Stints and Gulls

Pacific Golden Plovers

2012-02-02T21:32:00.000+11:00

Red-necked Stint

2012-01-26T20:06:00.001+11:00

An adult in non-breeding plumage. Taken about 2 weeks ago.

Sooty Oystercatchers

2012-01-23T07:00:00.000+11:00

A few images of a couple of the 10 birds that were at the reef a couple of weeks ago.

Royal Spoonbills

2012-01-22T07:00:00.000+11:00

There were 5 of these birds feeding in amongst the Egrets on Ash Island during my trip there last week.

Tasmania Part 4 - Shorebirds

2012-01-21T09:34:00.000+11:00

I know in my last post about Tassie, I mentioned that I would post some images of the juvenile Kelp Gulls I saw. But I got distracted with editing some images of the various Shorebirds I saw instead.

I didn't see too many different Shorebirds. Masked Lapwings were the most common species. I did see Sooty and Pied Oystercatchers on more than one occasion.
I saw two Eastern Curlews at the back of Sorrell the day after I photographed the Kelp Gulls, but they were way too far away for me to get any decent photos.

I did however manage to see a small group of Red-necked Stints in Sorrell as I was leaving. Nice to see these birds so far south.

Intermediate and Eastern Great Egrets

2012-01-20T21:21:00.000+11:00

Some more images from last weeks trip to Ash Island. This time of Intermediate and Eastern Great Egrets.

This area was also had a few Royal Spoonbills, which I hope to do another post on when I get to those images.

Whistling Kite

2012-01-19T22:40:00.000+11:00

I photographed this bird flying low at Ash Island, Newcastle recently whilst looking for the Yellow Wagtail that's been reported there lately. But more on that later.

Tasmania Part 3 - Kelp Gulls (adults)

2012-01-16T20:36:00.000+11:00

I really wanted to see some Kelp and Pacific Gulls when we were down in Tassie, and I got a great chance one afternoon to watch a dozen or so adult and juvenile and imm Kelp Gulls.

These birds are so much larger than the Silver Gulls we get at home. Occasionally we will get a Kelp Gull visiting the reef, but they aren't that commonly seen around here.

These first 2 images are full frame. It's so great to get all of the bird in frame at once.

This next image shows the bird next to some smaller Silver Gulls.

And finally a closer image of one of the birds at rest.

Next blog post: Tasmania Part 4: Kelp Gulls (juveniles)

A Goshawk, a Whimbrel and a Fantail

2012-01-10T20:34:00.002+11:00

A number of interesting sightings today. Nothing out of the ordinary, but seeing 3 Bronze Cuckoo Doves and a Grey Goshawk at Narrabeen, then getting good views of a Rufous Fantail @ Warriewood and then finishing off with seeing a Whimbrel at Long Reef made for a good day of birding.

Tasmania Pt 2 - Cape Barren Geese & Other Lifers

2012-01-08T07:00:00.000+11:00

On the first day we arrived in Launceston, I went for a quick walk around the neighbourhood with the son of my friend who we were staying with to see what was around.
We came to an empty paddock with some cows in it. Just in front of the cows were 2 Cape Barren Geese. I hadn't seen these birds before, so I was quite excited to finally get to see them.
The birds themselves are native to Australia and are only found in the Southern regions.

These weren't the only new birds I saw on the trip. All up I saw 10 lifers for the trip. From our balcony I saw Forest Ravens and Green Rosella's.

Out in the wetlands and further down the estuary I saw White-fronted Chats, Tasmanian Native Hens and Australian Shelducks.

When in Hobart I saw Black-faced Cormorants, as well as European Greenfinches. Some Scrubtits at Notley Gorge, and Black Currawongs on the side of the road north of Launceston.

Tasmania Pt 1 - Tamar Wetlands and Estuary

2012-01-06T11:27:00.002+11:00

My wife, son and myself have just returned from spending a very nice 2 weeks visiting friends and relatives in Tasmania.
The weather was perfect for nearly all the time we were there, and on some occasions it was just too hot to be in the sun in the middle of the day.

