We went walking today, at Herdsman Lake. I’m amazed that I have never been there before—I’ve lived within a couple of kilometres of it for most of my life! Bilby was a little less settled than I would have liked (there was just so much to see!) so we couldn’t settle in and have a go at drawing, but other than that, it was a lovely morning.

It reinforced just how bad my general nature knowledge is:-( But I can use the net:-) Since getting home I’ve managed to identify most of what we saw (I’m sure we saw a couple of others, but I could only remember a certain number of images).

I’m fairly sure we saw some Australian Ravens, Australian White Ibis, Black Swans, Dusky Moorehens, Eurasian Coots, Pacific Black Ducks and the ubiquitous Willie Wagtail. Puggle also assures me that we heard some Australian Magpies (and given that he has been able to identify them, including by song, for at least a year, I’m inclined to think he’s correct!)

I also think we saw Magpie Larks, Little Black Cormorants, Laughing Turtle-doves (almost certainly a turtle-dove of some sort) and Welcome Swallows (but they were darting around so quickly that it was very hard to tell). I am pretty sure there were another couple of dark-coloured, wading type birds, but I can’t remember sufficient details.

Next time, I’ll take a camera! I’m assuming it’ll take me a while to get decent bird photos, but there were some terribly picturesque paperbarks (about a third of the way down the page):-) There were also some Bottlebrush that were flowering at a convenient height for close observation of the flowers—very cool:-)