Mamukala Wetlands

Visited: late dry season

Recommendation: This is a highlight of Kakadu National Park. The numbers of birds here was phenomenal, the variety of species is incredible and the place is beautiful. 

The car park at the wetlands leads you nicely down to the bird hide and it is a big bird hide. It overlooks a very nice piece of wetlands and I could see numerous ducks, geese, egrets, herons around the area but they were quite difficult to see. Nothing was terribly close and the birds were in longer grass, so it wasn't that great. I was kind of thinking well is this it? But around the outside of the bird hide I could hear the Arafura Fantail which I really wanted to photograph as it was a new bird for me at the Top End. I chased a couple around for a while but they just stubbornly stayed within the bushes. So I didn't get off to the greatest of starts and left to start walking on the track out to the main wetlands. I had no idea what to expect but I could hear this kind of buzzing noise. I thought there must be bees close by, but I couldn't locate any. 

I let that go and started walking and it was a very, very pleasant walk through the bush. I started to pick up some honeyeaters, but I was particularly thrilled to get good sightings of the Rufous-banded and the Banded Honeyeaters. There were also cuckoos around and it was nice to get a good look at the Horsfield's Bronze Cuckoo out in the open. An adult Sahul Brush Cuckoo was calling, it's incessant monotonous call. The poor bird sounds like it's bored by its own call. It's quite remarkable in its unremarkableness. 

I moved on. There were lots of finches in the bush area of the wetlands and it was a great place to get really good sightings and take some nice photographs of these birds. I didn't see too many on the ground, which is where you would normally expect to find them. But they did sit up in the trees and very often out in the open for me. This walk was improving dramatically with every step. 

After a couple of kilometres, I turned a corner and I was out in the open. The source of the buzzing noise became clear. There were thousands and thousands of geese, herons, egrets and ducks and the cacophony was incredible. They were making so much noise as they moved about and not only were they on the ground they were in the air. Wave upon wave upon wave of geese and ducks were moving around the place. It was quite wonderful and totally breath taking. No photographs or videos could really do it justice. I was thrilled to say the least. I tried to get closer to the edge of this mass of animals but they weren't that keen. The Plumed Whistling Ducks are always on guard and as soon as you get too close they always start chattering and letting off warning calls. Once they take off, everything else goes with it. But I did get close enough to get some shots of these shelducks and I was particularly pleased to see this young Pied Heron looking for food on on the margins of the wetland.