We were fortunate that the friends that we were staying with in Launceston were just a stone's throw from the Tamer Estuary and the Tamar Wetlands Reserve. This place was absolutely bursting with all sorts of bird life.
Most of it was aquatic life, with ducks being the main type of bird seen. but there was also plenty of other bird life around as well.

For this post, I've put together some images of the wetland and estuary to show just how abundant the wildlife is. But even then it fails to show just how awesome this place is for birding.

(Click on images to view a larger size)

The estuary is tidal and the variation between top and bottom of the tides is quite large. The below picture was taken at low tide and just half a kilometre south of the Wetlands. When the tide is in, nearly all of what you see below will be under water. Low tide allows for the birds to disperse and graze. Spotting the various birds at low tide was quite tricky without the aid of a spotting scope.

Pacific Gulls were just one of the 3 Gulls I saw here. The other 2 being Kelp and Silver Gulls. Below is an adult on the left, and I've not yet consulted HANZAB to try and work out a more definite age on the other bird.

Behind them are numerous Masked Lapwings, Grey and Chestnut Teals, Swans and other birds.

The Tamar River was dredged for quite some time, though the dredging has now ceased. Some of the old equipment is still lying around giving the Cormorants and Herons plenty of places to roost and dry their wings.

As mentioned the aquatic life was amazing. Not only for sheer numbers, but also for diversity. Below is a small group of birds. Most of them are Grey and Chestnut Teals, with an Australian Shelduck, some Swans and a couple White-faced Herons. At high tide you could walk out on the boardwalk and just literally see hundreds of birds in either direction. It was quite an awesome sight.

Red-necked Stints

2011-12-24T21:19:00.000+11:00

There are just over 120 of these birds currently at the reef, as counted by the local Shorebird group. There are great to watch as they rush about feeding.

Pacific Golden Plover

2011-12-23T21:36:00.000+11:00

These birds seem quite prolific at the moment. It seems you can't step anywhere without seeing a bunch of these little birds keeping a look out for possible disturbers.

Red-necked Stint

2011-12-22T21:20:00.000+11:00

Australian Brush-turkey

2011-12-21T20:41:00.000+11:00

There was an abundance of these birds at the picnic grounds we visited at Brooklyn north of Sydney recently. They are quite tame and make for an interesting subject.

Hungry Raven

2011-12-20T21:37:00.000+11:00

I watched this juvenile Raven feeding on a washed up Sea Urchin for about 5 minutes.

The bird wasn't doing too bad of a job at getting out the meal, but eventually an adult bird flew over and gave the younger bird a lesson on how to do the job properly.

The Secret Grotto

2011-12-19T15:04:00.000+11:00

I enjoyed the session I had late one afternoon approx 6 weeks ago when I spent some time photographing some of the local Shorebirds as they were amongst some of the larger rocks.

There were 5 Grey-tailed Tattlers (1 looked very juvenilish), 2 Red Knots, and plenty of Pacific Golden Plovers, Red-necked Stints and Ruddy Turnstones.

Pelican

2011-12-18T22:42:00.000+11:00

Sooty Oystercatcher

2011-12-17T21:24:00.002+11:00

I saw 10 of these birds at the reef this afternoon.

Silver Gulls

2011-12-16T21:15:00.002+11:00

Sooty Oystercatcher

2011-12-10T20:33:00.001+11:00

10 of these birds at the reef a week ago.

More Silver Gulls

2011-11-21T21:32:00.001+11:00

More of the same birds featured in the Nov 7th post.

Ruddy Turnstone

2011-11-21T19:25:00.001+11:00

Sooty Oystercatchers

2011-11-18T20:23:00.001+11:00

Only 4 of these birds around at the moment.

White-faced Heron

2011-11-13T16:08:00.001+11:00

White-faced Herons are quite common on the reef. Yesterday there were 3 foraging on the main platform.

