Some birds of Bungendore

This post is more about showing off some pleasant images than great news.

On 6 May I went for a patrol around Bungendore looking for water birds.  There was little water in some places and few birds in most places.

No Plumed Whistling Ducks were found anywhere.  I wonder where they have gone.  At the sewage works there were a couple of Shovelers and smallish numbers of Grey Teal and Eurasian Coots.

The big dam off lake Road had a small pool of water and a mud hollow but no birds.  So I turned around and about 200m up the road saw...

 ... an Egret.  The overall appearance made allocation to species quite easy but going for Cattle Egret was confirmed by the company it was keeping.

By the time I got back to Darmody's Dam a pair of Australian Shelduck had appeared.

 Note the white ring around the beak of the female.

In the background a reasonable number of Sulphur-crested Cockatoos were perched in a tree.  The question is how many?

My count was 54 in this tree and slightly more than that in two other trees and the nearby hay rack.  As about 40 had flown off as I arrived there could easly have been 150 in the area when I got there.  On occasion I have estimated over 500 each of this species and a similar number of Galahs present at one time.