A visit to Molonglo River Park

I was recently advised that a Nankeen Night-Heron had been seen in the Molonglo River Park area and was possibly nesting there.

This next image is of a billabong on the Molonglo rather than the lagoon where the bird was seen but gives an indication of the habitat at the lagoon also.

I managed to find the bird, relatively easily once in the correct position.

As far as I could determine the bird was merely sheltering from the ~30^oC heat, proving that a Night-heron is smarter than a birder.  At one stage I thought there may have been a second bird further into the willows but then concluded it was merely some dead leaves impersonating a Night-heron.  So I could find no evidence of breeding.

I do intend to go back to the area when it is a trifle cooler to check up on the situation.  Been there done that: I think breeding might be back on the agenda.

Near the start of the track down there was a good crop of Themeda triandra (Kangaroo grass).

 There was also some African Lovegrass and a bit of Serrated Tussock here and there.  Between the Lagoon and the River the dominant grass was Poa lab. tussocks.  I was wearing my wellies in case there were grumpy reptiles in the areas: if said descendants of dinosaurs were on top of these  tussocks they would have more likely to get my navel than my shins!

A nice flower of an Asteraceae..

... and its equally attractive seedhead.  (Its probably a weed but it does look nice.)

 Definitely a weed is verbascum.

 There was a fair bit of evidence of wombats in the nice diggable soil.

 A Long-necked Tortoise was on a log in the lagoon.

Overall this seemed like quite an interesting area.  It is public land but the Palerang Council seems to have been having thoughts about selling it off,  As about 3/4 of the block seems liable to flooding (and the remaining component fairly slopey) I suspect they'd get little money for it.  However the existence of the lagoon and the billabong should make it rather good wildlife habitat if something could be done to get rid of the weeds.