Fogg Dam - Natures Paradise

Located around 70 kilometres from Darwin, the bitumen road gives year round access and for Fiona and I it was special as well, as the water lilies were in flower and it was a sight to see.

Being part of the Adelaide River catchment area, a dam wall was built in the mid 1950's to provide irrigation water for the Humpty Doo Rice Project.

The dam was constructed by the RAAF Airfield Construction Squadron and named it Fogg Dam after Mr J D Fogg who was the Managing Director of Utah Australia Limited.

After the failure of the Rice Cropping Industry, the dam area was declared a bird protection district in 1959 and in 1982 the area was upgraded to a Conservation Reserve.

A large number of the birds here we had seen before, but the one special bird that we had not seen, and hoped to photograph was the Comb Crested Jacana, or as they are known, the Jesus bird for its ability to walk on water.

It was not long before I spotted our first Jacana's, but they were a long way out, even for my big telephoto lens. The more I looked, the easier they were to see and had I looked close the the edge of the bank, they were literally only a few metres away.


We drove and walked the length of the dam wall, one side holding back the water, while on the other side as far as the eye can see, wetlands covered with countless thousands of many varieties of birds. Reaching the other end of the wall, there was a sign saying dam wall walk closed due to recent crocodile sitings....bad luck for the other people and me who had just walk the length of the wall.

How recent the sighting was we will never know, but that would explain the croc trap set on the water side. Also does anyone know what the machine on the water is and used for?

These are now just some of the birds that I was able to photograph during our visits to this very special location.