White-necked Heron and blue skinned children!

As Tish was working last night I took the children out this morning to give her a chance to get to sleep - once asleep virtually nothing will disturb her!
We returned to Knuckey to see if the Brolgas would play ball (they didn't!). What I was not expecting was how cold it was and a quick check on my weather app on the phone revealed that the air temperature was a cool 15 degrees but with the added wind chill (and it was windy) it felt like 9 degrees - needless to say was not prepared for this and so forced the children to run around for the first few minutes to change their skin colour from blue to a more normal flesh colour and to stop the shivering, I may have to see if I can find a jumper for them before they go back to school! The good thing though is the speed with which it starts to warm so no one felt cold for too long.

Whilst there was no sign of the Brolga one of my other target species decided to be more obliging than usual - namely White-necked Heron. I have seen several of these large and impressive herons but with one exception - see post http://birdsandbirthsdownunder.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/darwin-dakar-rally.html - I have only seen them in flight.
Today looked to be the same story as one flew in and appeared to be heading off to the marsh that the Brolgas and Spoonbills are hiding out on but at the last moment it banked and landed at the back of the marsh. I managed to get these distant but not too bad photos.

Everything on the marsh was jumpy today. I initially thought it was due to the large numbers of Whistling Kite that were circling the area but soon the real culprit appeared and I spent the next twenty minutes attempting to get some flight shots of it.........

...... the majority of the shots came out like this, out of focus and only just identifiable as a bird of prey.
I did manage to get these three half decent shots though..

It is a Swamp Harrier - I have seen it at Knuckey quite frequently this winter and the wildfowl have not adjusted to its presence yet

Tomorrow the bikes are coming out and we are going to cycle from Nightcliff to Rapid Creek.