Town Common Archives

The Town Common in the Wet Season

The weather has been alternately too hot and too wet for enjoyable walking, for what feels like months, but I couldn’t resist going down to the Town Common yesterday morning. It’s looking very lush after the rain (about 1300 mm between Jan 28 and Feb 12) but it has dried out well. The road in to Freshwater Lagoon was already open again, somewhat to my surprise, although the road to the Quarantine Station wasn’t.

I chose to walk in from Pallarenda to Tegoora Rock anyway, and turned left towards Freshwater at the track junction. (I didn’t walk up to the lookout this time although it’s the best spot for views of the park.)

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Smedley’s Hill

From Castle Hill or Mt Stuart, Smedley’s Hill looks like a bump on the western end of Many Peaks Range on the northern edge of the Town Common. On the ground, it’s more challenging and more interesting. The views from it are spectacular – looking along Shelly Beach towards Maggie, or north to the Palm Islands and Hinchinbrook, or up the coast.

footbridge, creek, hill — Smedley’s Hill from the footbridge

I’ve been visiting the Common for years but had never tried to climb the hill. When I did, yesterday, I realised that it wasn’t the simple rounded shape we see from the south but a ridge running east-west (continuing, in fact, the line of Many Peaks) linked to a smaller peak to its north, right above the sea.

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Uncommon wildlife on the Common

Town Common wetland — Wetland near Tegoora Rock

The weather has been a bit warm for enjoyable walking the last few months unless one gets out very early and doesn’t stay too long, as I said a year ago (funny, that) in a post celebrating my return to the Town Common. Yesterday was my first extended, enjoyable, walk there for a couple of months. I drove in to Freshwater bird hide and walked from there to the track junction near Tegoora Rock and back.

sunbird on grass stem — Sunbird perching on a grass stem, reming us how small they are.

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Waders on the Common

It isn’t very long since my previous post about birds on the Town Common but water levels there have dropped and some different species, especially small waders, are taking advantage of the shallows and mudflats.

waders on a shallow lagoon — Distant waders including Stilts, Sandpipers (Marsh and Sharp-tailed), Dotterels and Masked Lapwing

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Waterbirds on the Common

I have been visiting the Town Common several times per year for over ten years because there’s always something special to see. A morning there early this week (my first visit since before our Limmen trip in July-August) was rewarded with so many birds that I just had to share some photos.

Magpie Geese and others on the Town Common — Magpie Geese and others

The lagoons at the Melaleuca and Pandanus viewing areas have been cleaned up recently and there’s now a long stretch of open water – plenty for not just a lot of birds but a lot of a lot of species of birds. We expect Magpie Geese, especially towards the end of the Dry season, but there were also big flocks of Egret (certainly Little and Great, and probably Cattle), Grey Teal and Royal Spoonbills.

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