Lake Cargelligo; La Niña winding down

We have a friend who lives in a small town on the edge of the western plains some 400km north-west of Canberra. We've been visiting her on and off for years in Lake Cargelligo - which for the record I am assured is properly pronounced k'JELL-igo - but our recent trip there was perhaps the most memorable in terms of the countryside. This was in the aftermath of the vast floods caused by the three-year La Niña event which is now seemingly running out of steam, with the waters receding and the country starting to dry out.

Ephemeral wetland on the outskirts of Lake Cargelligo.

It's seemed somewhat counter-intuitive that during the very wet last three years, waterbirds haven't been so easy to find, but this is because they have the choice of millions of flooded hectares to choose from and so are scattered over much of the continent. As the rains ease and the surface waters shrink however the birds are having to start to retreat to refuges, though these are still pretty easy for them to find. I'm seeing it in Canberra where the suburban and peri-urban wetlands have been a bit light-on for birding opportunities for quite some time, but are now starting to get busy again.

And millions of birds are certainly seeing Lake Cargelligo as a refuge; I can't recall seeing so many waterbirds concentrated into roadside pools and flooded paddocks for some time. It was astonishingly rich and even put me in mind of the great Kakadu wetlands in the Top End of the Northern Territory. But let me locate it for you.

The arrow marks the approximate position of Lake Cargelligo on the Lachlan River.
West Wyalong is to the south-east, Condobolin to the east and Hillston to the west.
Both the last two towns are also on the Lachlan.

The country is flat, though there are outcrops, ridges and low ranges rising surprisingly regularly from the plains. Much of the original vegetation has been cleared for agriculture and grazing, which is why I don't have many 'scenery' shots, except for the lake and wetlands. The woodlands were remarkably rich in tree and shrub species, and some remain along the roadsides.

Weeping Myall Acacia pendula always delights me, in stands of grey drooping foliage.

Poplar Box Eucalyptus populneus is another that I look forward to renewing acquaintance with
when I head west, though I could wish it wasn't defined by an exotic tree which, to my aesthetic
senses, can't begin to compare with it.

There are also areas of mallee, including very substantial reserves (Round Hill and Nombinnie) to the west and some roadside remnants near to Lake Cargelligo.

But it is The Lake which defines the town, which is right on its shores. It was a natural ephemeral lake, filled by the Lachlan in wet years, but drying in drought times. The ever gloomy and very British Surveyor-General John Oxley called it Regent's Lake in 1817 (yes, I'm wincing too) but in 1836 his successor in the position, the now notorious Thomas Mitchell, had the good sense to reestablish the local name for it (or a version of it) calling it Cudgallagong. He did have a reputation for using existing names where available and it has gone through a few variations since then. (Later in this journey, Mitchell was responsible, by his own reporting, for a bloody massacre of Indigenous people on what is now the Murray near Swan Hill.)

Last light on the lake, from the town shore.

Pastoralists arrived in 1840 and the village was founded in 1850, though mostly only on paper at that stage. In 1879 gold was discovered, which hastened the growth of European population, and a government village was surveyed, which the current town largely reflects. In the first years of the 20th century the ephemeral lake was made largely permanent, by deepening it and adding levee banks in order to regulate flows for downstream irrigation. Today there are some 1500 inhabitants of 'Lake' as it is usually referred to by locals, including a significant Indigenous community.

 

And I should say that there is a very pleasant, well-run, treed and birdy little caravan park right by the lake, where we stayed this time.

Sunset view from our cabin.

But back to the lake; here it is at first light in a couple of different moods.

A foggy sunrise with a Black Kite drifting through; this from a previous visit.

Another, more recent, sunrise over a shallow section, with a family of Black Swans.

The lake is overflowing, and channels and backwaters associated with it and with the Lachlan are full. One indicator is the number of trees, especially River Red Gums, which are inundated.

River Red Gums Eucalyptus camaldulensis are trees of the inland waterways throughout
most of the continent. They not only tolerate flooding, but need it from time to time to
refresh the water tables and to disperse seeds. However they can't tolerate being inundated
for more than a couple of years, so they are a good indicator of abnormal water levels.
This is an area where the lake has overflowed.

These River Red Gum saplings were carried as seeds to the limit of a previous flood where they
germinated. The current level of the Lachlan River is way above that but when the
waters recede again and the river is confined within its banks, these young trees will
get a strong growth spurt from the water and the rich sediment that it will deposit.
Moreover there will be another line of seedlings to mark the limits of the new floodwaters.

