There seem to be crakes at most of the suitable wetlands around Geelong and the Bellarine. Today I had another look at Begola Wetland, a small patch of reedbeds, rank grasses and a small muddy lagoon in the middle of Ocean Grove, just behind the dunes. I’ve never noticed anything of great interest here before (usually just Swamphen, Coots, Silver Gulls, Masked Lapwing, etc). Today the place was teeming with birds, including:
2 Baillon’s Crakes 2 Spotless Crakes 1 or more Spotless Crakes 6 Latham’s Snipe standing out in the water 8+ Nankeen Night Herons Great Egret 3 Royal Spoonbill
No sign of the sparrowhawk from yesterday, but it was great to see all these other birds foraging out in the open. There are houses along both sides, quite close to the wetland. If any of the residents are birders it must be cool to have these species on their backyard lists!
Russell Woodford Ocean Grove VIC ===============================
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Note to self: wear reading glasses when emailing birding-aus. Make that 2 x Spotless Crakes and 1 x Australian (Spotted) Crake I can’t even blame the auto-correct for this one.
Thanks for the heads up, PV.
RW
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