Bird Survey 26 July 2024

Hi all

The lagoon was full for last Friday's survey - the weir to the east of the Park St bridge was covered. At first glance, there were no birds to be seen! Then we spotted some Cormorants in an over-hanging Casuarina and over the next 20 minutes a few other water birds came into view. The picture was no better at Griffin Rd bridge - looking west, there was nothing to be seen, until a lone Eurasian Coot came into view. There were a few more birds to the east side of the bridge. The overall  count for the morning was 26 waterbirds. I have looked back through our records since March 2017, and this was our lowest monthly count - an extraordinary drop from the 115 seen on our last count in June. I have no idea what is going on.

Here is the count:

Little Black Cormorant     2

Little Pied Cormorant      3

Masked Lapwing             2

Chestnut Teal                  2

Pacific Black Duck           2

Australian White Ibis       1

Eurasian Coot                  4

Dusky Moorhen               10

Total                               26

The next survey will be on Friday 30 August.

Russell Beardmore

Dusky Moorhen

The Dusky Moorhen was the predominant species this month. This is the only resident breeding species on the lagoon. Monthly numbers remain within a fairly narrow range of about 10 - 20 birds.