Massed Shorebirds

This post is for World Bird Wednesday.

I went out to Inskip Point soon after sunrise this morning. At that hour of the morning I was lucky to find shorebirds and terns all over the point and no people to disturb them. Even the car ferry for Fraser Island arrived after I did.
I estimated there were 1000+ shorebirds strung out along the water line on the southern side of the point and flocks of terns and small shorebirds roosting in the dry sand of the point in among the flotsam that is always washed up and left by the tide.
At first it seemed that there were only Bar-tailed Godwits in the flock on the southern side. Some of them were getting a faint wash of red breeding color down their frontsGradually it was possible to see others. There were Common Greenshanks roosting a little away from the Godwits and standing in slightly deeper water.
Then I saw slightly smaller birds in among the Godwits and I focused in on that part of the flock.
It was easy to see Great Knots. Some of them were getting their more heavily marked breeding colors. (Great Knots and one Bar-tailed Godwit in the rear.)
There were also numbers of Curlew Sandpipers.
They are never as easy to see as they like to roost even more closely among the Godwits. Sometimes all you can see is a smaller set of legs and part of a small bird in behind the Godwit.