Masked Lapwing in Flight

2011-11-08T22:29:00.000+11:00

At the time this bird flew 2 laps around me, I was standing nearly up to my knees in water and no where near where this bird had previously been. So I don't think I was disturbing it or anywhere near any chicks it might of had. Instead I think it was just warning either myself or the other birds that I was around. Either way it flew back to where it came from once it had finished 'warning' me.

Family of Silver Gulls

2011-11-07T21:29:00.000+11:00

I watched a family of Silver Gulls late one afternoon recently. The parents had left the 2 young juvenile birds on a rocky platform whilst the foraged/fished for food close by. The yellow and dark brown colour of the reef and the vegetation on the reef matched very closely to the colouring of the chicks, making them hard to see when they were on their own.

Every now and again the parents would fly past to let the chicks know they were in the area. Occasionally making a noise as they passed.

The birds were fine with me close to them, but to great exception to any fisherman nearby. Circling over the fishermen, they would squawk loudly and dive close to them.

Baillon's Crake

2011-11-05T21:13:00.001+11:00

I was really quite stoked to see 4 of these birds at the one location.

Willy Wagtail

2011-11-05T20:00:00.002+11:00

Whilst photographing Baillon's Crakes, I took a moment to take a quick photo of this little fella on a nearby fence post.

Sooty Oystercatcher

2011-10-30T07:00:00.000+11:00

Only 3 of these birds on my last visit last week.

Red-necked Stints

2011-10-29T08:12:00.001+11:00

The numbers of these birds has really started to increase at the reef.

Pacific Golden Plover

2011-10-28T06:10:00.001+11:00

Silver Gull - 1st Imm non-breeding

2011-10-26T07:00:00.000+11:00

There were 6 birds of this age amongst the 61 Gulls. 11 of them had some manner of juvenile feathers.

Crested Terns - Mating

2011-10-24T19:54:00.001+11:00

It's that time of the year when the Terns and Gulls start to pair up and breed. A couple of weeks ago there were around 120 Crested Terns at the reef. I saw 6 different matings. Whether they were the same bird or different pairs I'm not sure.

Crested Tern

2011-10-15T21:17:00.000+11:00

Australian Raven

2011-10-15T20:36:00.000+11:00

Little Black Cormorant

2011-10-02T07:00:00.000+11:00

Superb Fairy-wren

2011-10-01T20:31:00.002+10:00

These birds can be a bit skittish and hard to approach sometimes, but I was very fortunate to have a very trusting male come quite close this morning at Long Reef.

Eastern Osprey

2011-10-01T07:00:00.000+10:00

I had the privilege of seeing these birds fly over and around the reef a few weeks ago. At one point 2 of the birds briefly came down on the reef.

Silver Gulls

2011-09-29T21:15:00.000+10:00

A few images taken a few weeks ago of some more Silver Gulls.

Pacific Golden Plover

2011-09-26T19:22:00.000+10:00

Red-necked Stints

2011-09-23T19:15:00.002+10:00

Some of 30+ Stints currently at the reef. You can notice these birds are now moulting into their non-breeding plumage

Ruddy Turnstone

2011-09-22T19:33:00.000+10:00

The shorebirds are arriving with numbers increasing of all the species. Yesterday was the first time I could get to the reef in 2 weeks, and I was pretty happy to see these birds here.

HD Video: Ruddy Turnstones

2011-09-06T07:00:00.000+10:00

A couple videos I took late last week of some Ruddy Turnstones foraging at the reef.

You can view them in 1080HD by going to the youtube channel and selecting 1080p in the bottom right corner.

Tawny Frogmouth

2011-09-05T19:48:00.000+10:00

This is one of a pair of these birds that roost in the trees at work.

Ruddy Turnstones

2011-09-02T20:06:00.000+10:00

Red-necked Stints Arrive!

2011-08-29T19:31:00.000+10:00

After an absence of a month, we finally have some Red-necked Stints back at the reef.

7 birds were seen on Saturday afternoon. More will start arriving in the coming weeks and months, as well as other shorebirds species. Also seen were 7 Ruddy Turnstones, 4 Grey-tailed Tattlers and 6 Sooty Oystercatchers. It appears all the Double Banded Plovers have started to head back to New Zealand

Silver Gulls - Breeding and Non-breeding Plumages.

