Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Mullens in the Morning.

This post is for World Bird Wednesday.

It was low tide the other morning when I went for a walk along the foreshore to the Mullens roost. I wanted an easy walk without having to carry a lot of weight so left the big 150-500mm lens at home. Oh well, we all make mistakes of that kind sometimes! There were small birds everywhere in the bushes and trees and the 70-300mm lens was just not long enough!
Because there is still a lot of blossom on the Paperbark trees there were numbers of honeyeaters around. The easiest to see in that area are the Mangrove Honeyeaters. This one stopped just long enough for a quick photo even though the light was not in the right direction.
There were also lots of Brown Honeyeaters flying around.
There were a number of other small birds flitting in and out of the Mangroves that are all around the edge of the salt marsh. I waited for quite some time hoping that one would stop where I could actually see it rather than just fly into the bushes where I could only see leaves moving. This is the best I did - not a clear photo of the bird but unmistakeable with that pale ring around the eye - a Silvereye.
The biggest surprise of the morning were a group of small waders that flew up ahead of me then dropped down into the saltmarsh plants again. I couldn't tell what they were just from their flight pattern but even a distant photo was enough to ID Black-fronted Dotterels. These are another of the small shorebirds that are resident in Australia. They are not common in this area although I had been told that there were two there a couple of months ago. There were at least 4 in the group I saw. I took better photos of one I saw out in SW Queensland last year and have posted that photo again.
The most colorful photo of the morning was of a Scarlet Honeyeater that flew high up into a dead tree and then sat up there and let me get a couple of distant photos against the deep blue of the sky.

19 comments:

  1. Nice variety of birds great photos.

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  2. you still managed some great shots of illusive little birds! that scarlet is amazing! and that silver-eye just gave us a peek.

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  3. Such great birds you have there Mick.

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  4. A beautiful series of your lovely wildlife...

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  5. Some great birds Mick. Boom & Gary of the Vermilon River, Canada.

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  6. I would be ecstatic just seeing one of these birds in my patch. Wonderful captures as always Mick!

    My World Bird Wednesday post: Hummingbird Elegance

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  7. The honeyeaters are beautiful. I especially love the scarlet one. Great birds and photos.

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  8. Hi there - I thought you only did waders!!!

    Nice shots of the honeyeaters.

    Cheers - Stewart M

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  9. Lovely shots! That Scarlet Honeyeater is beautiful!

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  10. Impressive captures Mick! Even with your smaller lens ;-) I love those Honeyeaters. What an incredible group of birds!

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  11. That 70-300 made a pretty good showing! I think It's a great walking around lens. I use primes so I get a little envious of the flexibility those nice telephotos provide!

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  12. Nice shots, Mick! You managed well despite not having the right lens. I know what you mean be leaving a big lens behind because it's so heavy to carry. Can't count the times I regretted it.

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  13. I can hardly believe that you got those beautiful pictures on a casual walk (not really planning to get great photos). And yet you did! Wow.

    We have mangroves in Florida, but I have never seen any of those birds! They're just beautiful.

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  14. I envy you - just a bit :D
    You have such a cool variety of birds there.
    Amazing!

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