Several years ago, Sarah and I journeyed to the Australian outback, hoping to record the calls of Cockatiels.

We were not having any luck finding them (they are highly nomadic birds, and seemed to have departed the area a few weeks previously). However we did discover something unexpected – a group of ephemeral lakes in the desert, filled with water for the first time in 40 years.

The parched and flat expanses of the Australian outback may not seem the kind of place where one expects to find lakes. But when water arrives, it brings the dry landscape to life in a most spectacular way.

Birdlife, particularly waterfowl, is attracted to these inland water bodies to breed. They arrive from possibly thousands of kilometers away in response to rainfall, and we found these isolated lakes to be refuge for a huge numbers of ducks, coots, black swans, maned geese, dotterels and cormorants.

We nearly wouldn’t have known about the lakes at all. It was the local landowner who suggested we may find them interesting for our sound recording, and directed us to them through the flat, scrubby country.

We set up camp near the shore of Pine Lake, one of the smaller ones of the group. Being limited in size, the birdlife was concentrated, offering better opportunities for sound recording than larger, open water locations.

During the day, waterfowl could be seen resting across the lake. I tried making some recordings, but the birds were largely silent. It was at only night that they really got vocal.

This surprised us at first. One thinks of birds roosting at night, at least being quieter and less active. But water birds are the opposite, they really party after dark!

Throughout the night, ducks, geese and swans could be heard calling in the still air, their voices echoing eerily across the landscape. Every now and then, wings could be heard overhead as ducks took to the air or flew in from nearby lakes, alighting with a soft splash. Along with the waterfowl, nocturnal crickets chimed quietly, and small bats could be heard echo-locating for insects over the water’s edge. Tiny dotterels patrolled the shoreline, occasionally giving their characteristic ‘ratchetty’ calls.

I had set up my microphones on the water’s edge, and ended up leaving the recorder running for many hours. As Sarah and I sat in the dark, we found ourselves being gently lulled by these hauntingly beautiful sounds.

We found out later that we were not the only ones to find this symphony of waterbirds restful.

Meeting up again with the owner, he shared his delight in these nightsounds too. Despite a challenging life on the land, he had a deep appreciation of nature. He described how it was only the second time in his life that he had seen these lakes fill, and how his family would drive out to them after dinner, to sit quietly in the moonlight listening to the ducks with a glass of wine in hand.

‘Meditation at Pine Lake’ – album sample by Listening Earth

Here is a short sound sample of what we heard on those evenings.

The full recording is featured on our album ‘Meditation at Pine Lake’, which can be purchased on CD or as a digital download from our website: Here is the direct link to the album.

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‘Swifties’ breed in eastern Tasmania over summer, then in winter, almost the entire population migrates north to the mainland, dispersing between Adelaide and sometimes even as far north as Brisbane. Most of them stay around Victoria however, and here they feed on winter-flowering eucalypts and wattles.

Considering how few birds there are, and the vast areas over which they disperse, having any Swifties visit our home block of bushland is a rare event. In ten years there has only been one winter in which we’ve heard a few in the area, and happened upon a pair feeding in a wattle bush outside our back door. Since then, no sign.

But this year, they are back!

Over the last few weeks, there have been flocks of a dozen or so in the bush around our home, feeding on scale insects and in the wattle. Each morning we’ve been hearing them, and seeing them whizzing through the trees overhead. As I sit in our office now, I can hear them occasionally outside.

They have a lovely tinkling chatter when feeding, and a sharp “swit, swit, swit…” flight call given invariably when they are on the wing.

It has been a delight to have them around our place, so here are some images of them, plus the sounds of a small flock feeding in the treecrown (with Wattlebirds and White-naped Honeyeaters in the background)

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