I was out photographing the late leavers [and overwinterers] at
Thornside the other day. Not realising that Thornside is a couple of
hours behind the Brisbane bar, I arrived at dead low tide rather than
the middle of the incoming tide. There were still plenty of godwits
about, and one male was virtually in full breeding plumage [so I guess
it will be departing shortly]. There were also quite a few grey tailed
tattlers and terek sandpipers and a couple of great knots.
There was a mangrove bittern lurking along the waterline, but it
scarpered [about a kilometre] while I was moving to get the sun behind
me. Similarly, the flock of golden plovers disappeared after I
stumbled on their lurking place. The red capped plovers and red necked
stints were also well camouflaged and hard to see at first glance. The
RN stints made the RC plovers look big, and some of them indeed had
reddish necks and heads. [I will get around to putting some RNS shots
on Oz Birdpix].
Also of interest was a greenshank that appeared to be transiting to its
breeding plumage - knot-like mottling on its coverts and chestnut
barring on its secondaries. The interesting thing is that the basal
third of its bill appeared to have a yellowish tint - a bit like the
illustrations of a Nordmann's Greenshank in the field guides. Do
common greenshanks develop a yellowish tint on the basal part of their
bills when they are in breeding plumage? [As usual, the field guides
don't mention it]. I have placed a couple of shots on Oz Birdpix.
Regards, Laurie.
Birding-Aus is on the Web at
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