Pelicans, Lake Eyre

Posted on April 19, 2016 by KG

PelicansEyre A magical place, situated in the north of South Australia, where every so often legendary Australian rivers such as the Diamantina and Cooper flood and occasionally fill the lake, sometimes weeks later.
‘..Birds such as pelicans and banded stilts are drawn to a filled lake from southern coastal regions of Australia, and from as far afield as Papua New Guinea. During the 1989—90 flood it was estimated that 200,000 pelicans, 80% of Australia’s total population, came to feed & roost at Lake Eyre. Scientists are presently unable to determine how such birds appear able to detect the filling of the lake, even when hundreds or thousands of miles away from the basin..’
Link     (click the pic for full size)

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5 Responses to Pelicans, Lake Eyre

  1. Bill the Bunyip says:
    April 19, 2016 at 21:58

    Not far from where we live a dam was built in 1900 to supply water to a mining town.
    It is common to see one or two pelicans on it most of the year. We also get black swans from time to time. Once we saw 17 of them happily floating on a large puddle formed from an overflowing tank fed by a windmill.
    All this is put into context by the fact that we live about 700kms from the coast and there are very few permanent fresh waters between the coast and us. There are large epehmeral salt lakes around but they are so saline that the birds would not be able to float properly.
    What the birds are doing out here is a mystery that I prefer not to wonder too deeply about, just enjoy them.

  2. Contempt says:
    April 20, 2016 at 01:42

    There is a great force that drives every last event – good, bad and ugly. 200,000 Pelicans must be awesome to behold!

  3. Darin says:
    April 20, 2016 at 04:28

    For a second there I thought the title read-“Politicians Lake Eyre”had my hopes up a bunch of the bastards had drowned http://falfn.com/CrusaderRabbit/wp-content/plugins/wp-monalisa/icons/wpml_mail.gif

  4. Brown says:
    April 20, 2016 at 09:34

    I remain impressed that nature has equipped animals, and the birds in this case, to see a meal when they can’t see it. The yachting in the sky illusion was fascinating – I’d love to do that.

    • KG says:
      April 20, 2016 at 12:26

      Sometimes, driving around the lake you can get a very similar effect, Brown.
      The utter silence makes it even better and in a couple of places it’s possible to see the curvature of the earth on the horizon.
      The place can kill very quickly in summer, though.