Wednesday Walk to Tuggeranong Lake

A walk of about 6km around Lake Tuggeranong.  The meeting place will be a parking area off Mortimer Lewis Drive, Greenway.  See arrow in image.

26 Members and guests, including 2 visitors from Cambridge UK gathered at 8:30 on the Eastern shores of Lake Tuggeranong.

Before moving off there was already badinage regarding the number of Little Corellas visible and audible on the far bank. By the end of the walk one member had counted 61 and this was agreed to be the exact number. In the intervening water quite a lot of Eurasian Coots were visible. Due to their high level of activity – and the distance covered in the walk – it wasn’t realistic to come up with precise count and 100 was taken as a realistic estimate. Fair numbers of the other two common ‘hens’ Australian Swamphen and Dusky Moorhens.

We also observed reasonable numbers of the commoner species of Duck and the three common Cormorants (plus two Darters). The number of Great Cormorants was possibly better than reasonable triggering a “large number filter” in my logging application.

The flowering Casuarina cunninghamianaon the Western shore had attracted a good number of small bush birds including Yellow-rumped, Brown, Striated and Yellow Thornbills. The last-named species were originally identified by call but were difficult to in the glass. It is hoped most members of the group ended up with a tickable view.

Breeding was observed for Magpie-lark, with at least 2 well developed chicks in a nest near the Town Centre, and Little Corella with dependent young closer towards the dam wall.

We ended with 48 species. There were a few surprising omissions (including Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike, Noisy Friarbird, Red-browed Finch and Common Blackbird).

A copy of the checklist for the outing is at http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S27638162