Today was Global Big Day, eBird’s annual effort to get everybody out birding and contributing data to the platform. I have a lot of marking to do and couldn’t fully commit, but I put in a few hours this morning and at sunset near home to try to get some numbers in for Yarra.

Riverbankers site

Yarra River, May 2025

I met with Jonathan T this morning at 7.30. We do a monthly survey of the Abbotsford Riverbankers-managed zone along the Yarra River and we were overdue for May so decided to start with that. We did a 20 minute walk through their 500m of riparian zone alongside the Main Yarra Trail, finding Pacific black duck, silver gulll, rainbow lorikeet, pied currawong, brown thornbill, noisy miner and common myna. The highlight was a female golden whistler, and actually seeing a spotted pardalote – exciting!

Dights Falls

From the Johnston St Bridge that is the end of the Riverbankers SIte we doubled back, recording many of the same birds on the return (sorry eBird), as well as a little pied cormorant and great cormorant in the Yarra River, lots of rock doves, red wattlebirds and more Pacific black ducks – seven more had joined the two we’d previously located on the water.

A couple of flowering gums held a lot of activity: we found white-browed scrubwren, brown thornbill, red wattlebird, white-plumed honeyeater, golden whistler, grey fantail, willie wagtail and eastern spinebill! Here we also had superb fairywren calling (though they weren’t present in these gums) and musk lorikeets fly over. We stopped here for a few minutes and were richly rewarded for it.

We had more silver gulls as we moved north, as well as a very cute little line of five dusky moorhens feeding right at the edge of the falls. At the mouth of the Merri Creek was an Australasian darter sunning itself, on the park lawn we added magpie-lark, and on the lights over the freeway there were Australian magpies and two little ravens that have built a nest.

We crossed the creek and followed it to the north, finding a Eurasian coot, three chestnut teals, a grey teal, another little pied cormorant and another dusky moorhen.

Quarries Park

Heading into Quarries Park we had more noisy miners, red-rumped parrots feeding on an oval, and multiple groups of crested pigeons hanging around. The latter two were our big targets in going up this way; it’s the most reliable location in Yarra for cresties in particular and I can never go past them. There were plenty more rainbow lorikeets and red wattlebirds here too, and three pairs of galahs circling around the area.

We couldn’t find the grey currawong that are sometimes hanging around here, but we did find plenty more pied currawongs in the area.

As a side note, there is a lot of revegetation happening at Quarries Park and it’s absolutely fantastic. Within the next few years I’d expect it will be one of the best spots in Yarra and I’m excited for that.

Hall Reserve

We kept along the path with three targets in mind: eastern rosella, laughing kookaburra and gang-gang cockatoo.

Eastern rosellas weren’t hard to find, they’re a common presence along this section of the Merri Creek Trail. Jono also managed to pick three juvenile crimson rosellas, heavily backlit and at the top of a tree, giving him an LGA tick and me an LGA year tick. Definitely the bird of the day for me. He also spotted a spotted dove in flight, which had bizarrely been missing all morning, and we had two maned ducks fly through and give us a good view.

Kookaburra and gang-gang we could not find. The pair that typically live on this section of the creek could not be found, and we’re a couple of weeks too early for the cockatoos – the box ironbarks in Hall Reserve are budding but not quite flowering yet. I’ll be checking again at the end of May.

We looped back down the trail from here, finding more of the same but not a lot new. We parted ways, and immediately upon getting home I had a common starling on the building opposite my balcony and yellow-tailed black-cockatoos flying out past the Convent. I do enjoy the challenge of birding, but sometimes it’s nice when they make it easy.

Yarra Bend

Yarra Bend, May 2025

Later this evening I took a second trip out – past Dights Falls again but this time up across the ovals above Deep Rock, to VINC and along the ridge behind it, then back from there.

At the falls I added white-faced heron, red-browed finch and common blackbird, while over at VINC I heard a sulphur-crested cockatoo and saw a grey currawong. There were plenty more crested pigeons, red-rumped parrots, noisy miners and large numbers of rainbow lorikeets moving in to their roosts as the sun set.

Lastly for me, I found a house sparrow when I went out to the supermarket this evening to buy dinner. Not the most amazing bird to end the day on, but I’ll take it.

Others

Five other birders were out and about in Yarra today: Leo N, Jessica W, Brett W, Carl H and Max N.

Leo was at VINC early this morning and found many of the birds that Jono and I did, but was also the only one to find brown goshawk, yellow-faced honeyeater, black-faced cuckooshrike, grey shrikethrush, silvereye and mistletoebird. Part of my evening trip over that way was to try to find some of these same species, but I only succeeded with grey currawong.

Jessica saw a bell miner somewhere in Yarra Bend – quite an uncommon observation in Yarra these days, this was the first for the year as well. She also saw an Australian king-parrot, as did Leo.

Jono took an evening trip to the golf course and Alphington Wetlands, finding Australian white ibis, masked lapwing, laughing kookaburra, little corella and little black cormorant.

My uniques were far more sad: common blackbird, common starling, and house sparrow.

Jono had the highest overall number of species across the day with 46, me second with 45, Leo had 34, Jessica 30, Brett 26, Carl six and Max recorded five. To be fair to Leo, Jessica, Brett, Carl and Max, I don’t think they knew I was competing with them, or I’m sure they’d all have beaten me as well.