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The dams have low numbers of birds, a few Pacific Black Ducks, cormorants, grebes, egrets and darters.

As usual Lake Weyba has very few waterbirds to count before we head along the Noosa Rriver estuary. Housing developments in this area have intensified over the last decade and the river is crowded with boats and people, so we are not surprised there are very few waterbirds.

From Baffle Creek we continued north to Gladstone to refuel – passing close to the bauxite mining operations at the port

where there are a number of heavy industries including a coal loading facility.

Refuelling completed, we continued our northward odyssey flying along the Narrows, a channel of water between Curtis island and the mainland that has large areas of important waterbird habitats.

Mangroves and mudflats with intricate fractal drainage patterns that are amazing to see from the sky.

Continuing on we head towards the huge floodplains of Herbert Creek and the Styx River. These catchments are a complex maze of mudflats, mangrove and saltmarsh that meet freshwater inflows and shallow floodplain swamps. They can support large concentrations of waterbirds.

Today the conditions were surprisingly dry given heavy rainfall earlier in the year – however there were large numbers of waterbirds – thousands of Magpie Geese, Black Duck and Grey Teal and hundreds of egrets, Black Swans and Pelicans. Also in the mix were Masked Lapwings, Hardhead, herons, Green Pygmy Geese, Brolga and ibis. There was a small rookery of nesting Magpie Geese on the Waverly Plains.