Saturday 24 August 2013

LILYDALE LAKE

Black Swan
Recently I visited the Lilydale Lake, for the second time this year.  Lilydale Lake is not one of Melbourne's best birding spots (it didn't make it into my top 100 sites) but it happens to be conveniently close to the nursing home where my mother resides, so I can pop in easily on my way. On this occasion, it was a cold grey winter day, constantly threatening rain.  I was there for little over half an hour, yet I managed to clock up 25 species, which isn't too bad in the circumstances.  Even better, I managed a couple of new ones for the month, which, given that I'd been birding in Queensland and Chiltern, was an added bonus.  The new birds for August were Long-billed Corella and Chestnut Teal.  A large flock of corellas flew over my head calling, then landed, decorating a tree on the other side of the lake.  Chestnut Teals are so common in Melbourne that we tend to forget (or at least I do) that they are not so common up north.

Otherwise, my bird list contained pretty much what you'd expect.  I did see an Eastern Great Egret in the creek, and just one Australasian Darter on one of the ponds.  As usual, the car park was full of Noisy Miners, with an occasional Red Wattlebird and White-plumed Honeyeater.

Lilydale Lake is always well patronised:  a popular place for picnics.  Even when it's raining there's someone in the car park.  However, it's still worth a quick visit from time to time.  I saw crakes and dotterels here last summer.  And with all that water, and all those reeds, something really interesting could always turn up.  We are lucky in Melbourne to have so many local parks to visit.

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