Following a difficult few weeks which included Lins’ mother Gwen’s passing and funeral, we decided we needed to spend a week as far north as we could without actually crossing borders into other states. So we travelled to Ned’s Corner near the intersection of Victoria with NSW and South Australia. We stayed mainly in an on-site van at Lake Cullulleraine.

Birding wasn’t the best although there was one superb day when we came across a large number of beautiful birds in full sunlight against a deep blue sky…a photographer’s ideal conditions.

Our birding route took us to Lake Tyrrell, then Lake Cullulleraine via Red Cliffs with trips around Ned’s Corner before chancing a quick spin into Sth Aust near Renmark. Fortunately the border COVID guards weren’t in attendance! Near there around Barmera we went birding at Loch Luna and Cobdogla Swamp with little success!

From Red Cliffs, we chanced our arm at venturing into the Murray-Sunset National Park, on an unsuccessful expedition to find a red-lored whistler. Unfortunately we found ourselves completely stuck in a sand drift whilst trying to climb a hill on Mt Jess Track. Fortunately at the top of the hill we were able to get mobile reception and I had to dial 000 several times for assistance . Eventually two police came in a large 4-wheel drive as the sun was near setting and they helped us get our Renault Koleos (“light” 4-wheel drive) unstuck and turned around. We then were safely escorted by them for about 20 very rough kilometres to Ouyen – sure taught us a lesson!!

Back in Red Cliffs we ventured to Lake Mungo (first time for us in nearly 40 years!), again risking the border guards both going and re-entering Vic. Then on the last day we spent some time along the Murray near Colignan before returning in the rain to Melbourne via Goschen Reserve near Kerang.

Here are a small collection of some of the more interesting birds that were seen…plus a couple of our unfortunate rescue location.

As usual, clicking on an image will bring up the caption and allow full size images to be shown in turn.