Cooroy Treatment Plant Update

Cooroy treatment plant this week

The Cooroy sewage treatment plant was once the Sunshine Coast's top wetland site for birds before it was extensively renovated in 2014-2015. Since then Unitywater has closed off the area with a barbed wire-topped fence, but it is possible to obtain permission to bird there by phoning 0409 512523 when you are at the site entrance gate. To reach the plant, turn right down a short dead end road off Mary River Road just before Jarrah Street; you will see a sign to a camping ground at the turnoff but no mention of the plant.

Little Grassbird

The site is not quite what it used to be. The bungs that provided easy access to various pools are replaced by sheet iron fencing. The nice muddy margins to reed beds are gone. However, some good aquatic revegetation has taken place and things are starting to look up. When I visited the plant this week I saw a Baillon's Crake in the same pool where they had once been regular summer visitors; I was unable to get a picture but here is one at the same place a few years ago.  A pair of Little Grassbirds were nesting in a small reed bed nearby and I saw a few Latham's Snipe.

Baillon's Crake

Apart from the pools, the surrounding woodlands are quite birdy. Below are some of the images from my visit this week. Ebird list.

Magpie Goose

Red-browed Finch

Variegated Fairy-wren

Wandering Whistling-Duck

The Botanic Gardens just north of Cooroy on the western shore of Lake MacDonald are worth a look with birds this week including Rose-crowned Fruit-Dove, Barred Cuckoo-shrike and White-throated Needletail.

White-throated Needletail

Barred Cuckoo-shrike

Rose-crowned Fruit-Dove

A little to the east of Cooroy, two spots worth checking are Frogmouth Lane and the Cooroy-Pomona Lions Park, where Fairy Gerygone this week was among the birds seen.

Fairy Gerygone