I was looking for birds on the sand but these ones were hard to see as they were facing away from me and all I saw at first were little brown bumps on the sand. Later I moved around to the other side and their white fronts were more clearly seen. Whenever a vehicle moved closer to them they scuttled away a few meters.
My bird books say that these birds stay here up until September so I was surprised to see how much breeding plumage they were already showing. Different birds were showing a whole range of different plumage changes. I hope to see them again in a month or so to see how the have changed by then.
Nice sharp images, Mick. You got nice and close too. Well done.
ReplyDeleteThanks Tony, I'm beginning to understand why you were so particular about a good lens - you wrote about it a year or so ago (or was it two?) and my eye can finally see the difference!
ReplyDeleteLovely pics. I wonder why they've bothered to cross the Tasman, considering it's so cold here at the moment!
ReplyDeleteHi Snail, I guess there is always worse weather somewhere else! The DB Plovers that come here to Australia (I understand) are from areas in the south island of NZ where the weather is definitely much colder than it is here. Some of the birds from areas where the weather is less severe stay there all year.
ReplyDeleteHi Mick
ReplyDeleteDB Plovers go there at the same time as Victorian Bowlers, I understand.
Your "winter" is like summer to both groups.
Nice pictures.
Cheers
Denis
Hi Denis, yes the winter here is quite mild compared with southern NZ. Strange how one soon gets acclimated to this climate - I have been shivering this winter and I know when I first came up here 7 years ago I couldn't understand why everyone was all rugged up!
ReplyDelete