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This afternoon I decided to take a wander through
Garvey Park and do a spot of birdwatching. Not much unusual around the lakes.
Loads of darters on the river. I figured I'd walk along the river to the
wetlandy area and try for rails or crakes, figuring I wouldn't have much luck
considering the abundance of cyclists/runners/people with dogs on and off the
lead. I got to an area with a pond and a large amount of mudflats, expecting but
not seeing moorhens or swamphens. I took a look at the footprints in the mud to
see what had been by and looked up as a cyclist went by. When I looked at back
at the mudflat I saw what I thought was a wader dash out. It seemed to be
bobbing so my first thought was Common Sandpiper, but it would have been kinda
weird to see ANY wader there. I took a look through my binos and what did I see?
A Buff-Banded Rail! Feeding. Not going "Yipe! She saw me!" and hiding a second
after I spotted it. I watched it feeding in the mud for a good 5 minutes.
They're quite pretty birds once you get to have a good look at them. Eventually
it got spooked by someone with a dog passing by but it was delightful to be able
to watch it for so long.
I copied and pasted that paragraph straight from my
Livejournal so the wording's a little wierd. Anyway, the fact remains that
I finally got a really good look at a Buffie. I just wish I had a decent
camera to have taken a photo of it.
Belinda (from Perth)
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