2011-08-26T07:00:00.000+10:00

The bird on the left is the adult with the paler coloured legs and bill with black tip in comparison with the bird on the right in the brighter red breeding colours.

Crested Tern - Juve to 1st Imm moult

2011-08-25T07:00:00.000+10:00

Silver Gull - 1st Immature non-breeding.

2011-08-23T19:41:00.000+10:00

I took these images of this bird about 10 days ago. This is a first immature non-breeding bird.

Willy Wagtail II

2011-08-21T07:00:00.000+10:00

With the wind howling on the reef, the weather wasn't too good this morning for pictures. So I spent about 20 mins photographing this wagtail in a sheltered part of the headland before heading to a nice warm cuppa back at home.

Eastern Osprey

2011-08-19T20:07:00.003+10:00

These birds have been rebuilding their nest again after the branch that was holding the nest up fell down a couple of months ago. And they've been plenty active on the reef in recent weeks as well.

On one trip 3 of the birds were spend some time fishing quite close to the reef, and even came down on the reef a number of times. Unfortunately the local Raven's objected to these birds being here and so chased them on the odd occasion.

Doves and Bronzewings

2011-08-19T07:00:00.000+10:00

Carrying on from my last post. I always look out for different Dove and Pigeon species when I'm in this part of Sydney and I found the 2 species I was after, a Peaceful Dove and a Common Bronzewing.

I was also quite surprised to see a Bar-shouldered Dove at this same location as I haven't ever seen them here before.

Bar-shouldered Doves

Common Bronzewing (male)

Peaceful Dove

Little Corellas

2011-08-17T19:00:00.000+10:00

When I was out in Western Sydney a few weeks ago, I came across what I thought was quite a larger flock of around 400 Little Corellas. This was quite a lot to see all at once as I generally only see them in small groups of less than 10 if I see them over near where I live.

I'm not familiar with the behaviour of these birds, but the vast majority of the flock were paired up. I wonder if they were preparing for the breeding season?
They are great birds to watch and photograph, as they are very comical and playful in their movements.

Willy Wagtail

2011-08-15T01:31:00.000+10:00

I had a great day yesterday out at the reef, which I'll type up in the next few days. But for no here is an image of a Willy Wagtail which I took on the way back to the car.

Double-banded Plover

2011-08-12T07:00:00.001+10:00

With no Red-necked Stints being seen at the reef for nearly 3 weeks now, the Double-banded Plovers are the most numerous birds currently at the reef. My last few visits saw around 4-6 of them, with 5 Ruddy Turnstones and 2 Grey-tailed Tattlers.

The Sooty Oystercatchers are barely at the reef, with only the odd one or two seen lately.

Crested Terns - Courtship Display

2011-08-12T07:00:00.000+10:00

I had forgotten about these images of a male and female Crested Tern doing a courtship display until recently when going over my Tern images looking for some Adults in full breeding plumage.

If I've read HANZAB correctly, the bird with the fish in it's bill is the male. Below is a quote of this birds behaviour;

..male carrying fish flies into social roost and walks among terns uttering advertising call and adopting forward-erect posture.. body and neck more or less upright, and bill held slightly below horizontal but raised with each call; on encountering co-operative female, both adopt forward-erect(pose) and strut round each other head-to-tail, in tight circle with short mincing steps.

Maintenance in Progess

2011-08-05T15:45:00.000+10:00

This blog is currently undergoing a total refurbishment and will be back up and running in around 2 days.

Thank you for your patience.

Regards,
Mark

Silver Gulls

2011-08-05T07:00:00.004+10:00

Hey!! Where did this birds feet go?!??!

Just flying in the breeze.

Bell Miner

2011-08-04T07:00:00.001+10:00

I love watching these noisy and aggressive birds whenever I get the chance.

