#306 Peregrine Falcon, Victoria, November 19

I've driven by a well known local Peregrine Falcon nesting location a few times this year, and finally hit paydirt! Photos taken from a distance and heavily cropped.

#306 Peregrine Falcon

#305 Australian Hobby, Western treatment Plant, Victoria, November 11

I found this very timid and unfortunately back-lit hobby at the Western Treatment Plant this afternoon. Too many bushes in the way, too heavily cropped etc, but easily identifiable!

#305 Australian Hobby

#304 Black-faced Cormorant at Point Lonsdale, Victoria, November 6

I had to go to Geelong on Sunday afternoon, so I decided to spend some time at Point Lonsdale looking for Black-faced Cormorants in the morning. Black-faced Cormorants are somewhat rare around Melbroune, but someone told me that they were a 'sure thing' around the Point Lonsdale pier at low tide. I only found one, and it was a fly-by, but I managed a photo. A pretty crappy photo at that! Still, recognisable enough to be species #304 for 2016!

#304 Black-faced Cormorant

#303 Australasian Bushlark at the Western Treatment Plant, Victoria, November 3

After getting a terrible back-lit photo of a bushlark at the start of the year which I promptly deleted, I was very glad to get this one to add to the year list. I call them a Horsfield's Bushlark, but I think they've been renamed to Australasian Bushlark...

#303 Australasian Bushlark

#302 Leaden Flyctahcer at Woodlands Historic Park, November 1

The first Tuesday in November is Melbourne Cup Day, a public holiday. I'm not at all a fan of horse racing, but I'm most certainly a fan of public holidays!!! Of course, being a teacher, any spare time at this time of the year is usually spent writing reports, which is what I planned to do today... after some recreation time, of course. I headed to Woodlands because it is close to home, not expecting to find much. But I was very pleased to find a female flycatcher, which in the field I thought was a Satin Flycatcher. I has since been identified as a Leaden Flycatcher by the good people at the bird ID Facebook page. Now, instead of writing reports, I'm writing this page. Oh, sweet procrastination...

#302 Leaden Flycatcher

#299 to #301 around Beindigo, Victoria, October 9

I DID IT!!! 300 SPECIES OF BIRDS PHOTOGRAPHED IN 2016!!!!

I go back to work tomorrow (Monday) for the madness of Term four of the school year (I'm a teacher). This means no spare time. Instead, I'll be writing reports. So I was hoping to reach my goal today... and I did! Yay!

I considered a range of locations for today, but ended up choosing Kamarooka in Bendigo because I felt I had a better chance of finding something new for the year there. But when I arrived, I found that most of the birds were hiding from the wind. I struggled to find anything until a family of Variegated Fairywren popped up and I snapped photo #299 for the year.

I pushed on towards the distillery dam where I always find a lot of birds. There were very few around today. Bugger. I moved on again to find the roads impassable in my little two-wheel-drive. Bugger. I moved back to the main road, and that's when I could hardly believe my eyes. A Square-tailed Kite was soaring right next to the car. I piled on the brakes and leapt out of the car. I fired off at least 100 photos before I realised that the settings were all wrong!!! I quickly adjusted, but the bird had moved too far away. Luckily a few adjustments to the photos on the computer recovered the photos somewhat. I was overjoyed to have this incredible species as #300 for the year, especially since seeing one and not being able to stop in time for a photo exactly a week ago when we were at Litchfiled National Park in the Northern Territory. Woo hoo!!!

I continued looking around Kamarooka wherever the roads weren't too bad, hoing to photograph a White-fronted or Purple-gaped Honeyeater, but couldn't find any. The wind was pretty ferocious and it was time to start going home.

While passing through Bendigo, I heard the familliar call of some Musk Lorikeet, a very common species that has eluded my camera all year long. I stopped, got a photo within 30 seconds, and then continued driving home. Species #301!

I might get a few more photos for the year, who knows, but I'll be taking it pretty easy from here. No more big drives until 2017 (unless something mega-rare turns up, of course).

#299 Variegated Fairywren

#300 Square-tailed Kite

#301 Musk Lorikeet

#298 Silvereye at The Jawbone, Williamstown, Victoria, October 6

Silvereye are extremely common, and I usually get a reasonable photo of one a few times each year. But this year I've struggled to get any sort of photo. Today I went to a place that I have seen Silvereye quite a few times and tried to track them down by call. I eventually found a small flock, and then began the difficult task of finding one that would come out into the open and stay still for more than a nanosecond. A few did and I ticked off species photograph #298 for 2016. I did feel a bit silly going somewhere and targeting such a common bird...! Two more photos to go...

#298 Silvereye

eBird checklist: http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S31912572