Smorgasbord For Birds: The Goolwa Barrages

The Murray River, at 2508km, is Australia's longest river with its tributaries (the Murrumbidge, Darling, Lachlan, Warrego, and Paroo Rivers) being five of the next six longest rivers in Australia. The Murray flows into the sea at Goolwa via Lake Alexandrina, a whole heap of estuarine islands, and an ambitious set of barrages that prevent salt water entering the river system.  The barrages were build back in the 1940s when conquering the land was paramount and pesky things like Environmental Impact studies were not even a twinkle in a conservationist's eye.  The first and most easily accessed barrage was at Goolwa so, having started my day by riding up the beach to the river mouth, Roger and I went out to finish the day with a trip past the barrages, across Hindmarsh Island, and out to the other side of river mouth. This involved some 50+ kilometers of driving, lollygagging across the island, to end up barely 500m from where I'd been at the end of Pullen Spit.

We started at the Goolwa Barrage.

Black swans thrived in the shallow, marshy waters of the Murray both upstream and downstream of the barrages.

The public was allowed to traipse out along the Goolwa Barrage to the boat lock, so traipse we did, along with all the holiday crowds who had come to look at the barrages on a fine sunny afternoon.  The sea birds, gathered at the barrage for the purposes of picking off fish as they came through the barrage gates, very sensibly gathered on the sections of barrage barred to human traipsing.

We watched a boat come through the lock which was interesting but nowhere near as much fun as the bird-related shenanigans that went on in the water around us. 

Flotillas of pelicans patrolled the waters.

Silver gulls were their usual pushy selves, sticking their beaks into the pelican's mouths (bills?) in an attempt to steal dinner, and sulking when the pelicans didn't share.

 

 

My awesome bird identification skills failed me for one of these.  We have a black swan, a pelican, a (I think) grebe, and then there is the unknown bird with the punk hairdo, acting like a cormorant or darter.

The open gate of the barrage provided a smorgasbord of fish for waiting birds, and wait they did with open beaks and rapidly filling bellies.

The birds didn't provide the only entertainment for us at the barrages. Long-nosed fur seals lolled on the wooden structures around the boat lock and on the barrages themselves, despite the best efforts of SA Water to limit their opportunities for lolling.  Once hunted to near extinction, the long-nosed seal population had bounced back to the extent that they were making pests of themselves by raiding crab pots and fishing lines and scaring water skiers in upstream stretches of the river where no-one expected to run into seals whilst water-skiing.

Not that the seals we saw seemed particularly troubled.

Despite having lots of wooden beams to lie on the seals, not unlike cats, all wanted to lie in the one premium spot.  This meant that we were privy to a short but savage (and noisy) seal dispute which ended in an ungraceful belly flop into the water for the loser.

Those teeth looked sharp.

Of course, (like cats), no seal could be seen to lose its dignity.  The belly flopping loser swam casually around for several minutes before hauling itself out onto a much lower beam and settling down for a nap in a manner that suggested it had always intended to do just that.

I am a dignified seal.

 We left the barrages right on 4pm, having been warned sternly by many signs that the gates would close at 4:30 and woe betide us if we were still on the walkways when the gates shut because we would be spending the night with the birds and seals, and we didn't want to do that because the seals had already claimed all the comfortable beams.  Off we went to explore Hindmarsh Island and more of the Murray mouth, and I'll tell you all about that tomorrow.

One last pelican...

...and cormorants posing.