Swamphen |
 |
| Pink-eared Duck- aka "how did this thing even evolve?" |
In a bit of grassland past the ponds, a Grey Butcherbird was watching us from the top of a tree, while a little ways away was a small flock of Red-rumped Parrots, my last psittacine tick for Canberra. A Little Eagle soared overhead, while in the grass I had my first male Superb Fairy-wren in Bright plumage, which would have been incredibly disappointing not to see in Australia.
 |
| Grey Butcherbird |
 |
| Male Superb Fairy-wren in dull plumage |
 |
| Little Eagle |
 |
| Red-rumped Parrot |
 |
| Male Superb Fairy-wren in bright plumage |
The "real" birding started as we reached the small patch of forest in the middle of Jerrabomberra. We happened across a small mixed flock of honeyeaters in a tree next to a pond, mostly consisting of
White-plumed Honeyeaters and
Yellow-faced Honeyeaters, with a single
White-eared Honeyeater.
 |
| Yellow-faced Honeyeater |
Further into the trees, a White-browed Scrubwren was hopping around on the ground, while a Red Wattlebird was squawking above it. Red Wattlebirds are one of the most common Australian Honeyeaters, but they're so big and attractive, with great personalities, that I don't entirely mind seeing them everywhere.
 |
| White-browed Scrubwren |
 |
| Red Wattlebird |
Shortly after, I saw a couple more very attractive honeyeaters, in the form of an Eastern Spinebill and a New Holland Honeyeater. These two are almost common enough to be considered "trash birds", but again they're so good-looking and bold that I'm always happy to see them. Honeyeaters are always fun to watch, in part because they're completely unlike anything we have in the Philippines (or the US), and are always varied and interesting.
 |
| New Holland Honeyeater |
 |
| Eastern Spinebill |
Further in on the trail we had a number of mixed flocks that included some of the much less-common honeyeaters and LBJs, including Brown Thornbill, Weebill, Yellow Thornbill, Fuscous Honeyeater, and White-eared Honeyeater. Even less-common was a single Brown Gerygone, a species generally found only along the coast. I spent about an hour scrutinizing my pictures to be sure of the ID before submitting them to eBird, and thankfully they were accepted. It turns out this was only the third eBird record of the bird in Jerrabomberra, so that was quite exciting.
 |
| Brown Gerygone |
 |
| White-browed Scrubwren |
 |
| Weebill, the smallest bird in Australia |
 |
| Very successful Yellow Thornbill |
Also present was a large flock of Silvereyes, the only zosterops in most of Australia, and a Crimson Rosella, always fun to see.
 |
| Crimson Rosella |
 |
| Silvereye |
Jerrabomberra wasn't absent of cool mammals- an invasive Red Fox out hunting for native wildlife wasn't great to see, but on the bright side we saw a herd of Eastern Grey Kangaroos, my first up-close view of any kangaroo. Some of the females even had joeys inside their pouches. The stereotype of kangaroos hopping down the city streets of Australia isn't entirely accurate, but it really does have a lot of kangaroos around.
 |
| Eastern Grey Kangaroo with a joey! |
On the way out I saw an Australian Painted Lady on the ground- my first Australian butterfly, and an endemic at that! Watching from above with a beady eye was an Australian Raven, while also on the ground was a juvenile Australian Magpie and a flock of Crested Pigeons. Crested Pigeons are the most common pigeon in Australia (except maybe feral Rock Doves), and they also look incredibly goofy- because I guess taking normal things and adding a bit of weirdness is basically how evolution works in Australia works.
 |
| Australian Painted Lady |
 |
| Australian Raven |
 |
| Crested Pigeon |
 |
| Immature Australian Magpie |
In short, Jerrabomberra really is as good as it's supposed to be- I added a solid 50 species to my Australia list in the space of a few hours. I only wish I'd had time to go back and visit again to get more pictures and see more birds. Alas, we had other places to see and non-birding things to do, so this morning was all I got.
Comments
Post a Comment