Raptors over Western Sydney

2011-08-03T07:00:00.001+10:00

A trip out to a favourite location in Western Sydney a few weeks ago held a couple unexpected surprised in the form of 3 different Raptors. This area is normally quite reliable for Raptors, so I imagine I shouldn't be too surprised by seeing these birds here.

Brown Goshawk

Pacific Baza

Peregrine Falcon

White-headed Pigeons Pt2

2011-08-02T19:17:00.000+10:00

Another visit yesterday afternoon to see these birds.

White-headed Pigeons

2011-07-28T19:17:00.000+10:00

Great to see these birds back again. It was nearly exactly 2 years ago that I last saw them in this same location.

Silver Gull in Flight.

2011-07-25T07:00:00.001+10:00

A good strong wind might be bad for keeping the camera steady, but it's great to getting flight photos of birds.

Silver Gulls

2011-07-24T23:18:00.000+10:00

A couple images of 2 very similar looking Gulls.

Crested Tern

2011-07-21T07:00:00.000+10:00

Some images of these birds taken over the past couple of weeks.

White-fronted and Crested Tern

2011-07-20T07:00:00.003+10:00

I'm still going through the huge amount of photos and video that I've taken of the White-fronted Terns over the past 2 weeks, and it looks like it'll be some time before I get through them all.

In the mean time, here's a couple of images comparing White-fronted Terns and Crested Terns.

Australian Pelican

2011-07-19T07:00:00.000+10:00

Rainbow Lorikeet

2011-07-18T07:00:00.001+10:00

Welcome Swallow

2011-07-17T07:00:00.002+10:00

This particular bird was sunning itself in the early morning sun early last week.

The airspace is busy over the reef.

2011-07-15T21:05:00.001+10:00

Lots of great opportunities to see and photograph all sorts of birds as they fly over the reef.

Here I've put together a few images taken in the past couple of weeks of some birds flying overhead. I've left out the more common birds like the Terns and Gulls as I plan on doing a blog just for them sometime soon.

Australasian Gannets are very commonly seen flying past the reef in search of food.

Albatross and other species of Pelagic birds can also been seen flying past the reef. Here a Black-browed Albatross flew past on a particularly windy day.

The Ospreys can also be seen from time to time fishing for food off the edge of the reef, or being chased by the Raven's as they fly past the golf course. On this particular cloudy day I was excited to see 3 of these birds at the same time.

Pied Cormorants are just one of the species of Cormorants that regularly visit and use the reef to rest in between fishing expeditions.

The Sooty Oystercatchers are also regularly seen at the reef, though their numbers at the moment are really quite down.

White-bellied Sea-Eagles are another of the more common Raptor species seen flying past the reef. The Ravens can also be your first indicator that these birds are around as they don't like these birds going anywhere near their territory.

A very common Heron, the White-faced Heron breeds nearby and can either be seen at the reef or on the Golf course or in the nearby Lagoon.

Caspian Tern

2011-07-14T10:09:00.000+10:00

A single adult bird stopped briefly at the reef yesterday.

White-fronted Tern Videos

2011-07-12T20:33:00.001+10:00

Here are a couple more videos of White-fronted Terns taken in the past week.
All of the videos can be viewed in 1080 HD by double-clicking on the video and changing the resolution from 360p to 1080P option in the bottom right hand corner of the video.

The first video shows 5 birds pruning and roosting on the rocks.

The next video shows 10 of these birds seen a few days ago.

White-browed and Yellow-throated Scrubwrens.

2011-07-09T20:46:00.000+10:00

My first trip to the Royal National Park in over a year, was not nearly as fruitful as my last visit. There were hardly any birds around at the usually productive Wattle Flat. A large flock of around 50 Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos flew over at one stage. Some Honeyeater species were around including Lewins, Yellow-faced, and Eastern Spinebills. Eastern Yellow Robins, Striated Thornbills, and the usual array of water birds were also easily seen.
One of the highlights of the trip was having a small White-browed Scrubwren feed just in front of me. This bird was so unconcerned with me lying on the ground photographing it, that it came within my minimum focal distance at one stage and I had to stop photographing because it was just too close.

