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We’re off to an early start today so we can beat the heat. We finish organising the equipment and preparing the aircraft so we can depart in the pe-dawn cool.

The mine works on the edge of the township are brightly lit as we fly past, heading southward to the waterholes of the Georgina River.

The deeper waterholes on this part of the Georgina usually support good numbers of waterbirds and today is no exception.

We count moderate numbers of Pelicans, cormorants, darters, herons and Pacific Black Duck as we weave back and forth over the huge floodplain looking for water.

Nearby the waters of Lake Galilee sparkled with a beautiful blue green colour. This is a result of their saline water which means they are not much use for drinking or watering stock but are highly attractive to waterbirds, often supporting more than ten times the number of birds on equivalent sized freshwater lakes.

One of the reasons for this is the huge numbers of tiny plankton in the water – and the aquatic plants that grow prolifically under the highly transparent water. These plants include seagrasses (Ruppia and Althenia species - flowering plants) as well as some beautiful charophyte algae - Lamprothamnium, Chara and Nitella species.

Lake Galilee is around 60% full and the shallow water is teeming with waterbirds – thousands of black swan, coot, black duck, grey teal as well as hundreds of pink eared ducks, hardhead, wood duck, egrets, pelicans, terns, small grebes, great crested grebes, lapwings, pied stilts and migratory waders.

We also see Pelicans nesting at Lake Galilee.