Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Darwin - Day Three - East towards Kakadu

Today I was heading east from Darwin towards Kakadu National Park.  First port of call was Howard Springs, a small reserve known for its population of Rainbow Pittas.  I did see some, but no well enough to photograph.  I did photograph some other birds here like  Spangled Drongo and Shining Flycatcher


Then I headed to another small wetland at the delightfully named town of Humpty Doo.  Here I saw my first Cicadabird of the trip and also had more close encounters with more Straw-necked Ibis.


Main location for the day was to be the wetland reserve at Fogg Dam.  It is a magical place, full of many waterbirds.  I was brought down to earth as I got to the main causeway.  There would be no getting out of the car today!

Along the causeway I saw Pied Heron, Green Pygmy-geese and many Egrets of all sizes (this one is Great Egret). On the causeway were many Rainbow Bee-eaters, and on the lily  and lotus leaves were Comb Crested Jacanas.






Carrying on east, I spotted some Black-necked Storks and pulled over to photograph them from a bridge, and nearly got blown off the bridge by a passing road-train!! 


Further along the Arnhem Highway I stopped successively for Black Falcon, a very pale Brown Falcon, and almost immediately again for  a dark morph Brown Falcon.



In many places the landscape is dominated by termite mounds  - many are huge!    In the arid landscape I kept hearing a sharp piping call, and finally tracked it down to a Black-tailed Treecreeper.

3 comments:

  1. What a fantastic trip you are having with so many exciting birds. I certainly will come back and read all your posts when I have a little time.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sounds amazing Tony - great diversity of water birds. Looking forward to reading about your birding in Kakadu...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Don't you wish you could just keep travelling and didn't have to come back to work!!! I hope you enjoyed your trip as much as we did seeing your photos!!
    See you Monday!!

    ReplyDelete