Bird Paradise - Corroboree Billabong

Our journey north ended in tropical Darwin. Heading south again our first stop was in the Mary River region, where we booked a 'lunch cruise' on the Corroboree Billabong. The billabong is the last remaining water of the river system during the dry season. It's in the middle of flood plains, but now surrounded by dry, burnt land. It's hard to imagine that this whole area will be flooded in a few months, maybe even weeks. The road to the billabong closes for 4 months a year.

Lotus love

Late August the billabong is a green oasis in the middle of the red and black. A humid oasis though! Especially at this time of day... We boarded at 12:45 and disembarked at 14:15. But it was so worth it! The whole billabong is covered in big pink lotuses, and smaller purple water lilies. Almost immediately we spotted our first salty, just as our packed lunch was given out. We ate while we continued. At first we mostly saw egrets and Australasian darters. One of the darters kept close to our boat for about half of our trip.

Salty in the shade

But quickly we saw other birds as well. The little comb crested jacanas walking on the lillypads our quite a sight. It's fascinating to see them with their enormous feet and bright red comb.

Look at those feet!

And how about the purple swamp hens that hid in the shrubs, accompanied by several species of ducks and geese. And the crocs lurking in there of course. 

Purple swamp hen

I think my favourite birds might've been the amazingly coloured Jabirus, or black-necked storks as they're officially called. The female has a bright yellow eye and her black and blue feathers shone in the sun. Our guide said that their nest was not far off, and he was right off course. The male Jabiru was garding the young. Not nearly chicks anymore, the brown juveniles still looked very clumsy. One attempted to fly, after aimlessly poking in the water for food, neither looked particularly smooth. The other one, a bit more fluffy, was still just waiting to be served like a good little chick. Just an adult sized chick. 

Female and juvenile Jabiru

Towards the end of our cruise we even spotted a pair of white bellied sea eagles. Those are pretty impressive birds! And we saw much more wildlife than the few I mentioned above, like whistling kites, of course a few more crocs, both freshies and salties, huge dragonflies and arboreal termites. And we got loads of info on the local plant life and seasonal changes as well. We loved out little detour.

White bellied sea eagle