As we had done many hundreds of times over the last three decades, my beloved and I walked to Lake Monger shortly before sunset on the second day of 2020.
This time, we witnessed something utterly unexpected.
We had a couple of times already seen water birds in “feeding frenzy” mode, but only in the ocean, in much more obviously fish-rich locations than “our” local, shallow freshwater lake.
Lake Monger is mere minutes’ distant from Perth’s CBD.
All photos copyright Doug Spencer, taken on Thursday January 02 2020, during the pre-sunset hour.
At 6.29 pm, when I took this post’s featured photo, “new” pelicans were still flying in to join the feeding frenzy, which continued to grow over the following forty minutes.
Presumably, Lake Monger’s fish population had recently exploded, and/or an uncommonly large/concentrated shoal had formed.
We often see a pelican or three at Lake Monger.
Sometimes, we see as many as ten.
Never before, however, had we there seen such a throng.
We were not the pelicans’ only gobsmacked human observers, but we were in the minority.
Most people then present on Lake Monger’s southern shoreline were utterly oblivious to the extraordinary event unfolding just a couple of hundred metres away, toward the lake’s eastern side.
They had eyes only for the nearer birds, pictured below.
These, any visitor can expect to see, any day, on the lake’s southern shore.
As it happens, another bird – a species which used to stay well away from Lake Monger’s southern shoreline – can currently be viewed from there, at close quarters.
This species is up to something wonderful…as will be revealed in Pelican Yoga’s next post.
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Glad you cleared up the pelican question. We have only just started walking around Lake Monger since June 2019. A few weeks ago on the south side there was a big pack in pretty close you could see they were feeding. Today 15th Feb we estimated there were 150+ when we arrived with half of them in a pack out in the lake. By the time we walked around there were 50.. lets hope the Lake is getting healthier.
Thank you John. My beloved and I have lived within walking distance of Lake Monger since 1983. We are happy to confirm that the lake’s general health is much better now than it was then, and that general improvement has been ongoing in recent years. (Bird numbers/species diversity don’t lie!)