White-cheeked Honeyeaters

This post is for World Bird Wednesday.

I stopped at the Seary's creek picnic area the other day.  It was a lovely warm afternoon and there were a couple of people swimming in the creek.  They said that there was a little bird nesting down close to the water on the far side of the creek. It was a great place for photos but none of the ones I took that afternoon were what I had hoped for.  However, it was worth an extra trip there the next day and this time I took my big lens and a good steady tripod.
Seary's Creek comes out of the Great Sandy National Park and eventually flows out into the bay.  The picnic area is about half way between Cooloola Cove and Rainbow Beach and has tables set out under the trees and a well-made board walk along a portion of the creek.  Like all the other streams that come out of this area the water is deeply stained with tannin from the vegetation in and around the creek.  With the sunlight on the water it is a deep red color.  However, with the light behind you it can also reflect the deep blue of the sky.

This photo shows the blue of the water and the bird's nest in the middle of the photo low down between the two trees.  It was well hidden in among the low growing bushes and reeds.

(I need to put a reminder here that I live in SE Queensland, Australia and  right now it is late autumn/early winter.  Night time temperatures have been around 10 degrees Celcius and day time temperatures about 25 degrees C.  This converts to 50 - 77 Fahrenheit.  Since living here I have had to remember that many or most of the bush birds breed and nest at this time of the year and NOT in the heat of spring/summer!)
The birds were White-cheeked Honeyeaters (Phylidonyris nigra).  When we first got there one of the adults was sitting on the nest but after a while it flew off and both adults started bringing in food to the young ones.  In the second photo the young birds show as just a blob of white in the bottom  of the nest.

The sun shining directly on the bird's feathers made the dark colors look more brown than black.  Both birds came in and perched on one of the branches above the nest before hopping quickly down to the nest itself.  At times they had a very good careful look over the creek to where I was standing.