Lakes Entrance Highlights

Stepping out of the car when we pulled up at the house on the Monday evening I was met by a shock of perfume from the flowering sweet pittosporum. Olfactory euphoria! The scent was heavy all week, sweet pitto being a major flora species in the district and in the immediate vicinity of the house, including the hillside on which the hose perches about half way up.

Next day on my morning walk, the first of six while we were there, along the Lake Bunya walking track which starts between the sewage treatment plant and the golf course, three fairy wrens, two female and a spectacular male, flitted about in the banksias and teatrees. I hadn't seen a blue wren in a while. We used to have them around the house at Gembrook. I guess they left when the bellbirds came. I see the odd one at Huit's place on the other side of town occassionally.

On the same day on the way back from Bunga, I looked up at the blue sky patchwork through the tree canopy, and there was a white bellied sea eagle cruising majestically. WOW!

On the second morning I walked the other direction from the house, down to the Eastern beach carpark, then taking the walk along the lake foreshore to the town. Young Pip saw a black swan on the water and ran like a bullet after it, straight into the water, swimming furiously towards it. The swan casually paddled away looking with disdain and Pip soon changed direction back to shore, where she shook herself and wondered what had happened. The same day we bought fresh fish from the shop on the lake near the fishing boats. There were many swans in the area and the lady in the shop told us they were driving them mad with all the fighting going on as the breeding season had started. I said that last year when we were there and there were a lot of brown fluffy cygnets swimming with parents and she said that was probably November or late October.

Day 3, again walking back from Bunga, on the bitumen road with the dogs on the lead, a spur wing plover started chirping at us agitatedly from the edge of the grassy drain between the road and the golf course. Wondering what all the fuss was about I looked around to see two young plover chicks, little balls of fluff on stick-like legs, nearby, pecking at the grass about twenty feet from the parent, which was giving me fair warning. I stopped to watch. The chicks darted under a pitto as a magpie swooped, then it was on. Three magpies attacking the chicks and the plover parent defending in a helluva set to. When the dogs and I resumed walking home it seemed the plover had the situ in hand. It struck me that plovers must start breeding early, then I recalled Jod telling me about he Steve Edgelow wagging school to search for plovers eggs in July in his bird egg collecting youth. They found them on the dairy farm which was where VFL Park Waverley stood for some thirty years before it was demolished for a housing estate. In July it was freezing and the farmer's wife, when they asked permission to look for plover's eggs on the property, brought out a bucket of hot water for them to warm their hands.

The next day a mudlark flew over me with what looked like a blade of grass in its beak. I followed its flight to a paperbark tree at the start of the foreshore walk and looked for the mud nest, which sure enough was about 3 parts of the way up. The bird was in the nest, the tail sticking out moving jerkily. Then the bird's head briefly appeared over the edge. It seemed to be regurging and working on the sides of the nest with its beak which was the reason for the jerking tail. It seemed the nest was a work in progress and I thought that the wonderful little creature must carry up the mud in its crop(?) and use grass to bind it all with strength. Walking along back where I first saw the bird fly overhead, another was busy on the ground, as were two willy wag tails jumping about with great energy.