Sunday, February 20, 2011

Early Morning and High Tide

In the last post I told about counting terns out at Inskip Point in the evening. Jill also did a count of the shorebirds that were roosting on the Point. There was a huge flock of at least 1000 mixed small waders. We saw Red-capped Plovers, Red-necked Stints and Lesser Sand Plovers. Although I always see quite a number of small waders at the Point I had never seen a flock of this size out there. I suggested to Jill that if we wanted better views of these shorebirds we could possibly find them again in the very early morning before any traffic started using the Point. So the next morning we were out there by sun-rise.
Jill has a friend visiting from Switzerland and she came out with us. Trudi was interested and enthusiastic about the birds, the way the sea surrounds the Point on three sides, the way the tide was coming in and undermining the lip of the sand which had been built up over the last month, and everything else which she saw or we pointed out to her. It was no trouble to walk out there with us and she kept up as we walked over the soft sand. She was exactly the kind of visitor it is a delight to show around! Trudi has a birthday coming up in a couple of weeks time and she will be turning 94. What a great example to follow! I hope I can stay as active and involved and enthusiastic as this lovely lady!
Now about the birds. The tides over the last few days have been exceptionally high so that the sand island where the birds usually roost was almost covered. As the water rose around the island the birds flew in to roost on the Point. There were small numbers of Terns but most had already left for their fishing grounds out at sea. There was a flock of 820 small waders. There was also a flock of 1140 mixed larger waders. This was made up mainly of Bar-tailed Godwits, Whimbrels, and Great Knots. The small waders were on the north side of the point and the larger waders were strung out along the south side of the point. Jill counted and I recorded and then I started to move a little closer to get some photos. Before I got anywhere near the birds they all flew up! A White-breasted Sea-Eagle had flown over and frightened them all. With the island almost under-water and the Point a less desirable place they all set off towards Fraser Island and in the direction of Hook Point.
Mainly Godwits and some Great Knots.

The small waders followed them. There is no recorded roost site on Fraser Island in that direction but I have seen birds set off in that direction a number of times.
Part of the flock of small waders - Red-capped Plovers, and Red-necked Stints.
Eastern Curlews were the last to leave the sand island.
Some of them came in and roosted at the very end of the Point and persisted there even with the waves beginning to break over the area.
Curlews and two Common Greenshanks
The tide was coming right over the Point by the time we left and it was still an hour or so until high tide. The barges which carry vehicles to Fraser Island would have had to move before too much longer.
For more bird photographs go to the Bird Photography Weekly.

17 comments:

  1. Beautiful shots of the shorebirds Mick. I hope I can keep up with Trudi when I turn 94!

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  2. Hi Mick, Great post. Made me wish I was there! Enjoyed the photos although had trouble with one: clicking on the one with the flying birds, I was unable to enlarge it, got a warning instead that this site contained malicious software!
    I put a report in that it did not. So was sorry I couldn't see the photo in greater detail. That happened by the way to one of my own photos once!

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  3. Hi Hilke, Thanks for letting me know about the problem with the photo. I wonder what caused that? I didn't do anything different with that one to any of the others I posted. However, I have gone back and deleted it and reprocessed the photo. Hope it's OK now.

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  4. Mick,I was curious about this problem, since it happened also on another blog that I looked at. I googled it and came up with this website for an explanation:
    http://tinyurl.com/4vflm2p

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  5. Must have been an awesome sight to see them all fly up when the Sea-Eagle came along.

    I'd better get in shape if I want to follow in Trudi's footsteps :-)

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  6. Love the red-caps! I hope I get to see one live and in person some day.

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  7. Thanks again Hilke. I went and read that page you linked to. It's a bit disconcerting when it happens to one's own blog post and you think you have done everything right!

    Hi Gwendolen - yes quite a sight to see them all fly up but at this time of the year it's not something you want to see. The migratory birds are all putting on extra fat to last the long flights northwards and being frightened burns off fat!!

    Hi BirdingisFun - Red-capped Plovers are the easiest to see of the smaller shorebirds. I like them especially because they are so inquisitive.

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  8. Pretty birds and beautiful photos! Curlews are especially interesting to me, I have never seen this species before. Trudi, the 94-year old birdwatcher, gives us a life lesson, I send my respect to that adorable lady.

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  9. great post, Mick. I love the (empty) beach at sunrise or before. Sounds like a pretty great morning -Nice photos!

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  10. Thanks for commenting Muge and Johnny. It was a great morning and was very interesting to see all the Eastern Curlews where I could get photos of them. Usually they fly off very quickly but there weren't too many places they could go on such a high tide.

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  11. ...beautiful photos...the one with the Curlews and Common Greenshanks is stellar--and the water is so blue! Gorgeous... I hope I'm out chasing the birds when I'm 94 too!

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  12. so many birds where you live. And Sweden is totally empty. Now I am glad I went to CR so I have something to show.

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  13. 94! Wow- my grandmother (95) went on a cruise with us three years ago, and that was impressive, but that's still a far cry from going bird-watching.

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  14. Hi NatureFootstep, all these migratory birds will be leaving soon and the bays and sandbars will look very empty. Not totally empty of course because some stay all year but still very different from what it is now.

    Hi Mike, yes, Trudi is an amazing lady - plus remember this was at sun-up - which is too early for even some of my younger friends!

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  15. Wonderful shorebird shots! I especially like the group of curlews in front of the breaking wave.

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