And everywhere paddocks normally supporting crops and livestock were slowly emerging from weeks of being submerged.

 

This paddock out towards Hillston was typical...

... as was this rapidly receding pool in grazing land near to Lake. Its nutrients are still
attractive to these Grey Teals Anas gracilis and Pied Stilts Himantopus leucocephalus, which
are eating water plants and small animals respectively. And the thing was, that every
pool, from lake to puddle, was worth a look for what it was attracting.

It's the birds I want to focus on for most of the rest of this post, but I also want to end with them, so first a few other animals we've encountered in the area.

Lace Monitor Varanus varius on a eucalypt trunk west of Lake Cargelligo. This big lizard -
up to two metres long - is found across most of the state, though is most familiar
from coastal forests.

Black-headed Skimmer Crocothemis nigrifrons, a familiar dragonfly across most
of Australia and beyond.

Golden Orb Spider Nephila sp., with handy food parcels.

Australian Water Rat or Rakali Hydromys chrysogaster. This is an old Australian rodent,
highly specialised to aquatic life. Some time ago there was a push by the federal
environment department to improve the image of Australian rodents by not
calling them 'rats', so Indigenous names were applied. I of course agree in principle,
but perhaps we could also try to educate people that there are rats and rats, so to speak.
Also, the name apparently comes from a Murray-Darling language, and there are many
other names in other languages throughout the country. However I don't have
an ideal solution either!

So, the birds. As I've flagged, the waterbirds were the real stars this time, so I'll leave them until last, and start with some land birds, from this and previous trips. Most of these are quite common, but they help build a picture of the area.

Grey-crowned Babbler Pomatostomus temporalis. This noisy gregarious bird is declining with
the woodlands, but on this occasion I saw and heard them in the town.

 

Black-shouldered Kite Elanus axillaris watching for unwary early morning mice.

Bluebonnets Northiella haematogaster are parrots of the semi-arid inland.
They're quite common but are often hard to approach, so I was grateful to this one.

Fairy Martins Petrochelidon ariel. It's quite a while since I took this photo and I can't remember what
they were doing on the ground - they normally catch their food on the wing and only come to ground
to collect mud for their nests, but this doesn't seem to be the case here. Presumably a gathering of
insects had attracted them.

It was hot while we were there last time and the campground attracted many birds to
its shade and the irrigated grassy area. These Blue-faced Honeyeaters Entomyzon cyanotis -
dependent fledglings on the table, and an adult on the bench - were appreciating the cool
of the concrete structures in a shelter.

Still in the campground these little Red-rumped Parrots Psephotus haematonotus were
enjoying the seeds produced by the lawn grasses, very close to our verandah. They are
common but nonetheless lovely little birds of the south-east inland open country.

At the edge of the lake this pair (only the male is brightly coloured) took a vigorous bath

It was another species of parrot/cockatoo however which were the stars away from the water. Pink Cockatoos Lophochroa leadbeateri must surely be among the most glorious of all Australian birds, with soft salmony pink body and glowing yellow and vermilion crest. It has widely been known as Major Mitchell's Cockatoo, as his rhapsodising over it brought it to public attention, but with his discrediting for the massacre alluded to earlier here, that name is being increasingly avoided.

They are not rare, but neither are they abundant, and a sighting in their semi-arid environment is always a cause of excitement. However during our stay in Lake Cargelligo they flew over the campground every day, and on our first evening there I watched them feeding on exotic pine cones at the end of the road. However my most memorable encounter with them was when a small flock of them flew into a roadside stand of callitris pines by the roadside as I drove speculatively one early morning. As I watched more and more sreamed in, perhaps drawn by the calls of those already there. Certainly there were dozens eventually, straggled along the road. The photos that follow are all from that delightful roadside rendezvous.

A truly gorgeous bird and an inland treat. Like other cockies that powerful bill can
also be used with great delicacy to extract small seeds from very hard cones.

The cone is nipped off and held, usually in the left claw, which rotates the
cone to allow access to all the seeds.

Gorgeous as they are, they are still cockies so also inclined to be quarrelsome.

The upper bird took exception to the proximity of the lower one, and shrieked
and threatened until the other was hanging upside down, flapping and shrieking in return.
The others took no notice at all.

It can be hard not to be anthropomorphic about cockies, but I got
the impression that in the end the upside down bird was quite enjoying
the novel view of the world and was in no hurry to right itself.

And it's good to see the town appreciating these glorious neightbours, via this lovely artwork on a grain silo near the edge of town. 

