Day 7, Dalby to Tibooburra
Today’s assignment has us heading west from Goondiwindi, traversing the Barwon and Macintyre (Border) Rivers and on westward across southern Queensland over the Warrego, Paroo and Bulloo Rivers – we’ll cover more than 1,800 km on the way.
Photo: Bulloo River
Survey details
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Date
Tuesday 7th October 2025
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Author
John Porter
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Project
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Observers
John Porter (NSW DCCEEW), Chris Sanderson
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Pilot
Thomas Clark
Our first count is Coolmunda Dam
There is plenty of water but only moderate numbers of waterbirds – mostly Grey Teal, Wood Duck, Pelicans, cormorants, terns and stilts.
These storages are near Goondiwindi. Most of the irrigation storages we count on the border rivers have very few birds – mostly darters, cormorants, terns or Pelicans.
Most of these storages have steep banks and deep water that’s good for storing water but doesn’t attract many birds.
After refuelling at St George we continue over the Warrego River – most of the channels are dry with just a little water in the deeper billabongs.
The Bulloo River has more water in its channels and we find moderate numbers of waterbirds – mostly Grey Teal, Wood Duck, Black Duck, spoonbills, comorants, Pelicans and herons. More and more water becomes evident as we progress downstream and there is plenty of water in the Bulloo lakes. There are several thousand waterbirds on these lakes – but not the high numbers we have seen in previous years. We also find a rookery of Straw-necked Ibis, consisting of about 2,500 nests with smaller numbers of Royal and White Ibis breeding.
The Bulloo River
The Bulloo River
Bulloo Lakes
Bulloo Lakes
Huge areas of shallow water in Caryapundy Swamp
After completing our counts we head to Tibooburra and can see the vast sheets of water in the distance in Caryapundy Swamp and the Bulloo Overflow – areas we will be covering later in the survey!
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