Long Weekend - Day Two

This is what the second day of this very busy weekend was all about:

Looking through binoculars!

We were at the Western Treatment Plant, a quite amazing place for watching birds. Many, many birds! How many species of bird do you think are in this photo?

This is why the binoculars were required. The swans are obvious. But the two large white birds are two different species of spoonbill. There is a duck at the back that you can only see the head of. There are masked lapwings in front of the swans, a couple of species of stilts, and some small brown birds amongst the grass that are really hard to see. Without binoculars you would see this sort of view:

All those little black spots on the second pond over are birds. The You Yangs in the background, with Avalon airport between them and the treatment plant.

Pelicans fly over gracefully:

How many species here?

No idea! There are swans, gulls, ducks, cormorants, and I don't know what else. This is looking over to Port Phillip Bay, near one of the outlets. The outlet water is relatively rich in nutrients, so sustains an enormous amount of life. This density of waterbirds is not a normal coastal scene.

Pelicans, cormorants swans, gulls:

So many birds! It was such a privilege to join this excursion. You need a permit to access the site, so this was a rare opportunity to visit in the company of people with permits.

If you click on these information signs they might expand enough to read them:

We did see a lot of swans. This sign says that up to 1,000 swans breed here. Once you add in all their offspring, there are many many swans at this time of year.

This sign says that 280 species of birds use the treatment plant. Some are permanent residents, and some are migratory birds only here for part of the year.

The expert bird-spotters in our group counted 60 different species today. The most exciting was spotted just near here:

One of the outlets to the bay. Just after I took this photo, someone spotted a green parrot on the rocks a little bit to the left. It hopped around a bit, and had a bath, while people with good cameras took many photos of it. I didn't because I didn't think I could zoom in enough to get a good shot. But I really regretted that later, when I discovered that it wasn't just any green parrot, it was actually Australia's rarest bird.

 A critically endangered orange-bellied parrot!

Added later: See some photos of the "OBP", taken by another member of the group, at iNaturalist here.

Watery Weekend

On Friday evening one of our neighbours asked us why there was a fire engine out the front of our place? We hadn't been outside due to the heat, (top of 40.3) so didn't have a clue what was going on. This is what they were doing:

Setting up a water tank for fire-fighting purposes. The company that built Lal Lal wind farm, Vestas, has donated several of these tanks to the local area. They will allow fire trucks working in this area to re-fill without having to travel back into the centre of Lal Lal for water. It is a really practical gift that could save lives and homes if a fire comes through here.

When I took this photo on Saturday, we seemed pretty safe from fire:

Actual rain! We ended up with 15mm for the day, which gave the garden a good drink, and filled up our own water tanks.

Today was "World Wetlands Day", so to mark the occasion we joined a Ballarat Environment Network excursion to two local wetlands.

First stop was the Mullawallah wetlands in Cardigan. When we visited in April last year there was hardly any water to be seen, but today was a different story:

It was green and wet, and we saw many species of birds, including two Australian spotted crakes (which I had not even heard of before) and an endangered blue-billed duck. My little camera had no hope of photographing elusive birds. I had enough trouble with swans:

Only one of these swans is in focus. Other people on the excursion had lenses up to 500mm, and probably got some great photos. Over 100 species of birds have been seen in this wetlands, and about 20 were spotted by members of our group today.

Our second stop was somewhere we hadn't been before, the Haddon Recreation Reserve wetland:

Believe it or not there are more swans in this photo, as well as two species of grebe, and various other birds. We were fortunate to have experts with us who could recognise them. When "some sort of raptor" (my description) flew over, the experts could tell us it was a whistling kite.

The sky became quite threatening by the time the excursion ended:

and we drove through light rain on the way home.

Timber!

There are two houses about to be built on neighbouring blocks. One has done a lot of clearing and earthwork and has the electricity connected already, but no sign of building yet. The other, which is closer to our house, is still in the tree-felling stage.

Today the chain-saw guy was there again, bringing down more trees. I went out for a walk with the dogs, but could still hear the regular booming crash as each tree was felled the whole way.

There's a huge gap in what was a tree-covered block. I hope that is the end of the felling.

My Contribution

Hard rubbish collection day is tomorrow, so today I put out the items I wanted rid of:

I know, the ladder looks OK, but it doesn't fold up anymore, so takes up a lot of space and can't actually be used for anything practical. I'm always amazed when people throw out usable items, but I didn't expect much of this to actually go to landfill.
Approximately two minutes later, the first item was grabbed:

I told him that it couldn't be folded, but he wasn't too fussed. It just made it a bit tricky for him to load it onto his truck.

By late this afternoon, only a couple of items remained. (Added later - before it was collected to go to landfill, everything except a rusty iron bar and a strip of perspex had gone to new homes). Further down the street I helped a girl load a table into the back of her car. I've tried to avoid collecting stuff myself this year, but I've seen some interesting items go to new homes.

Bits And Pieces

I started quilting my hottie cover today. Here's how part of it looked from the back before it was sandwiched:

It's getting there. Maybe it will be done by the end of this long weekend?

I also tried out this KeepCup reusable coffee cup which I was handed on my way through the city on Monday:

I like freebies! This one was part of an expensive advertising campaign for a new retail development in town, which I am never likely to frequent, but I was happy to take the free cup. And the coffee shop around the corner from me was happy to fill it. But I wonder if the cup will get enough use to justify its existence?