Scarlet Honeyeater

This post is for Bird Photography Weekly.

It was a beautiful day for a walk along the foreshore at Mullens but a brisk wind meant that the small birds weren't sitting around out in the open. I could hear them back in among the trees but it is thick bush and not easy to see any small birds.
I was interested to see that a pair of Masked Lapwing have apparently claimed the little rocky island as their own.
This used to be a territory occupied by a pair of Pied Oystercatchers but the Masked Lapwings would be aggressive enough to chase almost anything else away. I saw only one Pied Oystercatcher and it was standing well away from the shore on rocks that were only just out of the water.
Around the corner into the area of saltmarsh I was out of the wind but the birds were still well back in the bush. I saw a flash of scarlet and followed slowly until I could see up into the tree where the bird had gone. It was a Scarlet Honeyeater (Myzomela sanguinolenta) - a beautiful bird but always very active. It was up high in a casuarina tree and almost out of reach of even my big lens. It was feeding on mistletoe flowers. Now if I could only take the best bits out of all these photos I would really have a great photo of the bird!