Another Day at Nurragingy Reserve – 24 March 2025

Sue joined me for another day at Nurragingy Reserve at Doonside. This park has been a very good venue for observing and photographing birds recently. How would this visit go?

Some highlights of previous visits have been Pacific Bazas and Azure Kingfishers. On the previous visit, we had only a brief glimpse of an Azure Kingfisher, but we had been fortunate to observe two Pacific Bazas for a long time. On the visit before that, it had been the opposite – no Bazas, but plenty of Azure Kingfishers. Other birds we had seen here recently have been – Dollarbird, Square-tailed Kite, Blue-faced Honeyeater, Mistltoebird and Scarlet Honeyeater.

This visit started off very quiet, and we were worried that it may turn out to be a dud!

Walking in we spotted some ink caps –

And with a bit of effort, we spotted a pair of Tawny Frogmouths –

There is a distinct colour difference between this pair. One, the female, being a lot more rufous.

Some more fungi –

Cruentomycena viscidocruenta

Birds Nest Fungi

Stinkhorns – Pseudocolus fusiformis

Ink cap

Dacrypinax spathularia

A few more birds –

Brush Turkey

Laughing Kookaburra and Noisy Miner

Galahs

Grey Butcherbird

Willie Wagtail

We then spotted an Azure Kingfisher –

Little Pied Cormorant

Turtle

Water Dragon

We had been looking for a while, but had not spotted the Azure Kingfisher. But we later saw it again –

And it was joined by second one.

The second one seemed to be following the first, and the first would fly off to a new perch as soon as the second arrived.

The places the Azure Kingfishers like to perch and hunt for fish are always the darkest parts of the ponds, often obscured by branches – which makes photography a challenge. Flight shots in these conditions are very hard.

Notice this one has red feet –