Mullens in the Morning.

This post is for World Bird Wednesday.

It was low tide the other morning when I went for a walk along the foreshore to the Mullens roost. I wanted an easy walk without having to carry a lot of weight so left the big 150-500mm lens at home. Oh well, we all make mistakes of that kind sometimes! There were small birds everywhere in the bushes and trees and the 70-300mm lens was just not long enough!
Because there is still a lot of blossom on the Paperbark trees there were numbers of honeyeaters around. The easiest to see in that area are the Mangrove Honeyeaters. This one stopped just long enough for a quick photo even though the light was not in the right direction.
There were also lots of Brown Honeyeaters flying around.
There were a number of other small birds flitting in and out of the Mangroves that are all around the edge of the salt marsh. I waited for quite some time hoping that one would stop where I could actually see it rather than just fly into the bushes where I could only see leaves moving. This is the best I did - not a clear photo of the bird but unmistakeable with that pale ring around the eye - a Silvereye.
The biggest surprise of the morning were a group of small waders that flew up ahead of me then dropped down into the saltmarsh plants again. I couldn't tell what they were just from their flight pattern but even a distant photo was enough to ID Black-fronted Dotterels. These are another of the small shorebirds that are resident in Australia. They are not common in this area although I had been told that there were two there a couple of months ago. There were at least 4 in the group I saw. I took better photos of one I saw out in SW Queensland last year and have posted that photo again.
The most colorful photo of the morning was of a Scarlet Honeyeater that flew high up into a dead tree and then sat up there and let me get a couple of distant photos against the deep blue of the sky.

Field Day to Poona

I went out with the Gympie Field Naturalists Club on Sunday for an outing to Poona. Poona is on the bay north of here and looks directly over to Fraser Island. We went for a wildflower walk in the morning and some of us looked for birds at the same time. We then went down to the picnic area right on the bay to sit and enjoy our lunch. The tide was out. I took photos and then came back to the same place a few hours later and took photos again with most of the sand flats covered by the incoming tide. Quite a difference!
Looking SE directly out to Inskip point and the channel out to sea.
I was looking at the far view and forgot about getting the Silver Gull in the close view in focus.
Looking E directly over to Fraser Island
This sign is placed prominently beside the boat ramp. Similar signs have been put in a number of places since a large crocodile was sighted over from here on Fraser Island. Up until that time most people thought that crocodiles were not this far south. Now I'm wondering how much I should change my kayaking and shorebird watching habits?
As soon as the local birds saw all these people sitting and eating they quickly came over and started looking for scraps. Some folks couldn't resist tossing out a few bits and I caught this Spangled Drongo both holding a piece with its 'foot' and also catching a piece in its beak.

In the afternoon we went off to another site where there is a well-made walk of 1.8kms that takes a circle around a piece of land that has a mangrove tidal flat on one side and a paperbark swamp on the other.
Paperbark Swamp

The birds were much more visible here than they had been in the morning and I got a photo of a male Rufous Whistler - a new bird for me.
I also got clear photos of a Silvereye. I had seen these birds before but never managed a clear photo.
A very good day! Nice company and good birds!