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First stop was to pick up more coastal salt lakes. When you fly over these lakes, you can see how shallow the water is because they are so clear. 

Some of these lakes had large numbers of Black Swans and Pelicans. There were also hundreds of Grey Teal and Australian Shelduck. There were a few small flocks of up to 50 small wading birds. These come from the northern hemisphere each year to spend the summer in Australia.

This part of South Australia is really interesting. We zigzag north to south, first doing the salt lakes just inside the first set of old dunes from the coast and then head east to the next lot of old dunes where freshwater wetlands nestle on their eastern sides.

Not many wetlands had water this year. 

Surveying some of the few freshwater dunal wetlands that held water this year.

Some of the inland wetlands in the dune system had intricate connections

But those that did hold water had hundreds of Grey Teal, Black Swans, a few Black Ducks, Shoveler and small flocks of Hardhead. There were also Pied Stilts and a few Masked Lapwings on the shallow wetlands.

After we had finished surveying these wetlands in the dunes, we headed east to Horsham. Along the way, many of the small wetlands north of the Little Desert in Victoria were dry. 

Because we had spent so much time going back and forth in South Australia, we needed a break at Horsham where we hoped to refuel but the bowser was not working. That meant a non-scheduled stop at Bendigo.

We headed north and surveyed a few ephemeral and salt lakes along the way.

We then crossed the Loddon River, whose main channel provides habitat for only a few waterbirds. 

Then over the next hills one of the more impressive wetland systems in the Murray-Darling Basin, the Wallenjoe wetlands, which include a series of lakes from the Goulburn-Broken River catchment. Not many of them had water today.

But Lake Cooper, the largest of them all, was drying back. We were flat out counting hundreds and up to thousands of waterbirds on the lake. Normally it's full and does not provide great habitat for waterbirds. But today was quite different. It was drying back and starting to become more salty. This clears the water and aquatic vegetation was starting to grow, providing lots of food for herbivorous waterbirds, like Black Swans and coot, which were there in their thousands. There are also Pelicans and cormorants. And also a smattering of other waterbirds, including Black Ducks, Shoveler and Hardhead. There were even three Brolgas on one of the lakes.

We then headed towards the Waranga Basin. This is a large dam and not particularly productive for waterbirds. Today was no different. There were just a few Black Swans and Silver Gulls and the odd small flock of Grey Teal.  

We finished the survey off north of the town of Benala on Lake Mokoan, also known as the Winton Wetlands. This extensive wetland used to hold water all the time but has since gone through a restoration phase and is much less often and less extensively flooded. And today only about 10% had water. There were only a couple of hundred Australian Shelduck and perhaps 30 odd White-faced Herons but the water was drying back fast.

Surveying the remaining shallow water areas on Lake Mokoan