During last Saturday afternoon’s “golden hour” at Lake Monger, both were very apparent.
Above: a Great Crested Grebe, newly in “breeding” mode/plumage.
Below: a very territorial Dusky Moorhen, in hot pursuit of a rival/“intruder”.
Comments closedTag: water birds
Over the relevant eight minutes I remained seated, as the sole pelican’s feet stayed still, several metres away, ”planted” in shallow water near Lake Monger’s western shore.
S/he reminded me of several Irish button accordion masters I have viewed from a similar distance – their feet moving not at all, but their body’s upper half highly mobile, its many movements oft-unpredictable.
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Perth’s Lake Monger sits within the Federal electorate of Curtin.
It was named after a Labor Prime Minister, but until 2022 Curtin was generally regarded as a perpetually-“safe” Liberal seat.
Curtin’s mostly-affluent electors include the adult residents of Australia’s wealthiest postcode.
In 2022, however, Curtin “fell” to “Teal independent” candidate Kate Chaney.
Apolitically speaking, Teals have thrived here for at least many thousands of years.
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As is often true of Tachybaptus novaehollandiae, our hero/ine was repeatedly disappearing and re-emerging.
Every time s/he resurfaced, the excellence of his/her feathers’ water-repellence was readily apparent.
Incidentally, as highly responsible parents, Australasian grebes sometimes eat their own feathers; click here to discover precisely why they do so.
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Perth is one of very few cities, globally, where such a sight is possible: a large raptor, on patrol above a “great fen”, within a few kilometres of the CBD.
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Pictured above: a snake bird, perched above Cottesloe Reef’s landward edge, with surfer-dude in background.
(more formally, the “snake bird” is an Australasian darter, Anhinga novaehollandiae)
Below them: there be dragons!
(photo is copyright Doug Spencer, taken at 3.33 pm on 03 July 2022)
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Perchance, on any particular day, a Perth resident wished to see a pelican, a parrot/cockatoo, and a heron…
… s/he would almost invariably find it very easy to make that wish come true, somewhere within a few kilometres of home, in whatever suburb.
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When an Australian thinks of seagulls, the relevant species is almost certainly our most common, emblematic one.
Chroicocephalus novaehollandiae – the Silver gull – has prospered mightily, post-1788.
Arguably, this highly-adaptable bird should no longer be described as a “seagull”.
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Having just returned to WA, after three (mostly, offline) weeks in South Australia, Pelican Yoga today interrupts the ongoing “Aspects of Waychinicup” series.
This post foreshadows a two-part series; each chapter will celebrate a very different species, on the wing.
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Pelican Yoga begins 2022 with a series of single-image posts.
All photos feature waterbirds, and they all were taken at “our” local lake on the first late afternoon and early evening of 2022.
At the moment fish are proliferating (as are algae), so pelican numbers at Lake Monger are much higher than usual.
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