Week 1 – Peel-Harvey Estuary by Microlight and Kayak

First flight leg success!

Last week, I landed in Bunbury for the first leg of Wing Threads: Flight Around Oz. Since then, I’ve hit the ground running doing school visits and exploring the magnificent Peel-Harvey Estuary.

The Sunday after my flight to Bunbury, I was invited to join the other trike pilots from the Bunbury Aero Club for a flight up to Preston Field. I welcomed the opportunity as I didn’t get to fly over the Yalgorup Lakes on my way over.

It was a beautiful albeit very cold morning – the air temperature on the ground at take-off was only 1 degree Celcius! Nevertheless, I put on all the layers and flew up the coast and did a livestream of the flight.

Flying over Lakes Clifton and Preston was amazing! Check out the livestream of the flight on YouTube here.

The weather has been wet and windy all week and looks to be that way for at least another week! But that’s ok because it has given me more time to get a few last minute jobs done in Perth.

One of those jobs was having the transponder calibrated on my microlight. Many thanks to Nexus Avionics in Jandakot for sorting this out for me. I’m all good to fly now in controlled airspace when I need to.

I also visited three schools to share A Shorebird Flying Adventure – Dalmain Primary School, Eton Farm Primary School and John Tonkin College in Mandurah.

And because I had the microlight with me to take to Jandakot, I was able to open up the trailer and show the students, which they loved. I was overwhelmed after every talk with questions about flying the microlight!


I’ve also been catching up with lots of friends, including Jamie and Base from Salt and Bush Eco Tours who are microlight logo sponsors!

Jamie and Base took me on one of their kayak tours of the Peel-Harvey Estuary to check out the Creery Wetlands and the nearby Samphire and Channel Islands.


We were even lucky enough to find some overwintering migratory shorebirds on one of the samphire islands – a small flock of Red Knots, Bar-tailed Godwits and a couple of Whimbrel.

It was a magnificant day out and even more so with the light showers of rain creating rainbows over the water. I took many videos for the Wing Threads Wednesday Instagram reel with BirdLife Australia and Remember the Wild, which will feature a different wetland I’ve visited every week.

Next week I’ll be visiting the Vasse-Wonerup Wetlands in Busselton!

Welcome as well to all of the new followers and big thanks to everyone for following along and for your patience with the weather. Hopefully I’ll be back up in the air soon! 

In the meantime, I’ve set up another fundraising page for Wing Threads on Ko-Fi as I’ve had a number of peeps wanting to contribute. Flight leg sponsorships for the trip are still available on here as well.

Milly Formby
Author
Milly Formby is a zoologist, pilot, and illustrator of the children’s book, A Shorebird Flying Adventure She is currently flying her microlight around Australia in 2022/23 to share,A Shorebird Flying Adventure with primary students.
Image credits:
Book cover for A Shorebird Flying Adventure

A Shorebird Flying Adventure

Available Now

Join Milly on her microlight and discover how amazing and awesome migratory shorebirds are!

Milly Formby is a zoologist and illustrator of the children’s book A Shorebird Flying Adventure. Available now through CSIRO Publishing.

Like this post? Share the shorebird-nerdiness on social!

More posts you might like...

Comments

X