I got an unexpected lifer in the form of a Yellow-throated Scrubwren. this bird looks very similar to the White-browed Scrubwren, but has a large black facial mask, more yellow on the breast and yellow on the wings.

White-fronted Terns

2011-07-06T22:02:00.000+10:00

These birds visit the reef during winter time. Today was a particular good day with 10 birds at the reef at the same time. The interesting thing about these birds is that not one of them is in Adult plumage.

White-bellied Sea-Eagle

2011-07-02T22:16:00.000+10:00

It's not uncommon to see these birds flying past the reef as the head out and back on their fishing forays.

Australasian Pipit

2011-06-22T07:00:00.000+10:00

Always seen at the Golf Course, these birds are great to watch and photograph. They are fearless birds and can often be seen close to the walkways as people often walk past them without noticing they are there.

Common Mynah

2011-06-21T07:00:00.001+10:00

These introduced birds are quite abundant in Sydney and compete with the native birds for food and nesting hollows.

Willy Wagtail

2011-06-20T07:00:00.003+10:00

I love these little birds with their tail wagging ways. This bird was foraging with a couple of other species late on Saturday afternoon.

Red-Capped Plover

2011-06-18T18:57:00.000+10:00

I was extremely excited to see this bird this afternoon foraging at the reef. There was a report of one being there about a month ago, but nobody had reported that they had seen it since then, so I didn't hold out much hope of ever seeing it.
This now brings the total number of different shorebirds species I've seen in the Long Reef area in the past 3 years to 22!

New Holland Honeyeater

2011-06-11T20:11:00.000+10:00

A quick trip near home for an hour this morning saw few birds. Mostly Rainbow Lorikeets and some New Holland Honeyeaters.

Amongst the New Holland HE's were a couple of juvenile birds.

Silver Gull - 1st Immature Breeding

2011-06-05T22:29:00.000+10:00

This image is of two Silver Gulls. The bird on the left is described in HANZAB as being a 1st year immature breeding, with some juvenile feathers still showing, whilst the bird on the right is an adult in breeding plumage.

Juvenile Silver Gulls

2011-05-28T21:21:00.000+10:00

I received my copy of HANZAB volume 3 in the mail a couple of weeks ago, and I must say I'm blown away by just how much of a fantastic resource this book is! It has an amazing amount of data on each species of bird and goes into an incredible amount of detail in all aspects of the birds life. It really is a must have for anyone who is series about birds.

So using HANZAB I went back through some of my images of various birds to learn more about them than what I had previously known. The good thing with taking images is that there is always a point of reference to refer back to at a later date. Observations not seen in the field can be referred to later on, so there is less chance of missing something unique.

Silver Gulls are such a common bird that they are often overlooked. I love photographing them as they provide such a wealth of variety. And yet I know so little about this variety.

So referring back to HANZAB, I poured over all my images of Silver Gulls and found I had quite a number of images of juvenile birds are various stages of development, which I've posted below.

This image of a very young chick was taken quite a number of years ago (when used to use a point and click camera). This was one of 2 chicks seen with the mother.

This image is of a juvenile bird. Here you can clearly make out the juvenile markings.

Another juvenile bird, but older than the last one. Perhaps a first year breeding?

Another very similar bird to the above bird, but with less juvenile feathers.

And finally, some juveniles surrounding an adult in non-breeding plumage. The adults will be the subject of my next post about these birds.

Double-banded Plovers

2011-05-28T14:20:00.001+10:00

A few images I took about a month ago. Last year we had 4-6 of these birds hanging around at the reef, and this year the numbers look very similar.

Little Black Cormorant

2011-05-24T19:38:00.000+10:00

A couple of images taken last Saturday of these 2 birds sunning themselves in the early morning sun.

Crested Tern

2011-05-23T05:54:00.001+10:00

A few of these birds started to arrive just as I was leaving, but I managed a couple of quick photos before I left.

