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We fly down to the lagoon, just east of Port Fairy, where there were a few hundred Black Swans, Pelicans and Grey Teal. 

We then headed north. The rest of the day was surveying the coastal lakes and wetlands around Naracoorte for the South Australian Government. 

The wind was up as we surveyed Lake Bonney and Lake George, near Beachport.

We surveyed the string of coastal lakes between Lake Bonney and Kingston. These lakes are just behind the dunes of the South Australian coast. As a result, the lakes are quite salty. They had hundreds of Black Swans and Grey Teal, lots of Silver Gulls and the odd small wading bird. There was also reasonable numbers of Australian Shelduck.

In between the lakes, we flew inland to where there were more freshwater lakes. This was there was a much greater diversity of waterbirds. Still lots of Black Swans, Silver Gulls, Grey Teal and Shelduck but also Pied Stilts, Purple Swamphens and Hardhead.

We then went on to survey the shallow water areas that make up Lake Hawdon North and South.

Wherever there was water, which wasn’t many wetlands, there were reasonably large numbers of waterbirds and high diversity. But most of the wetlands were dry. 

The most important wetland here is Bool Lagoon, a wetland of international importance under the Ramsar Convention. I am always keen to survey this stunning wetland, sometimes with large flocks of Magpie Geese. 

Some of the small lakes had water, but relatively few waterbirds.