Drongo, Pale-headed rosella & Others at Shelly Beach

I can still hear my Year 9 English teacher's words ... "You great spangled drongo!" These days I know what that is!

Just north of the Caloundra headland I reckon there's a birding mini-hotspot in Shelly Beach.

The headland itself is a short walk from the Shelly Beach picnic area. Here various shorebirds can be seen at the right season, time and tide. The road down into the Shelley Beach car park passes through a pocket of coastal subtropical forest. Here I have seen large numbers of Rainbow lorikeet (and the odd Scaly breasted lorikeet), Eastern whipbird and various honeyeaters.

The car park itself has provided me with sightings of Blue-faced honeyeater, Pale-headed rosella and Pied butcherbird. There are also the more commonplace Australian white ibis, Australian magpie, Magpie lark as well as introduced species.

Walking along the coastal trail northwards from the car park there is another section of coastal subtropical habitat and a small gully. Here I have seen Spangled drongo, Australasian figbird, Red-backed fairy wren, Leaden flycatcher and Australian Brush-turkey.

None of the birds featured in today's post are readily seen in my home state of Victoria so I do enjoy catching up with them!

I love the curves of this bird! Spangled drongo, Shelly Beach (Caloundra, Qld)

Pale-headed rosella stopping over in a Shelly Beach Norfolk Island pine.

Australian Brush-turkey roosting

I was annoyed that a sneaky group of Australasian figbird got away from me without a decent shot. Here is a female (or immature bird).

The following images are from previous visits to Shelley Beach (all in the month of May). We start with Blue-faced honeyeater and Brown honeyeater.

Red-backed fairy-wren (female / immature)

Below are a couple of Leaden flycatcher shots from an old compact digital camera (caught without the proper equipment!).

A great little birding spot! Did I mention that it's also a little easy on the eye and that the water's positively warm compared to Bass Strait?

Shelly Beach image from a Sunshine Coast accommodation website

As seen through the lens of Rachel Richter photography

Caloundra headland and Shelly Beach by SKYePICS

Bird on!

White-browed woodswallow & other road trip birds

We drove home from Wee Jasper to Melbourne last Saturday. Here are the car stoppers! The first two shots were taken on the Wee Jasper - Yass Road near the intersection with Sawyers Gully Road (locale known as Narrangullen?).

White-browed woodswallow 

Australasian pipit

Nankeen night-heron lurking near the bridge over the Goodradigbee at Wee Jasper

Lunch was at Holbrook (the queue at the well-known bakery was out the door - we settled for our own sandwiches) where I was surprised to see Blue-faced honeyeater and a pair of Dollarbirds.

This Dollarbird and what I believe to be Yellow thornbill were seen when walking the Ian Geddes Bushwalk at Holbrook.

Nice January additions to this Melbourne birder's year list!

Bird on!

I got the Nitmiluk blues!

Still reliving our holiday up North. These photos are from late July at Nitmiluk National Park which is centred on the Katherine Gorge. The images have a decidedly blue theme!

We start with Blue-faced honeyeater. I'm intrigued when I catch a shot showing a bird's nostrils as "see through 

The rest are kingfishers!

Absolutely gorgeous Forest kingfisher - a lifer for me

Not nearly as endearing in this shot (but also a lifer) was Red-backed kingfisher. It took me a while to stop ignoring these birds as Sacred kingfisher. They were actually a common sighting once we realised what we were seeing!

In southern Australia we are of course very familiar with the Laughing kookaburra and I was on the lookout for Blue-winged kookaburra while up north and wasn't disappointed. Now kingfishers are pretty distinctive looking birds and kookaburras particularly so .....

Blue-winged kookaburra

but this guy went beyond "distinctive" with an early morning "yawn"....

and then the eyes close over......! 

Now that just looks plain freaky!

Nitmiluk was very kind to my "Life List" with no fewer than NINE lifers! See the Eremaea List here. More pictures to follow!

Bird on!

Mataranka birds

More new birds for me here at Mataranka and we were finally starting to feel warm (this was late 26 July 2012). Apologies for all the photos of "chooks"! All of the photos below were taken around the Mataranka Homestead Tourist Resort caravan park.

Eremaea list from Mataranka.

White-bellied cuckoo-shrike 

Blue-faced honeyeater 

Bar-shouldered dove

Rufous whistler

Whistling kite

The resident peacock

Bird on!