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First of all, we flew down the King River, just south of Wangaratta. This had a few Wood Ducks, White-faced Herons and Black Ducks on the small lagoons on the floodplain. 

Then we flew across to fly upstream on the Ovens River, a largely free-flowing river until it gets regulated downstream. 

We then flew upstream on the Kiewa River, with very similar species of waterbirds - just a few Black Ducks, Pacific Herons, and the occasional Straw-necked Ibis. It was then on to the next easterly mountain river, the Mitta Mitta River. Like the other rivers surveyed this morning, this river’s surrounding area was primarily cleared for farmland.

The next video shows the surveying of the Mitta Mitta River down through the farmland valley. 

The video below shows the other side of the town of Mitta Mitta, flying up through the forested valley, there were very few waterbirds.

There were about fifty waterbirds on the reservoir downstream of Dartmouth Dam, which was reasonably shallow, with Black Swans, Black Ducks and Hardheads. It was then onto the huge Dartmouth Dam, a massive dam across the Mitta Mitta River. 

Dartmouth Dam is a simple, relatively sterile environment for waterbirds, with just the odd cormorant seen on the massive expanse of water. It is just too deep. 

And then we headed across the Snowy Mountains. There was some snow remaining in the Thredbo Valley.

It was here we started to experience low cloud and were concerned that we may not be able to complete the survey. But the cloud cleared.

From here we went up into the clouds and headed for Wollongong, where there was high cloud cover, allowing us to come down and do the eastern part of survey band 3, which we had to skip earlier in the week because of the poor conditions. 

We completed today’s survey on one of Sydney’s water supply dams, Avon Dam. 

We finished up at Bankstown Airport.