Brolgas—Better Late Than Never
November 2006
We planned our trip to Australia for the end of the dry season, which corresponds to the southern spring. Many birds breed then, plus there are fewer mosquitoes than in the wet season! On the downside, it can be appallingly hot and dry.
Water sources shrink, concentrating the waterbirds into smaller areas—that can be good for photography but it almost backfired on us. We’d planned to visit Townsville Common Conservation Park to photograph Australia’s well-known crane, the Brolga. Arriving in mid-November though, we found very little water in the park’s normally extensive wetlands, and very few birds.
Luckily there were a handful of Brolgas remaining. Most had probably already migrated to their northern breeding grounds. One pair put on a grand show of courtship behavior: they bugled and strutted, then pranced around, bowing and leaping into the air with wings outspread, sometimes tossing grass or sticks into the air.