Tawny Frogmouths

Today we all went to the Mornington Peninsula and drove to some wetlands the name of which I can't remember. We got out of the car. It was about 4 o'clock. We looked around and saw two tourists photographing something. We looked closer and gasped. 3 TAWNY FROGMOUTHS WERE RIGHT NEXT TO THE CARPARK!
Now that the story is over, look at the pictures!

Strange Bird

I was lying down after a normal day at home when my dad woke me up with the shout of "Chanith! There's a new bird IN OUR FRONT GARDEN!" I rushed outside and this is what I saw.

Can you guess what this is? I'll give you 20 seconds. The answer is below by the way.

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This bird is a strangely mutated common or Indian myna with a bald head!

We watched it for a while and had the idea to go outside and photograph it. The bird flew to the other side of the road. We took the photos you can see above and then waited as the bird came a bit closer and ran across the road. After that it was getting cold so we ran inside.
A nice sighting!

A Visit to Altona

Yesterday I was a little bored so I decided to (after asking my dad) go on a birding trip. I looked on the web and saw that common terns had been reported on some rocks in the ocean along the Altona Esplanade. I decided to go to Altona and check out the terns if they were there, then look at a new birding spot in the area called Newport Lakes Reserve that apparently had good birds.
First we drove over to the spot. There were silver gulls, pied oystercatchers, female chestnut teal, little pied cormorants and even a few red-necked stints on the rocks, but I could not find the common terns, if they were indeed there. As the wind blew we got back into the car as sparrows chirped and drove to the Reserve.
On the way, I spotted a dark brown bird, reminding me of the skuas and jaegers I had seen pictures of, flying above a carpark. We stopped the car and got out, cameras at the ready. It was no skua and jaeger but a bird I had already seen before- a juvenile Pacific Gull.

The juvenile Pacific Gull among some commoner silver gulls

Nearby was a smallish body of water. Many birds were flying around and swimming in the water. Most of these birds were chestnut teals, little black cormorants or welcome swallows. As we got back into the car we spotted a greenfinch, a bird that has been introduced to the Melbourne area from Europe.

The greenfinch

After driving around a bit more we came to the Newport Lakes Reserve. As we got out of the car we could hear some birds singing. We stopped at a flowering shrub where I spotted a few wattlebirds. There were soldier beetles almost everywhere in the reserve. We came to the lakes and saw Australasian grebes, coots, black swans, Pacific black ducks, purple swamphens, little black cormorants and even a feral mallard duck. Welcome swallows were flying around, snatching up insects. We crossed the lake on the stones set in the middle and got to the track on the other side. We spotted another swamphen but not much else. The birds were pretty disappointing, but we did arrive late in the day. After we walked a bit more to the auditorium where red-browed finches are supposed to be common (we didn't see any) we had to go. 

All in all, it was a pretty average day of birding.