Biological, Earth & Environmental Sciences Centre for Ecosystem Science

Day 20, Traralgon to Sydney

John Porter profile portrait John Porter
Aerial photo of a very green valley with a patchwork of water throughout. The trees on the floodplain are also inundated until the topography rises into tree covered hills.

Date: Friday November 4th 2022

Project: Eastern Australian Waterbird Survey

Observers: Richard Kingsford & John Porter

Pilot: Tim Dugan

Following the apparent pattern we've had on this survey, we got up to fly north from La Trobe airport with low cloud and limited visibility. Thankfully not far north in Victoria, this lifted and the sun came out.  

We travelled north to finish off the eastern end of Survey Band 2, from Mt Beauty through to Bermagui on the coast. With the cloud lifting, we were able to survey the Mitta Mitta River, which lies deep in the hills. As expected, there was lots of flooding everywhere here. We then headed upstream to the massive Dartmouth Dam, the biggest dam in the Murray-Darling Basin. Spectacularly, there was water pouring down its spillway. 
Aerial photo of a tree lined river winding it's way through a very green floodplain. There are forested hills in the mid-ground and snow capped peaks in the distance.

Surveying along the Mitta Mitta River.
High aerial photo of a river meandering across a green cleared floodplain. There are densely forested hills and mountains extending up to the horizon.

Surveying along the Mitta Mitta River.

We then headed upstream to the massive Dartmouth Dam, the biggest dam in the Murray-Darling Basin. Spectacularly, there was water pouring down its spillway. 
Aerial photo of a dam wall that has water spilling over. Surrounding hills are covered in trees with green paddocks in the background .

Dartmouth Dam on Mitta Mitta river.
Low aerial photo of a terraced dam spillway covered in white water gushing down like a waterfall into the river below.

Dartmouth Dam on Mitta Mitta river with spectacular waterfall from the overflowing spillway.

As per usual despite the massive extent of water held by this full dam, not a waterbird to be seen.  
Low level aerial photo of a very full dam surrounded by densely tree covered hills rising into mountains on a sunny day with a couple of low clouds causing the water to reflect the sky.

Dartmouth Dam on the upper Mitta Mitta River.

It was then east across the Snowy Mountains to enjoy some contrasting views.
Aerial photo of

Travelling east across the Snowy Mountains overlooking Thredbo.

The high mountain crossing was followed by surveys of Lake Jindabyne and the Monaro Plains wetlands, around Cooma. Plenty of these had water and they are excellent waterbird habitat but, as has been the pattern for this survey, there were very few waterbirds today. However, where there were swans, they seemed to be breeding. 
Aerial photo of a very large dam filling a valley surrounded by green cleared land and densely vegetated hills behind the cleared areas.

Lake Jindabyne. 
Aerial photo of a large lake and small islands which are tree covered as is the surrounding landscape.

Counting over Lake Jindabyne.

From here we flew east to Bermagui, surveying a couple of dams including Brogo Dam on the Brogo River, there were no waterbirds on these areas. We proceeded onto a series of inlets around Bermagui and there were very few waterbirds here. We finally completed our 2022 survey of Survey Band 2, at Wallaga Lake. Here there were only a few swans, considerably fewer than during other surveys.

We refuelled at Moruya and then finished off the day by completing surveys on the large dams south of Sydney, including Avon dam. We then arrived back in Sydney at mid-afternoon.