Three worlds of the Myall Lakes

Recently, I stopped in the Myall Lakes area. Too much to see it all in a day, but I did explore the Melaleuca Paper Bark forest, the rare Littoral Rainforest and the littoral gully forest.

The highlight of the Paper Bark forest was perhaps the forest:

Bird-wise, there was the profusion of Eastern Yellow Robins:

Also featuring were Yellow-Tailed Black Cockatoos:

The excrutiatingly monotonous, but rarely seen, Wonga Pigeon and some Bar-Shouldered Doves:

 

A lake being there, there were also plenty of waders such as these Intermediate Egrets (resting after a heavy wade):

And the omnipresent Pacific Black Ducks:

There were also plenty of welcoming Welcome Swallows:

The littoral rainforest featured lots of those impossible to identify little birds. These I think are Yellow Thornbills:

These are Superb Fairy Wrens – the breeding male is the blue one:

Certainly, this one thought it was good to be alive:

There were also Red-faced Finches and the Laughing Kookaburra – laughingly trying to steal my lunch:

The third, and most interesting, world was the littoral native forest in a gully below a large sand dune. I spent an hour or so just standing on the top and watching. The stars were the Regent Bowerbirds, which I had not seen before. As is the norm for Bowerbirds, the male is the colourful one.

There were plenty of Honeyeaters, which seemed territorially perpetually at war with the Bowerbirds. Plenty of Lewin’s and some White-cheeked:

I also saw some Flame Robins but they were immediately shooed away by the Bowerbirds. There were also some Eastern Spinebills, and plenty of the ubiquitous red Wattlebirds.

All in all a fascinating day in a lovely spot(s).

 

Michael Monaghan

September 6, 2018