Small numbers of Shorebirds

2011-05-21T21:04:00.000+10:00

There are hardly any Shorebirds left at the reef at the moment. Heading down there this morning, I found a small group of 5 Double-banded Plovers, 5 Red-necked Stints and a single Ruddy Turnstone. There may have been more birds on other parts of the reef as I didn't have the time to go searching for them.

Conspiciously missing though were the Sooty Oystercatchers. I couldn't find a single bird at all.

This Ruddy Turnstone seemed very lonely being all be itself.

White-faced Heron

2011-05-15T06:43:00.000+10:00

A common reef visitor. It's a rare day when these birds aren't seen at the reef.

White-cheeked Honeyeaters

2011-05-15T06:34:00.003+10:00

Rather than head to the reef to check on what shorebirds were around, I decided to head to Manly Dam and have a look around. It's been quite a few months since I last visited so I was looking forward to the change in scenery.

One of the more common Honeyeaters that I saw there were White-cheeked Honeyeaters. I happened upon a small group of them as I was watching some Little Wattlebirds. After a while I noticed that the adult birds would fly down into some undergrowth for a short while to feed a juvenile bird before heading back up to a higher branch.
In all there were 6 adults and one juvenile. Most of the adults would fly off and return intermittently, others just hung around near where the juvenile bird was, making sure it was ok.

At one point I was sitting on the ground just watching the birds fly around, when one of the adults flew right up to me and just hovered in mid-air looking at me for a couple of seconds. It was so close I could have almost reached out and touched it! I hadn't seen these birds stay stationary like that before. It reminded me of how Hummingbirds hover in mid air.

The juvenile bird that was the center of attention.

How to pick the best Limpet for Dinner

2011-05-13T07:00:00.002+10:00

Sooty Oystercatchers are fussy eaters, and will only eat the choicest of Limpets.

Here an Oystercatcher demonstrates just how to pick the right Limpet for dinner.

Step 1.
Find a nicely exposed rock that looks likely to contain a selection of Limpets.

Step 2.
Look over the selection of Limpets.

Step 3.
Pick out the tastiest Limpet.

Step 4.

Go somewhere safe to enjoy your meal.

Little Pied Cormorant

2011-05-11T19:24:00.001+10:00

This lovely bird was sitting on the rock late in the afternoon last Saturday.

Double-banded Plovers

2011-05-04T06:58:00.001+10:00

With most of the Northern Hemisphere Shorebirds having left already for their breeding grounds, the Double-banded Plovers are nice to see as they over-winter here from their journey over from the south islands of New Zealand.

House Sparrow

2011-05-03T17:11:00.001+10:00

This is not a species I have ever photographed before. Interesting really because they are quite a commonly seen bird. This particular individual was foraging with 3 other birds early on Saturday morning.

Sooty Oystercatchers

2011-04-27T07:00:00.002+10:00

Some images of a few of the 19+ Sooty Oystercatchers currently at the reef.

Cormorant Squadron

2011-04-26T08:06:00.002+10:00

There has been quite a few Little Black and Great Cormorants at the reef recently. The occassional Pied Cormorant can be seen, as well as Little Pied Cormorants regularly seen roosting and fishing off the reef.

Turnstones and Tattlers - Partial Breeding Plumage

2011-04-25T08:06:00.002+10:00

With the vast bulk of the Shorebirds that have been using the reef over summer now departed for their northern staging grounds, some of the remaining Ruddy Turnstone and Grey-tailed Tattlers have really started to develop some nice breeding colours, as well as fattening up for the inevitable trip north.

Dusky Moorhen

2011-04-15T07:00:00.001+10:00

Lovely birds. These ones can get quite feisty around mating time.

Pacific Black Duck

2011-04-14T07:00:00.001+10:00

Another common but cute bird regularly seen in Sydney.

Eurasian Coot

2011-04-13T07:00:00.002+10:00

These are lovely birds that are quite commonly found here in Sydney.

Australian White Ibis

2011-04-12T07:00:00.001+10:00

More from Saturday's trip to Homebush. This Ibis is a common enough bird in Sydney, but still one that makes for an interesting photographic subject every now and again.