4 June 2013 / leggypeggy

What you can see in an hour

Australia, birds, Canberra, cockatoos, coots, cormorants, darters, ducks, galahs, Lake Burley Griffin, seagulls, swans

Galahs in Commonwealth Park

When we’re at home in Canberra, it’s fairly common for us to have an extra dog or two underfoot. Dog-owning friends travel a lot (just like us), our yard is fully fenced, all the dogs get along, my homemade dog food recipe is very popular and we are quite happy to do walkies.

Ducks

Arj is our guest this week. He’s a Portuguese waterdog (something we have in common with President Obama) and only slightly smaller than a Volkswagen.

So walkies (or draggies) are essential. Today’s excursion was on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin. We didn’t do the whole 5-kilometre circuit—mostly because it was late afternoon and I wanted to see what birds I could snap.

Poor John clung to Arj. I escorted Chiyo, who looks a lot like a large mop head, and had a camera (complete with telephoto lens) slung around my neck.

A swan couple. They almost always travel in pairs.

And here’s what we saw, in no particular order.

The lake and its surrounds are home to a variety of ducks. It’s not unusual to see traffic stopped on Constitution Avenue while a mother and her ducklings cross the road. A few years back, we had a troupe march by our house (we’re no more than five blocks from the lake). The next morning, the local newspaper had a front-page pic showing a youngster shepherding that flock back to the lake. Today there were Wood Ducks and Pacific Black Ducks, and a third species I didn’t recognise.

Canberra teems with sulphur-crested cockatoos. When I first came to Australia, I fed them in our backyard, until Poor John banned me from doing so. They have an ear-piercing, raucous squawk that must have irked the neighbours—and obviously irked Poor John. Cockatoos are partial to cooler weather and are especially common across the city in winter.

Silver gull

Seagulls appear everywhere in Australia, and are usually hoping to steal some of your food. They’re quite small compared to the gulls I’ve seen in other countries. Ours are called silver gulls.

Coots are at home on open water, but also come ashore to graze on areas where grass is short. Their white beak makes them fairly easy to identify.

The Australian darter looks a bit like a pale cormorant, which also visits the lake but we didn’t see any today. Because of its long slender neck, the darter is sometimes called a snakebird. It dives for food, using its beak to spear dinner. Small fish are swallowed under water, while larger ones are brought to the surface, flicked into the air and swallowed head first on the way down.

Purple swamphen

I love purple so it’s not surprising that I love Purple Swamphens. I see them all the time around the lake, but writing this blog entry finally made me to look up their name.

Now for the silly galahs. These pink and grey parrots are handsome—but not so smart—showstoppers. A goofy person is sometimes referred to as a ‘silly galah’—there’s even a song about silly galahs. I’ve seen them (the birds, not the people) stand by the edge of the road and get mowed down by a semi.

And lastly, the black swans. Yes, Australia’s swans are black. This is the sunburnt country and we can’t afford to have Western Australia’s state bird get sunburnt.

As for my reference to an hour? I took all these pics in an hour.

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