Silo art is a rapidly expanding phenomenon in Australia, and
many of the huge results are simply amazing.

So, finally, to the waterbirds. They are of course always present around the lake, even in dry times.

Female Australasian Darters Anhinga novaehollandiae on a rockface by the lake.
Like cormorants, which also dive for food, their feathers are not waterproofed with oils
(this would make it too hard to stay under the water) so they must hang their wings out to dry.

A collection of waterbirds (White-necked Herons, darters, Little Black Cormorants
and White Ibis) enjoying the late morning sun after a morning's fishing.

 

Pied Cormorant Phalacrocorax varius. This large cormorant is found in New Zealand and Australia, both coastally and inland, though not always common. Around Canberra for instance it is quite
scarce. However it can often be seen, though usually in small numbers, on inland waters.

 

Part of a remarkable flock of at least 30 Great Crested Grebes Podiceps cristatus from our recent trip.
The flock included many immature birds; the breeding opportunity offered by the floods was
certainly not wasted! Bad light I'm afraid, they were between me and the rising sun.

But on our most recent visit the body of lake itself wasn't the main focus of activity, which was out in the flooded paddocks and along the ephemeral waterways.

Little Black Cormorants Phalacrocorax sulcirostris, part of a large loose flock of hundreds,
fishing vigorously in a series of flooded billabongs on an anabranch of the Lachlan.

Nankeen Night Herons Nycticorax caledonicus were disturbed by us at various locations along
the waterways, roosting in the River Red Gums.

I spent quite some time slowly driving along the roads (not all of which are yet open to traffic) and examining the temporary wetlands - very satisfying indeed.

From the bare surrounds I suspect that this paddock was under water for some time,
though now drying. Here Grey Teal and Pied Stilts are making the most of what is left.

One bird that I didn't expect to see was the Magpie Goose Anseranas semipalmata, the only member of its family of primitive duck-relations. They are abundant in the tropics but were almost exterminated in the south, though my impression is that they are making a come-back. I've recently seen them both at Forbes and Leeton, so I shouldn't have been too surprised to see flocks alighting just outside of Lake Cargelligo.

A dawn scene that could have been from Kakadu!

How can you not love a bird that seems to have inspired Daffy Duck?

One of my favourite destinations in our recent visit was the wetland, just outside of town and by the roadside, that features in the first photo of this post. There was always something to see there; here are some representatives of them.

Pied Stilts were breeding there, but the chicks were staying low and away from the road.
I have a special affection for these birds, as one of my first birdwatching memories as a child
was a family holiday to Milang, a little town with lots of holiday shacks by Lake Alexandrina
near the mouth of the Murray River in South Australia. I was delighted by the stilt colony
nearby, loud with their yapping like little dogs, and swirling as they took to the air trailing
impossibly long red legs - indeed the longest proportionally of any water bird.

Crakes are always a challenge and might or might not appear, but on our last
morning we found a spot where there always a few pottering about on the mud.
There were three species present but the Spotless Crake only appeared briefly.
There were several Australian Spotted Crakes Porzana fluminea however,
mostly tolerating but also sometimes harassing...

... the even smaller Baillon's Crakes Zapornia pusilla. This one was actually across
the road, atypically running along a fallen eucalypt sapling in the water, presmably
because there was no exposed mud here.

The most impressive collection of large waders however was in a flooded paddock on the road to Hillston. The attraction was a major kill of young carp, probably due to a 'hypoxic blackwater' incident, in which the organic matter on the surface of the land covered by floodwater oxidises and breaks down removing crucial oxygen from the water.

Dead and dying carp rimmed the shoreline for hundreds of metres; doubtless there were still
numerous live ones remaining too, for a while at least.

And herons, especially White-necked Herons Ardea pacifica and Great Egrets Ardea alba, were there in their hundreds, creating a truly splendid spectacle.

This was only a small part of the vast mixed flock of big herons, with birds constantly coming and
going, and some near the road taking to the wing when trucks roared by.

Both these species, though far from uncommon, are generally fairly solitary birds
and I found this agglomeration mesmerising. I wish I could better convey to you
the sheer grandeur of the numbers!

More, I hope I've been able to excite you with what is going on out on the plains. The birds will start to scatter soon as the water recedes further and I hope some of them come your way. Meantime, if you can still get out to where the floodwaters still lie, I'm sure it will enthral you as much it did us. And if you're in the area, you could do a lot worse than visit Lake Cargelligo.

Sunrise at Lake Cargelligo.

 

NEXT POSTING THURSDAY 13 APRIL

 

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