Check my birding map for specific location.
I am making my way south towards Adelaide before I swing east and head to Melbourne. I wanted to stop at a National Park but chose a lovely little caravan park at Port Germein instead as the loos didn't have swarms of flies in them!
The caravan park was right on the sea front and it was gorgeous. A huge, very shallow beach meant that the tide came in and went out very quickly. As I arrived, the tide was out but I could only see gulls on the beach.
Silver Gull (Chroicocephalus novaehollandiae)
In the park itself were lots of birds, dominated by European species. That is something I haven't seen since leaving New Zealand. I parked up in the shade of a tree that was very active with birds and I found a ringneck parrot in it. I didn't recognise it at first as it was so pale. I realised it was the mallee species. Another box ticked as I already have the Port Lincoln, 28 and Cloncurry Ringnecks. I need better photos but at least I have seen it.
Mallee Ringneck Parrot (Barnardius zonarius barnardi)
Also in the park were Spotted Doves. I really miss hearing the cooing of doves. In Queensland you hear them all the time and I love it. It was great to hear this bird calling down to me in the late afternoon. They are classed as feral here which I just don't get. Maybe I a a purist (or maybe not!). I just think birds are birds. If they are in the wrong place, there is only one species to blame - humans!
Spotted Dove (Spilopelia chinensis)
At dawn the next morning I knew it would be high tide and I hoped there would be waders on the beach. The sea was covering the whole beach when I walked down to the jetty. One side is flat beach with some pools and debris and the other side is built up with vegetation and dead seaweed. In amongst that were small waders, lots of them. They were tiny Red-necked Stints working their way along the shoreline, bouncing on the vegetation and in the water. There were at least a hundred of them and I found a place to sit and watched them as the sunlight brightened them up.
Red-necked Stint (Calidris ruficollis)
The shoreline was buzzing with the stints and then, all of a sudden, they all stopped dead still. It was so weird and it felt very eerie. It was like they were all doing a minute's silence! I've never seen anything like it before and I could see no external reason for their sudden stillness. After a couple of minutes, they resumed the search for food.
No comments:
Post a Comment