Numbers for this outing wIll be capped at 50.
This year’s big day out will be to one of the favourite areas for SEQ birders, the Lockyer Valley. It is about an hour’s drive from Brisbane to our first planned site at Laidley. The Lockyer Valley area always has interesting birds including a variety of ducks, parrots and birds of prey not generally seen in the greater Brisbane area. This will be a full day outing with limited numbers so please book by emailing or phoning Rae Clark.
As with other areas in Queensland, the Lockyer Valley is currently showing the effects of summer/autumn rains and weather events. Most of the water areas have high levels but water birds are spread out as they are spoilt for choice with where to go. Your outing leaders spent a day in the Valley recently to check sites and decide on an itinerary for the day. Our tally for the day was >100 species including 10 birds of prey. At present, there are Australasian Shoveler, Blue-billed Duck, Red-rumped Parrot and Great-crested Grebe at various sites visited.
Due to the amount of water at the sites visited the final program for the day hasn’t been decided but we do know the places to be visited up to lunchtime. Our meeting place and first site will be Narda Lagoon at Laidley, which has parking and toilet facilities. We will move on to a roadside viewing of Beutel Swamp before heading to Pechey’s Lagoon at Lower Tenthill near Gatton. Our lunch stop will be at Lake Apex. After lunch sites will be finalized closer to the time after a recce in late June, but it is likely that our last stop will be Lake Galletly at the University of Queensland Gatton campus.
To give you an idea of the birds which could be seen at the morning sites and at Lake Galletly, eBird links are as follows:
Narda Lagoon, Laidley https://ebird.org/hotspot/L2558314
Beutel Swamp, Laidley https://ebird.org/hotspot/L2558310
Pechey’s Lagoon, Lower Tenthill https://ebird.org/hotspot/L2558631
Lake Galletly https://ebird.org/hotspot/L1175001
Carpooling: When booking for this outing, could you please advise if you would like to carpool and whether you can take others with you or would like to get a lift. We will try and link up people from the same area or who will/can travel via a common route. There will also be the opportunity to carpool from Narda Lagoon with participants returning to their vehicles at the end of the day.
Meeting Place: As mentioned, we will meet at Narda Lagoon which is on the corner of Vaux and Drayton Streets – car park access is via Vaux Street. If you come along the Warrego Highway, take the Plainland exit and follow the signs driving south through Laidley towards Narda Lagoon. The entrance to the car park is on the left just before the T-junction with Drayton Street. GPS is -27.6483, 152.3912.
Details of the routes for the day will be provided to all drivers at the meeting place together with GPS coordinates for the sites we plan to visit. The brochure, Bird Places of the Lockyer Valley, is usually available at the Visitor Information Centre at Lake Apex in Gatton which is our lunch stop.
