Inaugural Mallacoota Bird Walk

 A few months ago I looked at the back cover (somewhat faded in my copy) of Bruce Pascoe's excellent 1979 book "Birds of Mallacoota" ...

...  and wondered why there were no bird walks as such in Mallacoota.  The Footmobiles go to birdy places and members of that group are generally interested in birds, but they are primarily walks not bird outings.  So I decided to organise something myself.

That was all set up to start when the infamous COVID-19 intervened making such an undertaking impossible.  However with a few simple rules to follow that is no longer an issue so I arranged an outing for 5 December.  7 of us turned up, which was a good number for an initial walk.  

The meeting point was at the end of Lakeside Drive and we started by walking to the turning area past Bucklands boat hire.

En route a White-faced Heron posed nicely for a photo.

One of the target birds for the outing was the Nankeen Night-Heron often found roosting in the Pittosorum.  It obliged us today.  Spot the eye!

Another - far better - view of the Night-Heron by Caroline Jones.

The bird was popular with the camera wielders.  Two images by Jack Winterbottom.

The usual species of ducks were on the dame beside the entrance to the Park and several other bush birds flittered in the trees in the Park.  As we headed off towards Karbeethong a pair of Welcome Swallows posed nicely on the sign for Schnapper Point Drive.

We wandered into the open area at the end of Mullet Creek hoping to find Black-faced Monarch (tick for some) and Rufous Fantail (fail).  However we got a bonus of a beautiful white-phase Grey Goshawk perching in a tree and photographed by Caroline ...

.. and Jack.

A pair of Whistling Kites sailed over head.  The Grey-headed Flying-foxes were adopting a somewhat lower profile than a couple of days ago but still registered on, in descending order of strength of evidence, ears, nose and eyes.

As we left the area a Grey Fantail landed on this nest in which some very small chicks were evident.  We bolted to the road and on looking back saw the adult land again so we had thankfully not disturbed the parents.

Arriving back at the cars we were entertained by a family of Golden Whistlers.  The fully coloured adult male didn't pose for a photo but I did get a sort-of snap of the begging immature.  

All up we recorded 39 species listed in the eBird checklist.    https://ebird.org/australia/checklist/S77066191

As an aside I thught the flowers of this low hanging Lillipilli were quite pleasant and are hopefully a sign of pigeon food to come.