Lake Wallace is 10 minutes past Lithgow by car after crossing the Blue Mountains from Sydney. It is a convenient place to stop for lunch on the way to Cowra when I travel to the Cowra Woodland Bird Surveys. The lake is about two kilometers in length and was formed in 1978 when a dam was put across the Coxs River, to provide cooling water for the Wallerawang Power Station. The power station was decommissioned in 2015 and now the lake is a popular camping and caravan destination.
Musk Duck feediing on Lake Wallace
The lake attracts a wide range of water birds and can provide good views of Great Crested Grebes, Blue-billed and Musk Ducks. There are usually large numbers of ducks but last week I could only find two Musk Ducks and one Hardhead. There were very few ducks on the dams on the way to Cowra and numbers are low in Sydney too. They must have moved to further west?
There were more White-browed Scrubwrens around than normal last week, at Lake Wallace and at Cowra.