Photos

Main photo taken by Graeme Lembcke

1st Anniversary of reopening of Hide

The hide reopened after repairs in August 2016. Since then we have had over 2,050 visits including 15 groups comprising 177 people and the hide has been opened by 41 volunteers on both Saturday and Sunday afternoons.
Photographers have been delighted with the array of birds that have visited the Wetlands over that time and many families have "discovered" the hide for the first time.
Many friends visit the hide on a regular basis and we have had some wonderful contributions from them to our Facebook site.

August 2016 the hide was officially opened and birds were already nesting and showing off their newly hatched babies.

eThe wetlands were fairly full in September with two lovely kingfishers visiting for a short time. The black fronted dotterils nested in the carpark and we wondered if their eggs would survive the traffic. They did and hatched two youngsters. The tadpoles were busy changing into frogs and dragonflies were busy laying eggs.

October and November were busy with baby ducklings and swans everywhere. The older black duck babies amused the photographers by jumping up and catching flies off the reeds. Reed warblers had gone a bit quiet as they were feeding youngsters and the black fronted dotterels continued on nest duty.
Throughout the whole year we have had a wonderful array of raptors turning on some amazing displays.

During December and January the wetlands began drying out and we started to get more waders feeding on the mudflats. The dragonflies were hatching and we had a visit from a juvenile nankeen night heron.

February was an amazing month with so many different species of birds and some very close to the hide. The mudflats were expanding rapidly and lots of waders were starting to feed around the hide. We had some lovely pink eared ducks and grebes often so close the photographers had to resort to smaller lenses! We saw the baby blackfronted dotterels that were hatched from the carpark and we had a snipe for a couple of weeks and guess what ??? More ducklings hatching.

March and the sharptailed sandpipers returned along with dozens of black fronted and red kneed dotterels and a single glossy ibis. The swamp harriers were always on duty and there were plenty of ducks and swans.

April saw the return of the magpie goose and heaps of coots were happily feeding on the newly emerging reeds - the swamp was drying out and really starting to smell like a 'real' swamp - then it started raining heavily and it filled up again.

Since May when the swamp was full again the numbers of ducks have dropped off, but we have had some good raptor encounters. Now that its August again, the full cycle of breeding had begun and we will soon be seeing lots of babies around the hide. Come visit us on Saturday or Sunday afternoons at the hide between 1 and 5 pm and on Sundays the Education centre is open from 1 to 5 pm. Keep up to date with our birdie friends of Facebook and don't forget to visit the Seaford Wetlands too.

12th August we celebrated our wetlands once again.... lots of members joined for a festive lunch and then applauded our youngest bird hide volunteer Finnegan who is only 11 years old and Rosalie and Jim, two of our older vollies. (we can't tell you how old they are!)