Team Leip Travels: August 2025

Sunday, August 31, 2025

29 August 2025 Perth: A Birding Trip Part 2

We left Collins Road and headed to the Victoria Lake dam. There are two dams here, one old and one new. The old one has a huge section taken out of it and the two halves are still standing. We parked and saw a few birds up at the car park. Then we walked down to the picnic area by the old dam. There is a small stream running through this valley and we got lots of new birds here. Tim and I were having a good time talking birds and talking about teaching. Perhaps we should have been looking more as time seemed to have gotten the best of us. We hiked around the Victoria Lake dam but had to cut it short. We also chose to skip the last two places that Tim wanted to get to. By the time we drove back it was after 4 PM and had we tarried we would have had to sit through the Perth traffic..

Vital information for the visitor

New Holland Honeyeater

Lots of restrictions. No marroning, camping, fishing, boating, polluting, shooting, hunting, swimming, dogs, horses, trail bikes or off road driving

Western Yellow Robin LB#15

A gray faintail

The new dam

Fresh water

A young splendid fairyrobin

A splendid stretch of water

Looks like some hydroelectric generation or possibly filtration before sending it to Perth

This is our field of new birds

A White-Breaster Robin LB#16

And his date, the female

A Red-Eared Firetail LB#17

A Spotted Paradola LB#18

This fairywren kept getting closer and closer to us

So too did this gray shrikethrush

Eventually the fairywren was this close

One half of the old dam

The other half

There were two Red-Tailed Black Cockatoos playing in the trees

We watched them for a bit

This odd mix of animal. A bison's body with the horns of a Viking

Western Wattle Bird LB#19

Australian Shelduck LB#20

A shy Spotted Scrubwren LB#21, just left of center

Echidna design on the signage

Heading back we spot a large animal

A kangaroo on the side of the road

He jumped over this fence in a single bound

In our neighborhood the houses are quintessential Australian

A Galah!

Here be dragons

Lyn and Leslie. Lyn is an accomplished photographer and is due to take the portraits of the Australian Supreme Court soon

It has been 3 years and 85 days since we began our Migration

29 August 2025 Perth: A Birding Trip Part 1

I used BirdPals again and found a retired teacher who was willing to take me out birding. Tim picked me up at 6:00 AM which is still dark here in Perth. A but chilly too, only 5 degrees C (41F). I did not get a great amount of sleep the night previous, as is usually the case the first night at a new place. But a jug of hot green tea and the prospect of new birds put a spring in my step. We drove out to the east an hour and a half to get to an area called the wheat-belt. It was good for birds as it had different types of ecological niches to offer, from forests to low scrub to open fields and everything in between. This half of the trip was the best with 14 lifebirds.