I spent a couple of nights in Narrandera this weekend, meeing up with my parents as they pass through southern New South Wales on their way home.

The main birding trip was out to Fivebough Wetlands, but I stopped in a couple of other spots around town: Narrandera Common, the wetland here, and at the caravan park where I stayed.

Caravan Park

The most common birds around the caravan park were crested pigeon, superb fairywren, Australian magpie and galah, but there were a few other fun birds in the area. A mistletoebird was prominently perched and singing away when I first arrived, and the evening chorus included pied butcherbird and both noisy and little friarbird. Superb parrots occasionally flew past, while both eastern rosellas and the yellow subspecies of crimson rosella fed on the grass.

On the morning of Saturday 29 we heard an olive-backed oriole, the first migrant recorded in the area for the season. On Sunday 30 I woke up in the middle of the night and heard an Australian boobook hooting away.

Narrandera Common

I arrived at the Common late morning on Saturday. On arriving there were a couple of Pacific black duck at the base of the weir and a huge flock of rock doves nestled in the top of it. Striated pardalote, superb parrot, little friarbird were all calling away down the hill, and a small flock of superb fairywren hopped around at the entrance.

I took a fairly circuitous walk down toward First Beach on the Murrumbidgee river. On the way I got a good look at an olive-backed oriole – always nice to visually confirm and photograph a bird that shows up as Unreported. There were also weebill, white-plumed honeyeater and sulphur-crested cockatoo. A single black-faced cuckooshrike was calling in this section somewhere, and I found the first of two rufous whistlers. Grey shrikethrush and crimson rosella (yellow ssp.) were fairly constant.

In a section of the park that ran right up against an adjacent paddock I found a mixed flock of weebill, varied sittella, striated pardalote, grey fantail, yellow thornbill and western gerygone. Somewhere over in the field a couple of peaceful doves were calling away while flocks of rock doves and galahs wheeled around overhead, and I had the first of many small families white-winged choughs picking through the scrub.

The section from the turn off the main track toward First Beach and the river itself was very productive: in here I found an adult male golden whistler, three brown treecreeper and, hawking over the water, half a dozen tree martins. All of these showed up as Unreported on eBird as well.

At the beach I watched a red-browed finch perform is breeding display, grabbing a strand of grass and dancing with it on an open perch. He successfully attracted a mate with it too, and they quickly copulated before the whole flock moved on.

I followed the track around the river but didn’t get too many birds along here. A little pied cormorant was perched on a snag on the left bank and a few wood ducks were also dotted around.

At the northeast-most point of my walk I had a small flock of buff-rumped thornbills, another bird that showed up red on eBird.

In all I spent almost two hours at the Common and came away with 35 species, including quite a few LGA ticks for me and all those ‘rare’ birds.

Narrandera Wetland

Late afternoon on Saturday I went to the wetland with Mum for a quick lap. She got the honour of keeping the checklist.

On arrival we had weebill, western gerygone, Australian reed warbler and a striated pardalote calling, and a couple of Australasian swamphen scurried away into the grass.

We looped clockwise around the lake, starting on the south side. A superb parrot flew out overhead and little friarbirds chattered away. A grey fantail followed us through most of this trip, intermittently joined by superb fairywren.

On the southwestern edge we had multiple kookaburras laughing, and Pacific black duck on the small creek on the western edge.

The lake itself was dominated by grey teal, though there was also a yellow-billed spoonbill feeding out in the middle (a nice reminder: I got my YBS tick here on my first visit back in 2023), a couple of Eurasian coots preening, a little pied cormorant and a dusky moorhen.

There were also a few masked lapwing kekeking away, occasionally taking off and making me nervous that we were about to get swooped. They went after each other and, once, the spoonbill, but otherwise ignored the people.

Rounding the northern edge we got very good looks at silvereye, red-browed finch, yellow-rumped thornbill and weebill. This small mixed flock, together with another grey fantail, came and fed very close to Mum and I in some eye-level branches. This was particularly a treat for her, I think, being the first close look at most of these species that she’d had to this point.

One bird that didn’t quite cooperate was a rufous whistler which was calling frequently just out of sight. Would’ve been nice to be able to show him to Mum as well but he wasn’t having it.

It was a quick 35 minute loop that we ended with 27 species. Bizarrely the coot was an LGA tick for me – not sure how that had eluded me on multiple previous trips but good to get it done. My overall Narrandera list jumped from 55 to 78, largely owing to the woodland birding I was able to do at both the caravan park and the common – not a habitat I’ve spent time in here before.