End of first week of hols lots more to come..

The end of the week has been rather busy with domestic chores - most notably cleaning and tidying the childrens rooms, not a simple task.
Yesterday (Friday) we went into Palmerston Library to get some details of art workshops for Xanthe - the school holiday ones are over booked but we have the artists schedule for the rest of the year so we will look at booking her on the coloured pencil course. On the way out of Darwin there was a superb Black-shouldered Kite sitting on the telegraph wires but unfortunately the traffic meant that I was not able to stop and take any pictures.
Tish was working Friday night and again tonight (Saturday) so I took the children out today. They were all rather tired so we settled on an easy day and went back to Fogg Dam to look for crocs (we failed) and Brolgas (we succeeded)
It was another great day with numerous highlights including two lifers - white-browed crake and red-backed kingfisher
Xanthe yet again was in charge of one of the cameras but this time she took less pictures of us and more of the wildlife.
Here is a selection from today..

I liked this shot of the marsh as it really shows how busy it is - there are puddles everywhere each with their own selection of birds

Along side the birds we had our best views of agille wallaby so far - this looked like a female with her very large joey, although I hope it did not try to get back into her pouch.

They were very happy tucking into the grass.

........nice to see the Darter with its wings open

Red-Backed Kingfisher

Pied Heron



Striated Heron trying to hide

And my entrant for worst photo of the day...

Purple Swamphen

The undoubted stars though were the Brolgas - we saw atleast five. Here are a selection of Xanthe and my best shots of two of the closer birds..







Xanthes shots of the pair

Well worth the wait to see them properly rather than just in flight.

The icing on the cake was that the black-shouldered kite was on the wires again but due to traffic yet again I could not stop to get any pictures.
Tomorrow we are off to Jingli Water Park so that the children can burn off some energy before a BBQ to celebrate Territory Day in the evening - we may come back via the kite site, surely one of these days we will see it and be able to stop and get pictures of this stunning raptor!