Birds in the Bush and on the Beach

Yesterday, I joined 22 enthusiastic birders for a most enjoyable day of bird watching at three different places in my local area. First stop was the Seary's Creek Picnic Area on the Rainbow Beach Road, then on to Bullock Point boat launch just across from Inskip Point, and finally we spent most of the time at Inskip Point.

We had a great day and saw a total of 56 species of birds.

The best thing about the day was the large number of honeyeaters we saw around the winter flowering trees. The most frustrating thing was the speed at which these little birds moved! I took so many photos of “blurs” in the tops of the trees! However, I got a couple of photos of birds that have eluded me until now – a Little Shrike-thrush (the rufous form) and a Red-backed Wren. This latter photo is still not showing the head and front of the bird but considering the number of times I have only managed blurred images in the long grass I am quite pleased with this one.

Little Shrike-thrush

Red-backed Wren

At the end of the day, when we were all sitting around in our picnic chairs and enjoying a final “cuppa” (cup of tea or coffee for those not familiar with the Aussie habit of shortening words and phrases!) and having a talk about what we had seen, two Beach Stone-curlews walked out of the grass right next to us. I have seen these birds before around the Inskip area and it always amazes me that these rather shy birds have taken residence here. This time I got photos of the birds showing how close they are to the fishermen in their 4 wheel drive vehicles.

Inskip Point and Beach Stone-curlew

Of course we looked for Black-breasted Button-quail which are known to be in this area but all we saw were the scrapes (platelets) they had left. Possibly our lack of success was because of the size of our group and all our excited talking about the birds we were seeing!