Wednesday, November 2, 2022

Coalmine Beach

 


Check my birding map for specific location. 

Coalmine Beach Caravan Park is a few kilometres east of Walpole and sits within the National Park and is very close to the water. It is stunning, full of huge, beautiful trees and most importantly, there are lots of birds. Starting with a feeder outside the office. Common Bronzewings first caught my eye. There is nothing common about these birds. I only realised how they got their name when I saw one fly away recently. The underside of their wings is a burnt brown, bronzy colour. Never seen that before.

Common Bronzewing (Phaps chalcoptera)

Around the park were lots of wattlebirds, magpies and cockatoo. The noise was fabulous. Every now and again the wail of the black cockatoo would pass overhead. I was disappointed that because of the bad weather, there was no real opportunity to see water birds. I did see numerous pelican and a couple of sea eagles fly over.

Galah (Eolophus roseicapilla)

Red Wattlebird (Anthochaera carunculata)

The manager of the park, once he knew I was a birder, invited me to his garden where he said lots of birds come in to feed. It was only a few kilometres away so when there was a break in the weather I headed up there. True enough, in his beautiful garden were lots of birds. I just sat and watched and to my delight a male and female Western Rosella flew in. I didn't know how different the female was.


Western Rosella (Platycercus icterotis)

Next up was the Red-eared Firetail and I crouched behind a bush to get close to these tiny birds. Similar to the Painted Finch from Queensland, they are incredibly pretty.

Red-eared Firetail (Stagonopleura oculata)

Just for once, the Splendid Fairywren were shy here and while they were hopping around the grass surrounding a bush, they would not tolerate me anywhere near them. This was my only decent shot of a moulting male.

Splendid Fairywren (Malurus splendens)

I had better luck with the Yellow-rumped Thornbill but they did bounce around a lot. Most of my shots were blurred.

Yellow-rumped Thornbill (Acanthiza chrysorrhoa)

To finish off, I got a better shot of the bronzewing. What a fabulous bird.

Common Bronzewing (Phaps chalcoptera)

eBird List

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