Up the Mighties

 The mighties in question are the Mighty Genoa River and the Mighty Wallagaraugh River.  We went on an expedition on them as part of an ABC project on citizen science and birding.  In total 19 people were on the Gipsy Princess for the outing.

Here are the route maps as taken from eBird Tracker.  For a change Dale took us into Bridies Backwater (shown in the image as the big loop to the NE).  

The second half of the trip was up the Wallagaraugh to just past Johnson's Bridge with great hopes of spotting the Black Bittern.  Spoiler alert: hopes are invented so as to be dashed.

A female Australasian Darter dries its wings while a Little Black Cormorant takes five.

The first White-bellied Sea Eagle of the day.

The following bird was initially a puzzle with the aigrettes and black legs leading to thoughts in the field (or rather, on the River) about Little Egret, of which one or two are being seen around town.  However, looking at photos, the colour and structure of the beak make it clearly a Great Egret.  The aigrettes are "left over" from breeding plumage.

As we approached the bridge a couple of Australian Pelicans took off.

In the area after the bridge we searched for the Black Bitterns seen there from time to time.  We were unlucky (as was another birder coincidentally searching from the road about the same time, who emailed me with his tale of woe).  A dark shape lurking in the bushes was thought to be (1) an owl then (2) the Bittern before resolving to (3) a stump.

Two more Sea-Eagles were perched on a dead tree a little further up the River and were encouraged to approach the boat.  One headed off upstream, but the other launched ...

... and came towards us ...

Flew pas the boat a couple of times 

... and returned to its perch.

It is still my firm belief that one cannot have too many photographs of Sea-Eagles.

The ironbarks are flowering well on the ridge along Fairhaven Rd as was this one hanging into the River.  The calls of Red Wattlebirds and Bell Miners feeding on them were audible in the boat.

A Wedge-tailed Eagle was soaring above the ridge ....

.. and was joined by a friend.  They did get closer, but weren't doing an obvious display flight.

A pair of Masked Lapwings landed on a sand bar as we headed back.

On arriving back at the Gipsy Point Jetty a few bush birds came to inspect us while the ABC folk conducted a few interviews about citizen science and its contribution to the monitoring and protection of birds.  As we drove out Barry, who was walking up the pointed out a male Superb Lyrebird doing a spectacular display just below the road.  With tail curved and vibrating over his back, he walked backwards towards some bushes.  Unfortunately for him the 3 nearby females had other things on their minds and walked away across the road.

The total bird list for the trip (32 species) is in this Google Sheet.  If anyone has any additions to the list please let me know.

I will conclude with a snap of the non-Telstra mobile phone tower, poking above the trees.  Good to see it there but a great pity it seems not to be working (or at least my phone wasn't picking up a signal).