Richard Hall Photography

Headed out with Peter to Lowan Conservation Park today, a nice patch of remnant mallee woodland approximately 45 kilometres north east of Murray Bridge. We arrived about 8am into some absolutely awful weather, the thick grey clouds that greeted us stayed throughout much of the day and the odd spot of rain made for some dashes back to the car for cover.

Despite the conditions we made the most of it and soon found a large flock of woodswallows at the eastern end of the park. There must have been 200+ birds in total, most of them White-browed Woodswallows, though I did spot a couple of Masked Woodswallow mixed in amongst them. They would gather at the top of several mallee eucalypts feeding on insects only to suddenly take to the air en masse, circle around and then land nearby on another set of trees. It was quite a sight to behold and rather loud too!

I found a lone pair of White-browed Woodswallows nesting and when they took to the air with the flock I was able to move in close using my camo netting and a nearby tree as cover. They seemed oblivious to my presence and happily went about feeding, sitting on and tidying up after their chicks.

I organised a day trip with Peter to visit a few localities along the south coast around the Goolwa area. We set off about 7am and made our first brief stop at Mount Compass to look specifically for Southern Emu-wren around the boardwalk/wetlands area. Unfortunately we neither saw nor heard any of our target species but we did get some nice close-up views of a pair of Grey Fantails that were in the area and as inquisitive as ever.

I returned to Mount Lofty on the 25th of April to look for the pair of Scarlet Robins I’d seen on my previous visit. Sure enough, I located them in the carpark area again after just a couple of minutes looking, with the male up to his old tricks of attacking the side mirrors on cars vigorously. He certainly seems to know that each mirror he visits has an intruder in his territory, as he flew from car to car directly onto the mirrors. He would attack the reflections then sit on top of the mirror chattering softly. I was hoping to catch him on a more natural perch this time though, so I was thrilled when he landed low in a tree just in front of my car to feed on a flying ant!

We headed up to Mount Lofty Summit this afternoon to see if we could locate any Scarlet Robin as they’re a species I’ve longed to photograph properly for quite some time now. Walking around the main carpark and summit lookout is often productive at this time of the year, but on this occasion we didn’t sight any. In fact, there were very few birds in general apart from the the usual Superb Fairy-wrens that are prolific at the lookout and a few other individuals; New Holland Honeyeater, Crescent Honeyeater and a few White-throated Treecreepers.

After a few laps of the summit we decided to call it a day and headed home. Just as we were leaving I spotted a small, black bird on the entry sign which I thought was a Willie Wagtail. Driving past I decided to glance behind in the mirror and was thrilled to see it was in fact a male Scarlet Robin! I parked the car immediately and jumped out in pursuit. At first I couldn’t locate him, but then I found him nearby on the side mirror of a car as he attacked his reflection in it repeatedly.

We headed down to the south coast for some birding again today. First stop was Waitpinga Beach where the only notable birds were a large flock of Crested Terns, with many juveniles begging for food from their parents.

Marianne and I spent the day at Goolwa looking for waders but didn’t have a great deal of success save for a few sightings of Bar-tailed Godwit, Red-necked Stint and a few Common Greenshank. On the way down there we detoured via Point Sturt and along a back road, where we came across 50-80 or so juvenile Welcome Swallow resting on the fence line or in the middle of the track itself. It was odd to see a single Tree Martin and a lone Fairy Martin mixed in amongst them.