ECHUCA: THE MIGHTY MURRAY, ROSELLAS AND KINGFISHERS

beverley

Reporting in on our trip to the Murray 

In mid-March, we went on two short forays out of Melbourne and into the regions. The first of these was to the Murray River near Echuca.

We visited the iconic tourist port of Echuca in early March staying for three nights at Francie and Greg's AirBnB.

The first morning we photographed some beautiful crimson rosellas (yellow form) feeding on an ornamental pear tree in the garden. Blackbirds and blue wrens also visited the garden.

​Greg had painted a mural on the side of our cabin so we had our very own bird painting.

The first day we took a Kingfisher cruise along the river in the Barmah State Park. We saw many waterbirds but the star of the show was the azure kingfisher including one particular jewel (a kingfisher diving into the water then bashing its prey against a branch before turning it so it could be swallowed head first!).

​After lunch at the Barmah pub we drove around the area using maps and instructions from the tourist bureau for the best birding spots. We wanted to see the superb parrots in the wild, or at least on the side of the road. We flushed out some eastern rosellas but they kept flying from tree to tree to avoid being photographed. We even found a sign on the side of the road announcing this area of bush has superb parrots but it was fruitless for us.  Eventually we turned home, with nothing to show but a very dusty car from the unsealed roads. Then as we drove through Picola we saw a huge mural on a silo depicting a superb parrot. Success!

We spent the next day on either side of the Murray looking for birds but the best spot was a park and swamp next to the Echuca tourist information centre. We photographed many eastern rosellas feeding on the grasses and blue-faced honeyeaters in the trees and of course many water birds in the billabong. Back home that evening Francie told us that the blue-faced honeyeaters’ favourite spot was behind the Beechworth Bakery in town.